“New order” in Europe. Fascist “new order” in the occupied territories

Reactionary entity political systems Nazi Germany, fascist Italy and militaristic Japan were especially evident in their policies towards the population of the occupied countries. Under the slogan of establishing a “new order” in Europe and Asia, they redrew previously established state borders, annexed individual territories and entire countries, forcibly imposed unbearable material and moral conditions of existence on other peoples, predatorily used their economic and labor resources, carried out mass relocations and deportations, tortured and abused, physically exterminated millions of civilians and prisoners of war, forced them to work backbreakingly and starved them to death in special death camps and ghettos.

Initiator and main driving force redrawing the map of Europe has come Nazi Germany, which set itself the goal of creating a gigantic empire that would extend from Arctic Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea, from the shores of the Atlantic to the Urals. She and her allies enslaved the peoples of many countries. From the spring of 1938 to the summer of 1941, Germany conquered 11 countries with military force. Under its dominance was a territory of about 2 million square kilometers, where almost 190 million people lived. From the end of June 1941 to December 1942, Germany, with the assistance of its allies, captured about 8% of Soviet territory.

In all occupied countries of Europe, the invaders pursued a policy of national and social oppression and suppression of opposition movements. The German occupiers were the most cruel, but their methods of enslaving the peoples of different countries were different. If in the East, especially in the temporarily occupied territory of the USSR, the Nazis and their aides mainly asserted their dominance through bloody terror, then in the West they combined violent measures with the cultivation of collaborationism, support for local fascists, and widely attracted local industrialists to cooperate in pursuing a course towards the economic integration of their countries within the Greater German space. Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands and Belgium, according to the plan for “economic transformation of the world” prepared on May 30, 1940 by the German Foreign Ministry, were to be included in the sphere of the “Greater German Reich”. Carrying out a flexible, relatively soft occupation policy in Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands and Belgium, the Hitler government aimed to create conditions for the unhindered use of material and human resources, prevent the growth of the national liberation movement there, and form influential groups from local political figures, relying on which it would be possible to it would be possible to carry out the annexation of these countries to Germany without any excesses.

Hitler and his circle considered France to be one of Germany's most sworn enemies and intended to permanently exclude it from the ranks of the great powers. According to the terms of the German-French truce, the southern part of France was left under the control of the government of Marshal Petain, where it settled in the city of Vichy. The policy of collaboration was formalized during Petain's meeting with Hitler at Montuan in October 1940.

Almost the entire industry of the occupied countries of Western and Northern Europe worked for Germany, and the labor force was forcibly deported from there to its industrial enterprises. During the war, 875 thousand workers, 987 thousand prisoners of war and prisoners of concentration camps created there by the occupiers were exported from France, 500 thousand workers from Belgium, 300 thousand from Norway, 70 thousand from Denmark, 500 thousand from Holland. .

During the war, the seizure of export to Germany, along with material and cultural values from the occupied countries of Western Europe, including Italy. In accordance with Hitler's order of September 17, 1940, the “Einsatzstab Rosenberg” was created, which was tasked with removing works of art from occupied France and other occupied countries of Western Europe. antique furniture, rare books, etc. As a result, from 1940 to 1944, more than 20 thousand different works of art were appropriated by Hitler, Goering and other Nazis, and transported to German museums. In addition, from the looted apartments of almost 70 thousand Jewish families sent to extermination camps, their property was taken to Germany, which required 674 trains. The peoples of the occupied countries of Western, Northern, South Eastern Europe and Poland were subject to a huge tribute. Which supposedly went entirely towards maintaining the German troops who were holding them at gunpoint. The desire to rely on collaborationist regimes and maintain freedom of the rear during the period of preparation and then waging war against the USSR was the reason that the Nazi leadership did not move on to large-scale terror against the population of the occupied countries of Western Europe for quite a long time. At the same time, the occupiers responded to the slightest manifestation of disobedience, protest and resistance with repression. In Norway, for example, they first introduced a system of collective fines. In Denmark, in September 1943, a system of indemnities was introduced, according to which the population was obliged to pay 1 million crowns for each killed German soldier. By order of Hitler on December 7, 1941, an operation codenamed “Darkness and Fog” was carried out. During this operation, which lasted until the end of 1944, civilians were arrested on suspicion without any charges in Norway, Holland, Belgium and other Western European countries, as well as in Ukraine and the Czech Republic. They were then secretly transported to Germany for execution. Exact number The casualties of this operation are unknown, but probably numbered in the tens of thousands. The German invaders began to behave most cruelly and aggressively in the countries of Western Europe after a turning point in the war took place in 1943 in favor of anti-Hitler coalition. Among the population of these countries, the desire for disobedience and resistance to the occupiers and local collaborators has sharply increased in the hope of bringing their liberation closer. The invaders responded to this with bloody terror. Retreating, they not only engaged in robbery and destruction, guided by the “scorched earth” tactics, but often destroyed populated areas along with their inhabitants.

The methods of occupation policy that were used by the Nazis in the West became even more brutal when they imposed their domination on the occupied territories of Poland, the USSR and the countries of South-Eastern Europe. The bulk of the population of these countries, with the exception of Greece and Albania, were Slavs, whom the Nazis classified as an “inferior race.” A few days after the outbreak of war in Berlin, under the leadership of Hitler, the development of the so-called Ost plan began. According to the first version of this plan, dated July 15, 1941, in order to clear the territory for the settlement of Germans in the East, it was planned to expel from their native land or destroy from 80 to 85% of Poles, 85% of Lithuanians, 75% of Belarusians, 65 % of the population of Western Ukraine, half of the Estonians, Latvians and Czechs, for a total of 31 to 45 million people. In April 1942, the Ost general plan was modified. It provided for the eviction of 46 - 51 million people from their countries of residence or the destruction of them.

Taking into account those who died in German penal servitude, the number of deliberately exterminated civilian Soviet citizens amounted to about 13.7 million people.

The occupation policy of the aggressors in the Balkans was openly predatory. Attempts by the German military administration to establish its dominance in Yugoslavia and Greece, relying on local collaborators, failed. Resistance to the occupiers quickly grew into a large-scale guerrilla war.

Based on everyday anti-Semitism, widespread in Germany, the Nazi government in September 1935 adopted the so-called Nuremberg Laws, according to which Jews could not be citizens of the German Reich, and Germans should not marry Jews or have children from them. During the war, the German leadership set the task of exterminating Jews in all European countries. For this purpose they used various ways- executions, hangings, backbreaking labor and gas chambers in concentration camps, especially in Auschwitz. In total, 6 million Jews were liquidated, including 1.5 million who lived in the temporarily occupied territory of the USSR.

Japanese " new order”, which envisaged the creation of a colonial empire in Asia, was essentially no different from the Nazi “new order” in Europe. At the same time, Japanese occupation policy had its own characteristics. Given the deep hatred of peoples Southeast Asia and the Pacific basin to colonialism, the Japanese government tried to present its own aggression as a war of liberation against the white race,” to unite the peoples of the occupied countries under the nationalist slogan “Asia for Asians.” In practice, the conquered countries became increasingly convinced that the “yellow colonialists” would not give them either freedom or independence. Like the Nazis in Europe, the Japanese militarists in Asia during the war years encountered growing resistance from the peoples of the states they occupied.

For the countries that were subjected to aggression, from the very beginning the war of 1939-1945 was a liberation war. In Poland, France, and Yugoslavia, since the occupation, the first acts of Resistance arose: anti-fascist forces were consolidated, an underground press was established, anti-fascist propaganda was launched, acts of sabotage and strikes were committed, and partisan detachments were formed. At the same time, each country had its own specifics and used certain forms and methods of struggle.

The emigrant governments of Belgium, the Netherlands, Norway, Greece, Poland, Yugoslavia, the Resistance organizations of a number of other countries were located in London, and the Free France movement was formed, led by General Charles de Gaulle. Not immediately, but his connections with the internal French Resistance were being established.

Already at the first stage of the war, Great Britain began to establish contacts with underground Europe. Churchill declared the need to “start a fire in Europe.” July 16, 1940 under the Ministry economic war a secret Special Operations Directorate (SOE) was created with an extensive network of connections with various Resistance organizations, primarily in Northern Europe: Belgium, Denmark, Norway. The USO coordinated their actions and sent them weapons and radio transmitters. Radio communications made it possible to unite disparate Resistance organizations created by parties and political groups or that arose spontaneously. BBC radio broadcasts from London and the underground press exposed Nazi ideology and propaganda, shaping the anti-fascist consciousness of the population of occupied Europe. This task proved most difficult in Germany, where until almost the end of the war the majority of the population supported the Nazi regime, falsely understood as a patriotic duty. At the beginning of the war, the USSR government did not encourage the development of the Resistance in Europe. The general leadership of the Resistance in France during this period was carried out by the secretariat of the Central Committee of the PCF, located in the Paris region, which included J. Duclos, B. Frachon and C. Tillon. In the fall of 1940, the communists created the first armed groups, which soon united into the combat “Special Organization” (OS). In November 1940, a large student demonstration took place in occupied Paris under the slogans: “Long live France! Long live de Gaulle! Down with Petain! In May 1941, in accordance with the Comintern directive on the creation of national fronts, the French Communist Party issued a call for the formation of a National Front.

In Norway, the armed organization Milorg was created by former officers and soldiers of the Norwegian army. Civil disobedience campaigns became the predominant forms of Resistance.

In the Netherlands, the first underground resistance organizations appeared in May 1940 in Haarlem and other cities. They called themselves “guez,” distributed anti-Nazi materials, and committed sabotage. On February 17, 1941, in Amsterdam, under the leadership of the Communist Party of the Netherlands, the first major anti-fascist strike in occupied Europe took place: metal workers opposed forced deportation to Germany. Next The political strike on February 25 was attended by 300 thousand people.

In Belgium, in the fall of 1940, on the initiative of the Communist Party, people's committees of mutual assistance and solidarity were created, which became the organizers of the first patriotic demonstrations. At the end of August 1940, an army of partisans was formed, as well as the Belgian Army and the Belgian Legion.

In the countries of Central and South-Eastern Europe, as well as in the Balkans, the anti-fascist Resistance developed generally in the same structures as in the West.

Resistance in the Czech Republic and Slovakia developed independently. In the Czech Republic it took the form of a movement in defense of national culture and against the beginning of Germanization.

The Polish resistance, which began in 1939, was directed mainly against the Nazi occupiers and their policies of brutal repression and genocide. Already at the end of 1939, an underground government military organization, the Union of Armed Struggle, arose on the pre-war territory of Poland. Another mass organization of the Resistance was the peasant battalions (hlopske battalions), which politically represented the Peasant Party (Stronnitstvo Ludove).

The resistance movement in the countries of the fascist bloc had its own specifics. here it was directed against its own regimes and developed under conditions of severe repression by the state and the entire system of mass fascist organizations. In Germany, the underground group of Schulze-Boysen and Harnack, which emerged in 1938, fought against the Nazi regime. Having extensive connections in the country and abroad, this group transmitted Soviet intelligence valuable information about Germany’s military preparations against the USSR, at the beginning of 1940 another group of anti-fascist-minded politicians arose, led by Count G. von Moltke and Count P. York von Wartenburg, called the “Kreisau Circle”. Many clergy, from the standpoint of Christian morality, condemned the war, the persecution of Jews, and provided assistance to prisoners of war.

The entry of the USSR into the war against Germany led to the rise of the Resistance movement and a change in the position of the Comintern. Great Britain and the United States expanded the network of intelligence services liaising with the European Resistance. In June 1942, in Washington, with the participation of the British, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) was created, whose tasks included organizing sabotage activities in Western Europe together with the previously created British OSS. As the resistance movement grew, it became increasingly difficult to lead the Communist parties from one center. This served as a formal explanation for the Comintern's decision to dissolve itself (May 15, 1943).

Italian resistance fighters Spinelli and Rossi, while imprisoned, published the famous “Ventotene Manifesto” in 1941, which criticized fascism.

The Resistance movement developed along an ascending line: from passive forms to armed struggle. Various social strata poured into it: workers, peasants, intelligentsia, students, small urban entrepreneurs, priests. In France, Italy, Belgium, Norway, the Netherlands, and the Hand, national anti-fascist fronts took shape.

The Resistance in France acquired particular significance. In October 1941, de Gaulle notified the British government of his decision to begin political activities in France.” Missions were sent to France to unite the internal and external Resistance.

In a number of countries, 2 blocs of anti-fascist forces arose: national and people's liberation fronts were created under the control of the communists and focused on support from the USSR, while other centers, uniting moderate liberal forces, established connections with emigrant governments and sought to gain recognition and support from Western allies.

In Yugoslavia, armed actions of the people's liberation partisan detachments began already in July 1941. By the end of the year they had liberated two-thirds of Serbian territory, where the so-called Užice Republic was established. In November 1942, the People's Liberation Army of Yugoslavia was created, led by Tito.

When redrawing the map of Europe during World War II, the Germans were very selective about its population. While some were immediately sent to concentration camps, others were allowed to enjoy life for the time being.

"New Order"

Already in the first weeks of the occupation of Europe, the Nazis began to establish a “New Order” in it, which provided for various forms of dependence: from vassal (Hungary or Romania) to open annexation (parts of Poland and Czechoslovakia). Ultimately, the political and geographical boundaries of Europe were to dissolve into Greater Germany, and some peoples were wiped off the face of the earth.

The Nazi version of the European Union provided for different attitudes towards enslaved countries. This was explained by their “ethnic purity”, cultural level and the degree of resistance offered occupation authorities. Under such conditions, the predominantly Slavic population of Eastern Europe was noticeably inferior to its western neighbors.

If, for example, the non-annexed territories of Poland were declared by the German “Government General”, then Southern France self-governed by the collaborationist Vichy regime. However, the Nazi regime was not always successful in Western Europe. In Holland and Belgium, German agents turned out to be too weak, and therefore the German proteges Mussert and Degrelle were not popular among the population.

In Norway, according to statistics, only 10% of residents supported the occupation authorities. Perhaps it was precisely because of the tenacity of the Scandinavians that the Reich created special program to “improve the gene pool”, in which several thousand Norwegian women gave birth to children from German soldiers.

Europe without war

If the western territories of the USSR turned into a continuous battlefield, then the life of a significant part of Europe was not much different from peacetime. In European cities there were cafes, museums, theaters, entertainment venues, people went shopping and relaxed in parks. The only thing that caught your eye was the presence of German soldiers and signs in German.
Particularly in this regard, Paris was indicative, which the Germans valued because of the opportunity for a relaxing holiday and fun leisure.

Fashionistas paraded around Rivoli, and cabarets entertained local and visiting audiences seven days a week. More than a hundred Parisian establishments were specially opened to serve Wehrmacht soldiers. “I have never been so happy,” admitted the owner of one of the brothels.
In general, German policy in France was flexible and encouraging. The intellectual and creative elite were given scope for activity here, and certain concessions were provided for various French institutions. So, if the Germans exported huge quantities of valuables and antiques from other countries, then, for example, the Louvre reserved the right to prohibit the export of any work of art to Germany.

The French film industry operated without any restrictions. During the years of occupation, 240 full-length films and 400 documentaries, as well as many cartoon years, which surpassed the production of Germany itself. Note that it was during the war that the talent of future world cinema stars, Jean Marais and Gerard Philippe, flourished.

There were, of course, certain difficulties associated with wartime. For example, many Parisians had to go to villages for butter and milk, some food products was issued using coupons, and some restaurants served only Germans; a ban was also introduced on the free sale of radios. However, these restrictions could not be compared with life in most cities in Eastern Europe.

Working days

Europe, as a raw materials appendage of Germany, worked at full capacity from the first days of the war - almost all of its resources were switched to maintaining the power of the Third Reich and to providing a rear base in the confrontation with the USSR. Austria provided iron ore, Poland - coal, Romania - oil, Hungary - bauxite and sulfur pyrites, Italy - lead and zinc.

Human resources also played a big role in this. One of the confidential memos from a German official contained demands that “for most types of work that are simple, minor and primitive”, the active use of “auxiliary peoples”, mainly of Slavic origin.

To meet the needs of the Wehrmacht, branches of German companies - Krupp, Siemens, IG Farbenindastri - were opened in many parts of Europe, and local factories, such as Schneider-Creusot in France, were reoriented. However, if the conditions of the workers of Western Europe were quite bearable, then their eastern colleagues worked extremely hard to give the profits promised by Hitler, which “history has not known.”

For example, the average duration of work for an employee at the Polish Bunaverk plant did not exceed two months: every three weeks workers were examined, following which the weak and sick were sent to the crematorium, and their place was taken by new victims of this monstrous conveyor of death.

Ghetto

Jewish ghettos are one of the unique layers of life of Europeans during the years of fascist occupation and at the same time an example of amazing adaptability and survival in an exceptionally unfavorable conditions. Having deprived the Jews not only of all valuables and savings, but also of the minimum means of subsistence, the German authorities isolated them in closed parts of some large European cities.

Actually, it’s hard to call it life. Jews were usually housed in several families in one room - on average, the population density in the quarters “cleared” for the ghetto was 5-6 times higher than previous figures. Jews here were forbidden to do almost everything - trade, engage in crafts, study, and even move freely.

Nevertheless, through holes in the fences, teenagers entered the city and obtained much-needed food and medicine for the residents of the “quarantine zone.”
The largest ghetto was Warsaw, where at least half a million people lived. Its residents, despite the prohibitions, managed not only to survive, but also to get an education, lead a cultural life and even have leisure time.

It was the Warsaw ghetto that turned out to be the center of the largest anti-fascist resistance in Poland. The German authorities spent almost more effort on suppressing the uprising of Warsaw Jews than on the capture of Poland itself.

Concentration camps

In the occupied countries, following the German model, the new authorities created a network of concentration camps, the number of which, taking into account modern data, exceeded 14,000 points. About 18 million people were kept here in unbearable conditions, of which 11 million were killed.

For example, let's take the Salaspils camp (Latvia). The prisoners huddled 500-800 people in cramped barracks; their daily ration consisted of a 300-gram piece of bread mixed with sawdust and a cup of soup made from vegetable waste. The working day usually lasted at least 14 hours.
But the Germans also created exemplary camps, which were supposed to show the world German “progressiveness and humanity.” This was the Czech Theresienstadt. The camp mainly housed European intellectuals - doctors, scientists, musicians, artists.

Family barracks were created for some prisoners. On the territory of the camp there were prayer houses, libraries and theaters, exhibitions and concerts. However, the fate of many Theresienstadt residents was sad - their lives ended in the gas chambers of Auschwitz.

During the first period of the war, the fascist states established their dominance over almost all of capitalist Europe by force of arms. In addition to the peoples of Austria, Czechoslovakia and Albania, who became victims of aggression even before the start of the Second World War, by the summer of 1941 Poland, Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Holland, Luxembourg, a significant part of France, Greece and Yugoslavia found themselves under the yoke of fascist occupation. At the same time, the Asian ally of Germany and Italy, militaristic Japan, occupied vast areas of Central and Southern China, and then Indochina.

In the occupied countries, the fascists established the so-called “new order”, which embodied the main goals of the states of the fascist bloc in the Second World War - the territorial redivision of the world, the enslavement of independent states, the extermination of entire nations, and the establishment of world domination.

Creating a “new order”, the Axis powers sought to mobilize the resources of the occupied and vassal countries in order to, by destroying the socialist state - the Soviet Union, restore the undivided dominance of the capitalist system throughout the world, defeat the revolutionary workers and national liberation movement, and with it all forces of democracy and progress. That is why the “new order”, based on bayonets fascist troops, were supported by the most reactionary representatives of the ruling classes of the occupied countries, who pursued a policy of collaboration. He also had supporters in other imperialist countries, for example, pro-fascist organizations in the USA, the O. Mosley clique in England, etc. The “New Order” meant, first of all, the territorial redistribution of the world in favor of the fascist powers. In an effort to undermine as much as possible the viability of the captured countries, the German fascists redrew the map of Europe. The Hitler Reich included Austria, the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia, Silesia and the western regions of Poland (Pomerania, Poznan, Lodz, North Mazovia), the Belgian districts of Eupen and Malmedy, Luxembourg, French provinces Alsace and Lorraine. WITH political map Entire states in Europe disappeared. Some of them were annexed, others were dismembered into parts and ceased to exist as a historically established whole. Even before the war, a puppet Slovak state was created under the auspices of fascist Germany, and the Czech Republic and Moravia were turned into a German “protectorate”.

The non-annexed territory of Poland began to be called the “Governor General,” in which all power was in the hands of Hitler’s governor. France was divided into an occupied northern zone, the most industrially developed (with the departments of Nord and Pas-de-Calais administratively subordinate to the commander of the occupation forces in Belgium), and an unoccupied southern zone, centered in the city of Vichy. In Yugoslavia, “independent” Croatia and Serbia were formed. Montenegro became the prey of Italy, Macedonia was given to Bulgaria, Vojvodina to Hungary, and Slovenia was divided between Italy and Germany.

In artificially created states, the Nazis imposed totalitarian military dictatorships submissive to them, such as the regime of A. Pavelic in Croatia, M. Nedic in Serbia, I. Tissot in Slovakia.

In countries subject to full or partial occupation, the invaders, as a rule, sought to form puppet governments from collaborationist elements - representatives of the large monopoly bourgeoisie and landowners who betrayed the national interests of the people. The “governments” of Petain in France and Gahi in the Czech Republic were obedient executors of the will of the winner. Above them usually stood an “imperial commissioner,” “governor,” or “protector,” who held all power in his hands, controlling the actions of the puppets.

But it was not possible to create puppet governments everywhere. In Belgium and Holland, the agents of the German fascists (L. Degrelle, A. Mussert) turned out to be too weak and unpopular. In Denmark there was no need for such a government at all, since after the surrender the Stauning government obediently carried out the will of the German invaders.

The “New Order” thus meant the enslavement of European countries in various forms - from open annexation and occupation to the establishment of “allied”, and in fact vassal (for example, in Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania) relations with Germany.

The political regimes implanted by Germany in the enslaved countries were not the same. Some of them were openly military-dictatorial, others, following the example of the German Reich, masked their reactionary essence with social demagoguery. For example, Quisling in Norway declared himself a defender of the country's national interests. The Vichy puppets in France did not hesitate to shout about “national revolution”, “the fight against trusts” and “the abolition of the class struggle”, while at the same time openly collaborating with the occupiers.

Finally, there was some difference in the nature of the occupation policy of the German fascists in relation to different countries. Thus, in Poland and a number of other countries in Eastern and South-Eastern Europe, the fascist “order” immediately revealed itself in all its anti-human essence, since the Polish and other Slavic peoples were destined for the fate of slaves of the German nation. In Holland, Denmark, Luxembourg and Norway, the Nazis at first acted as “Nordic blood brothers”, they tried to win over certain segments of the population and social groups these countries. In France, the occupiers initially pursued a policy of gradually drawing the country into their orbit of influence and turning it into their satellite.

However, in their own circle, the leaders of German fascism did not hide the fact that such a policy was temporary and dictated only by tactical considerations. Hitler's elite believed that "the unification of Europe can be achieved... only with the help of armed violence." Hitler intended to speak a different language to the Vichy government as soon as the “Russian operation” was over and he freed up his rear.

With the establishment of the “new order,” the entire European economy was subordinated to German state-monopoly capitalism. From the occupied countries it was exported to Germany huge amount equipment, raw materials and food. National industry European countries was turned into an appendage of the Nazi military machine. Millions of people were driven from occupied countries to Germany, where they were forced to work for German capitalists and landowners.

The establishment of the rule of German and Italian fascists in the enslaved countries was accompanied by brutal terror and massacres.

Following the example of Germany, the occupied countries began to be covered with a network of fascist concentration camps. In May 1940, a monstrous death factory began operating on Polish territory in Auschwitz, which gradually turned into a whole concern of 39 camps. Here, the German monopolies IG Farbenindustry, Krupp, and Siemens soon built their enterprises in order, using free labor, to finally receive the profits once promised by Hitler, which “history has never known.” According to prisoners, the life expectancy of prisoners who worked at the Bunaverk plant (IG Farbenindustri) did not exceed two months: every two to three weeks a selection was made and all those who were weakened were sent to the ovens of Auschwitz. The exploitation of foreign labor here has turned into “destruction through work” of all people objectionable to fascism.

Among the population of occupied Europe, fascist propaganda intensively instilled anti-communism, racism and anti-Semitism. All media were placed under the control of the German occupation authorities.

The “New Order” in Europe meant brutal national oppression of the peoples of the occupied countries. By asserting the racial superiority of the German nation, the Nazis provided German minorities (“Volksdeutsche”) living in puppet states, such as the Czech Republic, Croatia, Slovenia and Slovakia, with special exploitative rights and privileges. The Nazis resettled Germans from other countries to lands annexed to the Reich, which were gradually “cleared” of the local population. 700 thousand were evicted from the western regions of Poland, and about 124 thousand people from Alsace and Lorraine by February 15, 1941. The eviction of indigenous people was carried out from Slovenia and the Sudetenland.

The fascists in every possible way incited national hatred between the peoples of the occupied and dependent countries: Croats and Serbs, Czechs and Slovaks, Hungarians and Romanians, Flemings and Walloons, etc.

The fascist occupiers treated the working classes, industrial workers, with particular cruelty, seeing in them a force capable of resistance. The Nazis wanted to turn Poles, Czechs and other Slavs into slaves and undermine the fundamental foundations of their national vitality. “From now on,” said Polish Governor-General G. Frank, “the political role of the Polish people is over. It is declared as a labor force, nothing more... We will ensure that the very concept of “Poland” is erased forever. A policy of extermination was pursued against entire nations and peoples.

In the Polish lands annexed to Germany, along with the expulsion of local residents, a policy was carried out to artificially limit population growth through castration of people, and the mass removal of children to raise them in the German spirit. Poles were even forbidden to be called Poles; they were given old tribal names - “Kashubs”, “Masurians”, etc. The systematic extermination of the Polish population, especially the intelligentsia, was carried out on the territory of the “Government General”. For example, in the spring and summer of 1940, the occupation authorities carried out the so-called “Action AB” (“extraordinary pacification action”) here, during which they killed about 3,500 Polish figures of science, culture and art, and also closed not only higher education institutions, but also average educational institutions.

A savage, misanthropic policy was also carried out in dismembered Yugoslavia. In Slovenia, the Nazis destroyed centers of national culture, exterminated the intelligentsia, clergy, and public figures. In Serbia, for every German soldier killed by partisans, hundreds of civilians were subject to “merciless extermination.”

The Czech people were doomed to national degeneration and destruction. “You closed our universities,” wrote national hero Czechoslovakia J. Fucik in 1940 open letter Goebbels, - you are Germanizing our schools, you have robbed and occupied the best school buildings, turned the theater, concert halls and art salons into barracks, you are robbing scientific institutions, stopping scientific work, you want to make thought-killing machine guns out of journalists, you are killing thousands of cultural workers, you are destroying the foundations of all culture, everything that the intelligentsia creates.”

Thus, already in the first period of the war, the racist theories of fascism turned into a monstrous policy of national oppression, destruction and extermination (genocide), carried out in relation to many peoples of Europe. The smoking chimneys of the crematoria of Auschwitz, Majdanek and other mass extermination camps testified that the savage racial and political nonsense of fascism was being carried out in practice.

The social policy of fascism was extremely reactionary. In New Order Europe, the working masses, and above all the working class, were subjected to the most severe persecution and exploitation. A reduction in wages and a sharp increase in working hours, the abolition of the rights to social Security, the prohibition of strikes, meetings and demonstrations, the liquidation of trade unions under the guise of their “unification”, the prohibition of political organizations of the working class and all workers, primarily communist parties, for which the Nazis had a brutal hatred - this is what fascism brought with it to the peoples of Europe. The “New Order” meant an attempt by German state-monopoly capital and its allies to crush their class opponents with the hands of fascists, destroy their political and trade union organizations, eradicate the ideology of Marxism-Leninism, all democratic, even liberal views, implanting the misanthropic fascist ideology of racism, national and class. domination and submission. In savagery, fanaticism, and obscurantism, fascism surpassed the horrors of the Middle Ages. He was an outright cynical denial of all the progressive, humane and moral values that civilization has developed over its thousand-year history. He imposed a system of surveillance, denunciations, arrests, torture, and created a monstrous apparatus of repression and violence against peoples.

To come to terms with this or to take the path of anti-fascist resistance and a decisive struggle for national independence, democracy and social progress - this was the alternative that faced the people of the occupied countries.

The peoples have made their choice. They rose up to fight against the brown plague - fascism. The main burden of this struggle was courageously borne by the working masses, primarily the working class.

In the occupied countries, the fascists established the so-called “new order,” which embodied the main goals of the states of the fascist bloc in the Second World War - the territorial redivision of the world, the enslavement of independent states, the extermination of entire nations, and the establishment of world domination.

Creating a “new order”, the Axis powers sought to mobilize the resources of the occupied and vassal countries in order to, by destroying the socialist state - the Soviet Union, restore the undivided dominance of the capitalist system throughout the world, defeat the revolutionary workers and national liberation movement, and with it all forces of democracy and progress. That is why the “new order,” based on the bayonets of fascist troops, was supported by the most reactionary representatives of the ruling classes of the occupied countries, who pursued a policy of collaboration. He also had supporters in other imperialist countries, for example, pro-fascist organizations in the USA, the O. Mosley clique in England, etc. The “New Order” meant, first of all, the territorial redistribution of the world in favor of the fascist powers. In an effort to undermine as much as possible the viability of the captured countries, the German fascists redrew the map of Europe. Hitler's Reich included Austria, the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia, Silesia and the western regions of Poland (Pomerania, Poznan, Lodz, North Mazovia), the Belgian districts of Eupen and Malmedy, Luxembourg, and the French provinces of Alsace and Lorraine. Entire states disappeared from the political map of Europe. Some of them were annexed, others were dismembered into parts and ceased to exist as a historically established whole. Even before the war, a puppet Slovak state was created under the auspices of Nazi Germany, and the Czech Republic and Moravia were turned into a German “protectorate”.

The non-annexed territory of Poland began to be called the “Governor General,” in which all power was in the hands of Hitler’s governor. France was divided into an occupied northern zone, the most industrially developed (with the departments of Nord and Pas-de-Calais administratively subordinate to the commander of the occupation forces in Belgium), and an unoccupied southern zone, with its center in the city of Vichy. In Yugoslavia, “independent” Croatia and Serbia were formed. Montenegro became the prey of Italy, Macedonia was given to Bulgaria, Vojvodina to Hungary, and Slovenia was divided between Italy and Germany.

In artificially created states, the Nazis imposed totalitarian military dictatorships submissive to them, such as the regime of A. Pavelic in Croatia, M. Nedic in Serbia, I. Tissot in Slovakia.

Finally, there were some differences in the nature of the occupation policy of the German fascists in relation to different countries. Thus, in Poland and a number of other countries in Eastern and South-Eastern Europe, the fascist “order” immediately revealed itself in all its anti-human essence, since the Polish and other Slavic peoples were destined for the fate of slaves of the German nation. In Holland, Denmark, Luxembourg and Norway, the Nazis at first acted as “Nordic blood brothers” and sought to win over certain segments of the population and social groups of these countries to their side. In France, the occupiers initially pursued a policy of gradually drawing the country into their orbit of influence and turning it into their satellite.

However, in their own circle, the leaders of German fascism did not hide the fact that such a policy was temporary and dictated only by tactical considerations. Hitler's elite believed that “the unification of Europe can be achieved... only with the help of armed violence” (572). Hitler intended to speak to the Vichy government in a different language as soon as the “Russian operation” was over and he freed up his rear.

With the establishment of the “new order,” the entire European economy was subordinated to German state-monopoly capitalism. A huge amount of equipment, raw materials and food were exported from the occupied countries to Germany. The national industry of European states was turned into an appendage of the Nazi war machine. Millions of people were driven from occupied countries to Germany, where they were forced to work for German capitalists and landowners.

The establishment of the rule of German and Italian fascists in the enslaved countries was accompanied by brutal terror and massacres.

Following the example of Germany, the occupied countries began to be covered with a network of fascist concentration camps. In May 1940, a monstrous death factory began operating on Polish territory in Auschwitz, which gradually turned into a whole concern of 39 camps. Here, the German monopolies IG Farbenindustri, Krupp, Siemens soon built their enterprises in order, using free labor, to finally receive the profits once promised by Hitler, which “history has never known” (573). According to prisoners, the life expectancy of prisoners who worked at the Bunaverk plant (IG Farbenindustri) did not exceed two months: every two to three weeks a selection was made and all those who were weakened were sent to the ovens of Auschwitz (574). The exploitation of foreign labor here has turned into “destruction through work” of all people objectionable to fascism.

The “New Order” in Europe meant brutal national oppression of the peoples of the occupied countries. By asserting the racial superiority of the German nation, the Nazis provided German minorities (“Volksdeutsche”) living in puppet states, such as the Czech Republic, Croatia, Slovenia and Slovakia, with special exploitative rights and privileges. The Nazis resettled Germans from other countries to lands annexed to the Reich, which were gradually “cleared” of the local population. 700 thousand (575) were evicted from the western regions of Poland, and about 124 thousand people (576) from Alsace and Lorraine by February 15, 1941. The eviction of indigenous people was carried out from Slovenia and the Sudetenland.

The Nazis in every possible way incited national hatred between the peoples of the occupied and dependent countries: Croats and Serbs, Czechs and Slovaks, Hungarians and Romanians, Flemings and Walloons, etc.

The fascist occupiers treated the working classes, industrial workers, with particular cruelty, seeing in them a force capable of resistance. The Nazis wanted to turn Poles, Czechs and other Slavs into slaves and undermine the fundamental foundations of their national vitality. “From now on,” said Polish Governor-General G. Frank, “the political role of the Polish people is over. It is declared as labor force, nothing else... We will ensure that the very concept of “Poland” is erased forever (577). A policy of extermination was pursued against entire nations and peoples.

In the Polish lands annexed to Germany, along with the expulsion of local residents, a policy was carried out to artificially limit population growth through castration of people, and the mass removal of children to raise them in the German spirit (578). Poles were even forbidden to be called Poles; they were given old tribal names - “Kashubs”, “Masurians”, etc. The systematic extermination of the Polish population, especially the intelligentsia, was carried out on the territory of the “Government General”. For example, in the spring and summer of 1940, the occupation authorities carried out the so-called “Action AB” (“extraordinary pacification action”) here, during which they killed about 3,500 Polish figures of science, culture and art, and also closed not only higher education institutions, but also secondary educational institutions (579) .

The Czech people were doomed to national degeneration and destruction. “You have closed our universities,” wrote the national hero of Czechoslovakia J. Fucik in 1940 in an open letter to Goebbels, “you are Germanizing our schools, you have robbed and occupied the best school buildings, turned the theater, concert halls and art salons into barracks, you are robbing scientific institutions, you stop scientific work, you want to turn journalists into thought-killing automata, you kill thousands of cultural workers, you destroy the foundations of all culture, everything that the intelligentsia creates” (580).

The social policy of fascism was extremely reactionary. In New Order Europe, the working masses, and above all the working class, were subjected to the most severe persecution and exploitation. Reduced wages and a sharp increase in working hours, the abolition of social security rights won in a long struggle, the prohibition of strikes, meetings and demonstrations, the liquidation of trade unions under the guise of their “unification”, the prohibition of political organizations of the working class and all workers, primarily communist parties, for whom the Nazis had a brutal hatred - this is what fascism brought with it to the peoples of Europe. The “New Order” meant an attempt by German state-monopoly capital and its allies to crush their class opponents with the hands of fascists, destroy their political and trade union organizations, eradicate the ideology of Marxism-Leninism, all democratic, even liberal views, implanting the misanthropic fascist ideology of racism, national and class domination and submission. In savagery, fanaticism, and obscurantism, fascism surpassed the horrors of the Middle Ages. He was an outright cynical denial of all the progressive, humane and moral values that civilization has developed over its thousand-year history. He imposed a system of surveillance, denunciations, arrests, torture, and created a monstrous apparatus of repression and violence against peoples.

Fascist “new order” in occupied territory.

In Belarus, about 7 million people, or almost 70% of the total population, fell under Nazi occupation. This was not occupation in the generally accepted sense of the concept, as set out in the 4th Hague Convention of 1907. On the occupied territory of Belarus, the Nazis discarded all international legal norms of occupation and established the so-called. “new order”, which was distinguished by exceptional cruelty and atrocities towards the population - mass repressions and destruction of citizens, destruction and looting of the national economy and cultural property. There were no laws protecting the occupiers and their accomplices from arbitrariness. The population was deprived of basic civil and human freedoms, a state of emergency and a hostage system were introduced.

Everywhere for citizens aged 18 to 45 years (for citizens Jewish nationality from 14 to 60 years old) labor conscription was introduced. Working day even on hazardous industries lasted 14-16 hours a day. Persons who avoided work were sent to hard labor prisons or to the gallows.

There was no food supply to the population from the occupation authorities. In especially difficult economic conditions turned out to be city dwellers. A number of cities were gripped by famine. In the occupied territories, fines, corporal punishment, and taxes in kind and money were established everywhere. The invaders applied various repressions to tax evaders, including execution. Often the collection of taxes turned into large punitive operations.

The occupation regime is the result of the systematic implementation of the state policy of Nazi Germany. Its ideological basis was the Nazi “theories” about the “racial superiority” of the German nation over other peoples, the need to expand the “living space” for the Germans and the “right” to world domination of the “Third Reich” - the Great German Empire.

Occupation policy towards Soviet Union and Belarus was developed in advance by the Nazis. Plan Barbarossa (1940) determined the strategy and tactics of the attack on the USSR; master plan "Ost" - a program for the colonization of the territory, Germanization, eviction and destruction of the peoples of Eastern Europe; “Instructions on Special Areas” to Directive No. 21 of the Barbarossa Plan (03/13/1941) – decentralization and dismemberment of the territory of the USSR; "Directives for economic management in the occupied eastern regions" - the most effective methods economic robbery.

The goal of the Nazi occupation policy was the systematic destruction of peoples. According to the Ost plan in Belarus, it was envisaged to destroy and deport to the east 75% of the population unsuitable on so-called racial and political grounds; 25% of Belarusians were subject to Germanization and used as agricultural slaves. The plan was designed for 30 years. To shorten the period, the Nazis sought to destroy as many people as possible during the war. This was achieved through a system of concentration camps, prisons, punitive expeditions, etc. On the occupied territory of Belarus, the Nazis created more than 260 concentration camps. To speed up "natural extinction", prisoners were kept under open air, starved, forced to work until exhaustion, brutally tortured, deliberately infected infectious diseases, conducted medical experiments on people prohibited by international laws. They mechanized the process of exterminating the population - people were gassed in chambers, in special cars, so-called gas chambers. The Nazis brutally dealt with Soviet prisoners of war. The high command ordered that prisoners of war include “all persons who are found in the immediate vicinity of the areas of military operations..., all able-bodied men aged 16 to 55 years.

The main means of imposing and maintaining the “new order” was mass terror, which was carried out by the SS troops (security detachments) and SA (assault detachments), the security police and the SD security service, the GFP (secret field police), the security police, the order police, the criminal police, Abwehr counterintelligence agencies, gendarmerie, special police units, as well as armed forces Wehrmacht, security troops. Field Marshal Keitel's directive “On military jurisdiction in the Barbarossa area and special powers of troops” (05/13/1941) relieved army personnel of responsibility for any crimes in the occupied territory of Belarus. In Hitler's circular dated June 27, 1941, the occupation authorities were forbidden to engage in legal proceedings and the task was set to bring terror to the population by any means. Special operational groups were created from members of the SS, SA, SD, GPF, Gestapo, criminal and security police, which were divided into special teams, operational teams. They were given the task of reducing the population through mass extermination.

The occupiers brought to the Belarusian people innumerable troubles and losses. How the “new order” turned out can be seen from the documents of the Extraordinary State Commission for the Establishment and Investigation of Atrocities Nazi invaders and accounting for the damage they caused. During the years of occupation, the Nazis destroyed more than 3 million Soviet citizens in Belarus, including prisoners of war; About 400 thousand people were taken to Germany for hard labor. At least 100 thousand of them never returned home after the war. Of the 9,200 settlements destroyed and burned by the invaders in Belarus, 628 were destroyed with all their inhabitants, 4,667 with part of the population. After liberation, there were 60 thousand orphans in the republic.

During the years of occupation, Belarus lost half of its national wealth. Energy capacity and 90% of the machine park were almost completely destroyed, crop areas were reduced by 40%, and about 3 million people were left without housing. 6,177 and partially 2,648 school buildings, 40 universities, 24 scientific institutions, 4,756 theaters and clubs, 1,377 hospitals and outpatient clinics, 2,188 children's institutions, more than 10 thousand were completely destroyed. industrial enterprises. 10 thousand collective farms and 92 state farms were plundered.