Reichskommissariat Ukraine: Difference between revisions
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'''Reichskommissariat Ukraine''' is a colony of the [[Greater Germanic Reich]] established in 1941.
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
German crimes against the Slavs of
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.
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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
=== 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 [[Erich Koch|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 [[Martin Bormann|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.▼
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.
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=== Post War ===
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