Tuesday, September 26, 2017

The Persecution of Ethnic Germans in the USSR during World War II

I have now put up a pre-publication version of my article, "The Persecution of Ethnic Germans in the USSR during World War II" on my academia.edu site. The article was published in The Russian Review, vol. 75, issue 2 (April 2016), pp. 284-303.

2 comments:

Rex Gildo said...

Otto:

Another fascinating work on a topic that unfortunately receives far too little attention. Your research on this subject is very much appreciated.

Do you know what happened to the Volga Germans who - due to military conscription - had already been integrated into deployed Red Army units on the front lines opposite the advancing Wehrmacht.

As the date of the Soviet order removing the Volga Germans was late August of 1941, battles in Barbarossa such as Białystok–Minsk and Smolensk had already occurred and the Soviets were losing troops in large quantities. Was the "concern" over the loyalty of ethnic Germans significant enough to remove them from the existing campaign or was it just assumed they would likely meet a harsh fate as so many other Red Army troops?

Again, thanks for the great research.

J. Otto Pohl said...

Rex Gildo:

All ethnic Germans, mostly from the Volga, serving in the Soviet military were removed from the ranks by NKO Directive 35105 of 8 September 1941. There were about 30,000 individuals effected and almost all of them were conscripted into the labor army. I have a translation of the removal order at the link below.

http://jpohl.blogspot.com/2012/10/nko-directive-no-35105s-of-8-september.html