Reichskommissariat Ukraine

File:Reichkommissariat Ukraine Flag.png

Flag of Reichskommissariat Ukraine

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Head of State
Erich Koch

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Capital City
Kiew-stadt

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Population
27,566,700

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Ruling Party
Arbeitsbereich Osten der Nationalsozialistischen Deutschen Arbeiterparteinote
( National Socialism)

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Foreign Alignment
Einheitspakt Member
(Autonomous Reichskommissariat of the Greater German Reich)

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Sphere of Influence

Grossraum Kontinentaleurope Member

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Economy

Gelenkte Wirtschaft

Reichskommissariat Ukraine is a colony of the Greater Germanic Reich established in 1941. Its situated in eastern Europe, on the lands formerly belonging to the Ukrainian SSR. Its characterized by the systematic oppression perpetrated against the native Slavic population, overseen by Reichskommissar Erich Koch, the man at the helm of this state-sized torture chamber.

The colony is usually referred to as the "Breadbasket of the Reich", as it serves little other purpose than to provide the Einheitspakt with the fruits of its rich fields, leaving only the leftovers for the natives who toil upon them.

Ukraine is a pivotal part of the Lebensraum program, a plan outlining eastern Europe as a settlement frontier for the Aryan race. Its characterized by the destruction and erasement of all traces of the Ukrainian culture, with almost every major city in the land being germanized both in name and architecture. German colonists have strongly established themselves in major urban areas and even certain rural regions.

German crimes against the Slavs of eastern Europe didn't stop just stop second-class treatment and forceful assimilation, but also genocidal policies, most diabolical probably being the "Hunger Plan", an artificial famine which starved around 40 million eastern European "undesirables".

However unlike other peoples that are deemed as undesirable, such as Jews, the Slavic population isn't the priority on the Nazi regime's chopping block. As the Germans see it, the Slavic inhabitants of this land are not long for it, as Ukraine is destined to one day be inhabited purely by Aryans, but in the meantime purely for pragmatic reasons, they're allowed to live as slaves to the Reich, although "live" might be considered an overstatement.

In-Game Description

Ostland may strut itself as the "Crown Jewel", Moskowien as the problem child and Poland as the Reich's laboratory, but it is Ukraine that keeps Germany alive. Without its vital source of wheat and grain to the hundred million souls inside the Empire, all of the blood spilled during the Second World War we be for naught.

Crimea, occupying the vital position as the protector of the Black sea, has been formally incorporated into the Reich, with the rest of the region under an occupation government, simply known as "Reichskommissariat Ukraine". Ruled under an iron fist by Reichskommissar, Erich Koch, anyone even suspected of hiding sympathies with the kaleidoscope of partisan movements that haunt the Germans is dealt with, in the only way Koch knows how. A bullet. Yet, in the darkness, something lurks. In the heart of every Ukrainian and every German, the wind has shifted.

Hell will descend over the wheatfields of Ukraine. Whoever survives, wins.

History

Before the German invasion, Ukraine was a constituent republic of the Soviet Union, inhabited by Ukrainians, Russians, Jewish, Belarusian, Romanian, Polish and Roma/Gypsy minorities. It was a key subject of Nazi planning for the post-war expansion of the German state. The Nazi extermination policy in Ukraine, with the help of local Ukrainian collaborators, ended the lives of millions of people in The Holocaust and other mass killings.

In the mind of Adolf Hitler and other German expansionists, the destruction of the USSR, dubbed a "Judeo-Bolshevist" state, was necessary in order to remove a threat from Germany's eastern borders and allow for the colonization of the vast territories of Eastern Europe under the banner of "Lebensraum" (living space) for the fulfillment of the material needs of the Germanic people. Ideological declarations about the German Herrenvolk (master race) having a right to expand their territory especially in the East were and still are widely spread among the German public.

Establishment & Rosenberg's Power Struggle

Hitler decreed the creation of the Nazi Party organization Arbeitsbereich Osten der NSDAP for the new eastern occupied territories in 1942. This move had been bitterly resisted by both Rosenberg, who rightly feared that the transformation of the administration of the eastern territories from a state to a party bureaucracy would spell the effective end of the authority of his ministry (which was a state organ), and Heinrich Himmler, who rightly feared that an arbeitsbereich's establishment would be accompanied by the commissars becoming RVKs (commissars for war) and thus enormously empowered at the expense of the SS, which had already been steadily losing ground since late September the previous year, when the commissariat government began establishing itself with local commissars asserting control over the police in their territories, hitherto controlled by the SS. Himmler and Rosenberg's rearguard resistance soon collapsed in the face of pressure from Martin Bormann in Berlin, and Koch and Lohse in the field. Rosenberg at least managed to be appointed Reichsleiter ("Reich leader") of the new arbeitsbereich. Rosenberg later attempted to take such political power into the political section of the ministry to keep all party issues in his control, and prohibited the creation of organizations and any political activity in the East without his express authorization. Needless to say, he was entirely disobeyed.

Hoping that by joining forces they might regain some influence, Himmler and Rosenberg decided upon the appointment of Gottlob Berger, Himmler's political hatchet man and the SS's head of personnel, as Rosenberg's deputy, a move which in theory would give Rosenberg control over SS forces in the occupied Soviet territories under civil administration in return for his support for the SS in its power struggles. The partnership between Rosenberg and Himmler achieved nothing other than the exasperation of each other beyond endurance and Berger soon withdrew all cooperation. Koch and Lohse thereafter gradually reduced communication with Rosenberg, liaising with Hitler through Bormann and the party chancellery. Both also made a point of establishing strong SA organisations in their jurisdiction as a counterbalance to the SS. Given that many of the commissariat officials were active or reserve SA officers, the pre-existing grudge against the SS was resurrected by these measures and a poisoning of relations was guaranteed. As a last resort, the Höherer SS- und Polizeiführer (HSSPF) in Ukraine, Hans-Adolf Prutzmann, attempted to approach Koch directly only to be contemptuously abused and dismissed.

Post War

In the civil administration of the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories numerous technical staff worked under Georg Leibbrandt, former chief of the east section of the foreign political office in the Nazi Party, now chief of the political section in the Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories. Leibbrandt's deputy, Otto Bräutigam, had previously worked as a consul with experience in the Soviet Union. Economic affairs remained under the direct management of Hermann Göring (the Plenipotentiary of Germany's Four Year Plan).

From 1942 Fritz Sauckel had the role of "General Plenipotentiary for Labour Deployment" (Generalbevollmächtigter für den Arbeitseinsatz), charged with recruiting manpower for Germany throughout Europe, though in Ukraine Koch insisted that Sauckel confine himself to setting requirements, leaving the actual "recruitment" of Ost-Arbeiter to Koch and his brutes.

The regime encouraged the settlement of German and other "Germanic" farmers in the region after the war, along with the empowerment of some ethnic Germans in the territory. Ukraine was the furthest eastern settlement of the migrating ancient Goths between the 2nd and 4th centuries and subsequently, according to Hitler, "Only German should be spoken here".

The sending of Dutch settlers was charged to the "Nederlandsche Oost-Compagnie", a Dutch-German Company dedicated to encourage the colonization of the east by Dutch citizens.

Economy

"Ukraine and the Eastern lands would produce 7 million, or more likely 10 or 12 million tonnes of grain to provide Germany's food needs." -Adolf Hitler

Ukraine's economy is hopelessly dependent on agriculture. Little industry that existed prior to Operation Barbarossa, and by some miracle managed to survive the war, was torn down by the new regime, as it had no interest in industrializing their new colony. For the Germans, the purpose of Ukraine is simple, yet incredibly important; to feed the Einheitspakt. It has no other use, other than of course to be a settlement frontier for the Aryan race. Despite it being Ukraine's single most productive sector, the Ukrainian locals are always the last on the priority list of mouths to feed, while the Reich's needs take precedence.

That being said however, mechanization and general "modernization" of farms did and continues to take place. Initial agricultural reform was overseen by Alfred Rosenberg, who implemented an "Agrarian New Order" in Ukraine, ordering the confiscation of Soviet state properties in the name of the German state. Additionally the replacement of Russian Kolkhozes and Sovkhozes, by their own "Gemeindwirtschaften" (German Communal Farms), the installation of state enterprise "Landbewirstschaftungsgessellschaft Ukraine M.b.H." for managing the new German state farms and cooperatives.

The Germans founded numerous "Kombines" (Great German exploitation Monopolies) with government or private capital in the territory, to exploit the local resources.