German Intentions
Further information: Lebensraum and Generalplan OstThe regime was planning to encourage 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 supposed residence of ancient Germanic Gothic tribes. 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.
The German civil administration met "Volksdeutsche" (ethnic Germans) in Mykolaiv, Zaporizhia and Dnipropetrovsk. The archives of the Soviet census in 1926 counted them as 393,924 persons. The Soviets counted ethnic Germans in all Russia at 1,423,534, or 1% of the total population in 1939.
The administration took measures to protect Germans in the area who were entered on their Volksdeutsch racial list. They received special rights
- the return of their land and property prior to the Soviet Revolution
- permission to return to visit parents in the motherland
- the creation of special German resident zones in Dnipropetrovsk and other areas
- encouraged recruitment to the German Army or service in the civil administration in the territory, amongst other special measures.
In Ukraine the Germans published a "local" journal in the German language, the Deutsche Ukrainezeitung.
During the occupation a very small number of cities and their accompanying districts maintained German names. These cities were designated as urban strongholds for Volksdeutsche natives. Hegewald (Himmler's field headquarters and the location of a small, experimental German colony), Försterstadt (also a Volksdeutsche colony), Halbstadt (a German Mennonite settlement), Alexanderstadt, Kronau and Friesendorf were some of these.
On 12 August 1941 Hitler ordered the complete destruction of the Ukrainian capital of Kiev by the use of incendiary bombs and gunfire. Because the German military lacked sufficient material for this operation it wasn't carried out, after which the Nazi planners instead decided to starve the city's inhabitants. Heinrich Himmler on the other hand considered Kiev to be "an ancient German city" because of the Magdeburg city rights that it had acquired centuries prior, and often referred to it as "Kiroffo".
Read more about this topic: Reichskommissariat Ukraine
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