Volga germans in Soviet service

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TRose
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Volga germans in Soviet service

#1

Post by TRose » 07 Jul 2007, 17:13

I know that the Soviet Union had a large German population before WWII and that many where moved to central Asia during the War.
But where young men of German descent drafted in the Soviet army and if so where they trusted to serve against Germany? Or where they put in special labor units or sent to keep an eye on Japan and or Iran?

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#2

Post by Art » 08 Jul 2007, 14:45

There were some limitations on the service of ethnic German in RKKA allready before the war. In 1938 the Mann Military Counil decided that daftees from border regions must be sent to special labour units but not to the regular Red Army troops. The others were conscripted to Red Army on normal basis but could serve only in interior districts or in Central Asia and Transcucasus. The same limitations were also applied to the people of some other nationalities. In 1940 these limitations were removed and now all men of German nationality were liable to conscription to Red Army, but again they were not allowed to serve in western military districts. In September 1941 simultenously with the start of deportations the directive of Stavka was issued which ordered ethnic Germans to be discharged from Red Army ranks. The discharged soldiers were tranfered to labour units. Moreover in 1942 the state Defense Committe with the series of decrees authorized the mobilization of able-bodied Germans for labour employment (according to the last decree #2382 0f 7th October aside from men women were also mobilized)) . Although these people were officilay considered as mobilized as well as other draftees they were employed outside Red Army in different civilian organizations, for example the significant part of mobilized worked in NKVD system, so they cannot be called Red Army soldiers.
It seems that there were some exeptions from this rule, general Max Reiter who became even the front commander being the most important one.


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#3

Post by Art » 08 Jul 2007, 15:41

See also the discsusion in this thread:
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... highlight=

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Alex Yeliseenko
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Re: Volga germans in Soviet service

#4

Post by Alex Yeliseenko » 11 Jul 2007, 09:19

TRose wrote:I know that the Soviet Union had a large German population before WWII and that many where moved to central Asia during the War.
But where young men of German descent drafted in the Soviet army and if so where they trusted to serve against Germany? Or where they put in special labor units or sent to keep an eye on Japan and or Iran?
Many Germans were in Labour armies. Some thousand Germans were at the front in soviet unit. I knew one of them. It called Andrey. It was the sniper. It has killed 102 Germans. Now it lives in Germany. It has left there 10 years ago.

Regards.

Alex from Mensk, Belarus.

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Re: Volga germans in Soviet service

#5

Post by Art » 11 Jul 2007, 15:24

BTW it should be said that far from all ethnic Germans were living in Volga Republic before the war. At least there were significant German colonies in Southern Ukraine (or Novorossia), North Caucasus, Crimea and even in Kazakhstan and Siberia. So German population in USSR was widely scattered.

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Juha Hujanen
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#6

Post by Juha Hujanen » 12 Jul 2007, 19:49

Here's an incident from Finnish front:

http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... =schreiber

Cheers/Juha

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thorwald77
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#7

Post by thorwald77 » 26 Sep 2007, 00:43

I once knew a former German SS soldier who was POW in the USSR. He said the guards in the camp were Soviet Germans. He also mentioned that Vlasov Army soldiers were POWs there also. Soviet POWs and German guards!

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Volga Germans

#8

Post by Schultze » 22 Oct 2007, 23:22

There has been mention of "Labour Units" in some replies here. Is this a euphenism for being shipped off to the GULAG for "labour service"? Or were the Volga Deutsch really put into Red Army labour units? It is an interesting subject

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thorwald77
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#9

Post by thorwald77 » 23 Oct 2007, 02:32

There was a statistical study of the German expellees by Gerhard Reichling. ''Die deutschen Vertriebenen in Zahlen'', Bonn 1995, ISBN 3-88557-046-7. The head of the German government statistical office wrote the preface, which gave it an official blessing. Reichling lists a total of 1.650 million Soviet Germans. to account for from 1939-50 He reported 980,000 as being deported of whom 280,000 were forced laborers. Total deportee deaths were 310,000 of whom 100,000 were forced laborers. 1,440 million were alive in 1950. 100,000 as refugees in Germany, 670,000 as deportees in the USSR and 570,000 living in the USSR in their pre-war regions.
I would like to compare Reichling’s data with the recent Soviet declassified archive material. Could anyone with knowledge of Russian sources on deportations care to comment.

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Alex Yeliseenko
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Re: Volga Germans

#10

Post by Alex Yeliseenko » 23 Oct 2007, 03:19

Schultze wrote:There has been mention of "Labour Units" in some replies here. Is this a euphenism for being shipped off to the GULAG for "labour service"? Or were the Volga Deutsch really put into Red Army labour units? It is an interesting subject
The term " Labour Army " has been officially entered into a historical turn 10-15 years ago (though labour armies were even during Russian Civil war). Actually these people have been mobilized and there were on position condemned systems GULAG. But the general mode of their maintenance was a little softer. Time for translation of sources is necessary.

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#11

Post by Schultze » 23 Oct 2007, 23:21

Thorwald and Alex,
thanks for the prompt replies. I have just finished Anne Applbaums's "GULAG: A History" and she mentions the exile of various ethnic groups and the fates that befell them. Such a topic can only be hinted at within the confines of the book. She does mention the differing regimes - prisoners, guards, free workers and as Alex says, the regime for these workers who were not prisoners was a bit better e.g. they could get better work clothing and a better food allowance than those behind the wire.

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Re: Volga Germans

#12

Post by Art » 24 Oct 2007, 13:37

Schultze wrote:There has been mention of "Labour Units" in some replies here. Is this a euphenism for being shipped off to the GULAG for "labour service"?
After September 1941 ethnic Germans were discharged from the Armed Forces units. They and lately the Germans mobilized for labour employment were organized in so called "labor columns", this was a generic name for non-Army units were people liable for military service but were not suited for Army due to age, physical condition or political reasons were directed. The status of the Germans in the labour columns was somewhat indefinite. Officially they were mobilized for labor employment, in fact their status was in many respects close to the status of prisoners, for example they received the same food rations as the prsioners of the labor camps. Of the some 316 thousands men mobilized during the war 182 thousands were atached to NKVD and 133 thousands to other organizations. The people working in the NKVD system in most cases lived at GULAG camps tough there kept separately from prisoners. The regime for the mobilized atached to other comissariates was somewhat softer but they lived in the special zones organized at industrial objects and their freedom was restricted. After the end of the war the conditions of the life of labor mobilized were significantly eased but they remained atached to their place of work without the right to leave it till the official cancelation of the labor mobilization.

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thorwald77
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Re: Volga Germans

#13

Post by thorwald77 » 24 Oct 2007, 13:56

Art wrote:
Schultze wrote:There has been mention of "Labour Units" in some replies here. Is this a euphenism for being shipped off to the GULAG for "labour service"?
After September 1941 ethnic Germans were discharged from the Armed Forces units. They and lately the Germans mobilized for labour employment were organized in so called "labor columns", this was a generic name for non-Army units were people liable for military service but were not suited for Army due to age, physical condition or political reasons were directed. The status of the Germans in the labour columns was somewhat indefinite. Officially they were mobilized for labor employment, in fact their status was in many respects close to the status of prisoners, for example they received the same food rations as the prsioners of the labor camps. Of the some 316 thousands men mobilized during the war 182 thousands were atached to NKVD and 133 thousands to other organizations. The people working in the NKVD system in most cases lived at GULAG camps tough there kept separately from prisoners. The regime for the mobilized atached to other comissariates was somewhat softer but they lived in the special zones organized at industrial objects and their freedom was restricted. After the end of the war the conditions of the life of labor mobilized were significantly eased but they remained atached to their place of work without the right to leave it till the official cancelation of the labor mobilization.
The German data from Reichling of 310,000 forced labour deaths seems too high to me. Are there Soviet statistics on ethnic German deaths in the camps or were they included with other Soviet citizens?

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#14

Post by Art » 24 Oct 2007, 14:19

thorwald77 wrote: I would like to compare Reichling’s data with the recent Soviet declassified archive material. Could anyone with knowledge of Russian sources on deportations care to comment.
Zemskov gives the following balance:
949 829 Germans were deported during the war.
120 192 were additionaly regsitered as exiles after the war in 1945-48 (they were former USSR Germans repatriated back from abroad or former labor mobilized)
25 792 childs were born in deported families till 1st October 1945
45 275 people died during the same period
37 784 exiles were freed.
1 012 754 exiles were present on 1st October 1948
It seems howeveer that these numbers doesn't include deaths of labor mobilized. I don't have the full statistics, what I've found is that 11 874 of the mobilized atached to the NKVD died in 1942 and 2 832 in 1943. The figures for 1943 are not provided.
The number of registered Germans exiles continued to grow and reached 1 224 931 on 1st March 1953. I don't now how it must be explained, probably some number of Germans who were not actually deported were relalssified as exiles.

As concerns the overall number of the Soviet Germans, the census of 1939 gave the number of 1 427 thousands and the census of 1959 - 1 620 thousands. It should be added that a sizeable number of ethnic Germans lived on the territories annexed in 1939-40, but they were en masse repatriated to Germany under the agreement with the German government. I'm not able to say how many of them remained in the USSR on 22th June 1941, but most likely relatively few compared with the overall number. And some important remark - after the war's end the USSR organized repatriation of the ethnic Germans who were Soviet citizens end were either by their will or compulsary transferred from the occupied regions of the USSR . It seems that this process brought about the discrepancy in the number of Germans transferred to the USSR in 1944-1945 from Germany and other europian countries in different sources.

Some russian literature on the "German probelm" and the labor employment of the Soviet Germans:
"The Soviet Germans in the NKVD camps in the years of the GPW":
http://www.sgu.ru/faculties/historical/ ... cs/034.pdf
"The repressions against the Russian Germans":
http://www.memo.ru/history/nem/
"Against their own will. The history and geography of compulsory migrations in the USSR" by Pavel Polyan - the generall overview of the policy of deportations in the USSR, also contains some valuable information of the deportations of the ethnic Germans from Europe in 1944-45:
http://demoscope.ru/weekly/knigi/polian/polian.html

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thorwald77
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#15

Post by thorwald77 » 24 Oct 2007, 18:14

Art wrote:
thorwald77 wrote: I would like to compare Reichling’s data with the recent Soviet declassified archive material. Could anyone with knowledge of Russian sources on deportations care to comment.
Zemskov gives the following balance:
949 829 Germans were deported during the war.
120 192 were additionaly regsitered as exiles after the war in 1945-48 (they were former USSR Germans repatriated back from abroad or former labor mobilized)
25 792 childs were born in deported families till 1st October 1945
45 275 people died during the same period
37 784 exiles were freed.
1 012 754 exiles were present on 1st October 1948
It seems howeveer that these numbers doesn't include deaths of labor mobilized. I don't have the full statistics, what I've found is that 11 874 of the mobilized atached to the NKVD died in 1942 and 2 832 in 1943. The figures for 1943 are not provided.
The number of registered Germans exiles continued to grow and reached 1 224 931 on 1st March 1953. I don't now how it must be explained, probably some number of Germans who were not actually deported were relalssified as exiles.

As concerns the overall number of the Soviet Germans, the census of 1939 gave the number of 1 427 thousands and the census of 1959 - 1 620 thousands. It should be added that a sizeable number of ethnic Germans lived on the territories annexed in 1939-40, but they were en masse repatriated to Germany under the agreement with the German government. I'm not able to say how many of them remained in the USSR on 22th June 1941, but most likely relatively few compared with the overall number. And some important remark - after the war's end the USSR organized repatriation of the ethnic Germans who were Soviet citizens end were either by their will or compulsary transferred from the occupied regions of the USSR . It seems that this process brought about the discrepancy in the number of Germans transferred to the USSR in 1944-1945 from Germany and other europian countries in different sources.

Some russian literature on the "German probelm" and the labor employment of the Soviet Germans:
"The Soviet Germans in the NKVD camps in the years of the GPW":
http://www.sgu.ru/faculties/historical/ ... cs/034.pdf
"The repressions against the Russian Germans":
http://www.memo.ru/history/nem/
"Against their own will. The history and geography of compulsory migrations in the USSR" by Pavel Polyan - the generall overview of the policy of deportations in the USSR, also contains some valuable information of the deportations of the ethnic Germans from Europe in 1944-45:
http://demoscope.ru/weekly/knigi/polian/polian.html
Thanks Art. As I thought Reichlings figures were based on estimates that were overstated. Many Soviet citizens in the unoccupied regions who were not Germans died of famine during the war.

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