NKVD, USA-eVote

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WWII in Ukraine

[Pictures, as always, taken from goodreads.com]

Description: This is one of those books that follows several main protagonists. For myself, I find that this adds an extra depth and understanding that cannot be achieved with only one point of view. I’ll keep it short: Maria’s father, Ivan, has managed to survive Babi Yar, but is now a broken man. Shortly thereafter, Maria is sent to Germany as a slave worker. Luda, despite abuse from German officers, may have finally found a family and love. And, of course, there is the token arrogant German officer, here Frederick, who is really using his arrogance to cover up his true emotions.

Background: In 1922, Ukraine was unified with Russia, making it part of the Soviet Union. Then, on September 1, 1941, after Operation Barbarossa Ukraine had become a separate civil German entity. Hitler’s Plan? To exterminate, expel, or enslave most or all Slavs from their native lands so as to make living space for German settlers.

On August 14, 1941, Hitler ordered that Kiev be bombed. However, due to insufficient materials, the plan was never carried out. Instead, they decided to starve the city. That being said, Kiev was under siege from August 15 – September 19. During this time 65,000 Soviet troops were captured. [Below, Kiev burning]

With the arrival of the Germans, some Ukrainians saw their liberation from the Soviets. As a result, some 4,000 operated under the Germans, some even under a German SS unit, the Waffen-SS and the 4. Waffen-Grenadier-Division der SS. There was no true collaboration, however, between the Ukrainians and the Germans, since the Germans saw the Ukrainians as inferior. In fact, Göring suggested that “all Ukrainian men should be killed, and the SS men be sent in to re-populate the land with German blood” (Source).

Conversely, some 4,500,00 Ukrainians served with the Soviet army. 1,400,00 of them killed in service. Ultimately, this meant that Ukrainians were fighting and killing one another in their separate fights for liberation and freedom.

Atrocities

Atrocities against the Ukrainians are thought to be some of the greatest that took place during the war. For starters, it is estimated that 3-4 million Ukrainians and non-Jews were killed, with another 850,000 to 900,000 (possibly even up to 1,000,000) Jews. Within Hitler’s Generalplan Ost, 65% of the 23.2 million Ukrainians were to be killed through genocide or ethnic cleansing. These tortures included imprisonment, mass shootings, concentration camps, ghettos, forced labor, starvation, torture, and mass kidnapping. In addition, over 2,300,000 Ukrainians were deported for slave labor camps. [A chart can be found of the total percentages of the different Slavic ethnic groups Hitler planned to eliminate here]

Considered to be “the single largest massacre in the Holocaust,” Babi Yar took place in Kiev from September 29-30, 1941 (Source). 33,771 Ukrainians were shot, most of them Jewish. Additionally, the Nikolaev Massacre took place in Mykolaiv from September 16-30, 1941. 35,782 were killed. Again, mostly Jews.

Massacres were “carried out by a mixture of SS, SD, security police, and Ukrainian Auxiliary Police” (Source). This meant, again, that Ukrainians were killing their own people. In total, there were 14 massacres on Ukrainian soil. The list can be found [here: Massacres]. Then, “when the Soviet Army approached in 1943, the Nazis tried to cover their tracks by ordering the concentration camp prisoners to dig up the corpses and burn them, after which the prisoners were killed” (Source).

Although it took place before the war officially began, the Holodomore needs to be counted amongst the atrocities the Ukrainians were forced to endure. The Holodomore or The Ukrainian Genocide of 1932-1933 was a man-made famine planned by Stalin to eliminate the Ukrainian independence movement. It included the “rejection of outside aid, confiscation of all household foodstuffs, and restriction of population movement confer intent, defining the famine as genocide” (Source). The famine killed 2.5-2.7 million Ukrainians.

From 1932-1933, Stalin murdered 7 million Ukrainians and sent 2 million more to concentration camps. “Ukraine was sealed off. All food supplies and livestock were confiscated. NKVD death squads executed ‘anti-party elements.’ Furious that insufficient Ukrainians were being shot, – virtually the Soviet Union’s Adolf Eichmann – set a quota of 10,000 executions a week. Eighty percent of Ukrainian intellectuals were shot. During the bitter winter of 1932-33, 25,000 Ukrainians per day were being shot or died of starvation and cold. Cannibalism became common. Ukraine, writes historian Robert Conquest, looked like a giant version of the future Bergen-Belsen death camp. The mass murder of seven million Ukrainians, three million of them children, and deportation to the gulag of two million more (where most died) was hidden by Soviet propaganda.” (Source). Reports about Stalin’s atrocities did not start coming out until the 1990′s. More on that later.

Because of being hit from both sides as well as being occupied by two separate oppressors, after the war, Ukraine saw 700 cities and towns and 28,000 villages destroyed. However, despite their large death toll and their destruction, 2,544 Ukrainians helped save Jewish lives. [Below, the Lvov Ghetto]

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The September Campaign

On September 1, 1939, the Axis Powers launched the September Campaign – their invasion of Poland. Over a million and a half troops, from 3 different sides – Germany from the West, East Prussia from the North, and Slovakia from the South. The size of the attack was never seen before.

Germany, alone, came with 2,600 tanks and 2,000 aircraft. While Poland only had some 180 tanks and 420 aircraft.

The thing is, Poland hand long-known the attack was coming. In fact, with the threat hanging over their heads, Poland signed an agreement with Britain and France – the Agreement of Mutual Assistance, in which both countries agreed to come to Poland’s aid when Germany invaded.

Poland did prepare itself for Hitler’s inevitable invasion by digging trenches, setting up blockades, and arming themselves. However, “Poland’s French and British allies bullied the Poles into delaying mobilization out of fear of ‘provoking’ Hitler. As a result, only part of the Polish army was ready when the attack came” (Source).

But first, some important background: It may seem like a simple “Hitler invaded Poland,” but as is always the case with Hitler, there is more to the story.

See, in 1934, only a year after Hitler had come to power, he played a similar game with Poland we saw him play with the Soviet Union by signing the German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact. He proposed a “treaty” with Poland, The German-Polish Non-Aggression Pact, in which “both countries pledged to resolve their problems by bilateral negotiations and to forgo armed conflict for a period of 10 years” (Source). Or make that 4 ½ years.

But again, like with the Soviet Union, Hitler was already, of course, we’re all sure, planning to break the pact.

For example, Hitler had been trying to break the ties between Poland and France. He also tried maneuvering Poland into the Anti-Communist Pact, “forming a cooperative front against the Soviet Union” (Source). Despite his pact with the Soviet Union.

Hitler made Poland great promises if they agreed to cooperate – such as territory in Ukraine and Belarus. However, this agreement would also, technically, make Poland “largely dependent” on Germany. Sounds a bit like a trap.

Additionally, Poland held a piece of land known as the “Polish Corridor” as well as Danzig – land that had became part of Poland after the Treaty of Versailles. Land that Germany desperately wanted back. Land that Hitler saw as the perfect reason for war.

The story, unsurprisingly, continues.

After “several German-staged incidents,” (to be discussed in a later post. Promise.) Hitler attacked, claiming he was doing it in self-defense (Source). There you have it. Hitler used propaganda to “excuse” his absurd desire for war.

[Below: German armies marching into Poland.]

At 4:40, the Luftwaffe attacked Wieluń, “destroying 75% of the city and killing close to 1,200 people” (Source). Five minutes later, the German pre-dreadnaught battleship Schleswig-Holstein opened fire on Westerplatte. At 5:00, the German army attacked Mokra. All three assaults (German, Prussian, and Slovakian) converged in Warsaw.

“Warsaw everywhere was burning. Huge billowing columns of smoke filled the sky with thick massive clouds as red as blood. Railway tracks were so heavily bombed that they became like twisted pretzels. Huge craters where
bombs had been dropped lined every street in Warsaw, and other cities. Enormous hills of rubble marked areas where buildings used to stand, and protruding from the rubble were scattered the bodies of people who had been crushed beneath the collapsed buildings. Military posts, as well as residential areas were bombed and strafed. Defenseless civilians were gunned down as they ran from burning buildings. Peasants were massacred as they worked in the fields in the countryside. Men, women, and children were slaughtered. Churches, schools, hospitals, monuments, museums – all were targets for destruction. The Polish people, their culture, and the very existence of the Polish nation were targeted by Hitler for annihilation. Warsaw, the Paris of the east was transformed into a wasteland – an open grave” (Source).

It wasn’t until September 3rd that Britain and France declared war on the Axis – thus beginning WWII. However, they failed to provide the support Poland really needed. Prime Minister Chamberlain merely dispatched the RAF to drop leaflets over German armies! Meanwhile, the British Expeditionary Force joined French forces along the Maginot Line. This “farce” became known as the Phoney War because Britain and France mainly kept themselves busy over the next several months with pointless raids into No-Man’s Land and bombings over the Siegfried Line.

The Polish military saw some minor victories, but ultimately, they were pushed back from their own borders towards Warsaw and Lwów.

Thanks to their destroying Polish communications, coupled with the approximately 98 airman who retreated to the then-neutral Romania, the Luftwaffe easily opposed the Polish Air Force.

September 9: Warsaw is attacked
September 9-19: The Battle of Bzura takes place, the largest battle during the campaign.
September 10: Commander-in-Chief Marshal Edward Rydz-Śmigły orders a general retreat to the southeast. The Germans are “penetrating deeply into Eastern Poland”
September 13: Warsaw is under siege. Also, German armies reach Lwów.
September 17: The Soviet Union joins forces with Germany – attacking from the east
September 24: Warsaw is bombed by 1,150 German aircraft

The Soviet joined the battle at over 800,000 strong, breaking, of course, the Soviet-Polish Non-Aggression Pact. It was at the time that the Soviets attacked that Poland realized their defeat.

“The campaign against Poland was conducted with a cruelty previously unknown in modern European warfare. Polish civilians and prisoners of war were systematically shot by German and Soviet forces. Although the Nazi SS and Einsatzgruppen and the Soviet NKVD committed the worst crimes, regular army and air forces of both totalitarian states were full and willing participants in the slaughter. The German use of Einsatzgruppen or special action units in Poland was a test run. The death and destruction carried out deliberately by the Wehrmacht and the police during the period of military control of the country between September 1 and October 25, 1939 was merciless and systematic” (Source).

From September 17-20, Poland fought the 2nd largest battle, the Battle of Tomaszów Lubelski at Kraków and Lublin. On September 22, Lwów fell to the Soviets, having suffered from German attack just days prior. Warsaw held out until the 28th, falling on the 29th to the Germans.

On October 6th, General Franciszek Kleebergy surrendered near Lublin.

531 towns and villages were burned. “714 executions took place with over 16,000 civilian victims, most of them Christian Poles” (Source).

[Below: Warsaw Burning]