Participation of Local Administration Bodies of Provisional Military Administration and Reichskommissariat ‘Ukraine’ in Ensuring Holocaust Measures (1941-1944)

Abstract

The purpose of the research paper is to uncover the role and significance of local administration bodies that were established on the territories under the control of the Provisional Military Administration (PMA) and the Reichskommissariat ‘Ukraine’ (RKU) in ensuring the Holocaust policy. Scientific novelty is based on the original documentary sources analysis. It is determined that the employees of local administration bodies in the German occupation zones of Ukraine, even against their will, took an active part in various forms of preparation and technical support for actions to exterminate Jews, their persecution by the authorities, and looting of the property belonging to them. Conclusions. In the territories under the control of the PMA and the RKU, local administration bodies were established, which, although not unified, were still typical institutions of occupation administration. Despite the unequal organizational structure, local administration bodies had to perform all the tasks assigned by the German authorities. In the practical activity of those authorities, there were no repressive and punitive functions, but it was their staff who had to provide the measures that were the basis of the Holocaust policy, which was consistently and all-out conducted by the Nazis in occupied Ukraine. Performing the functions of the occupation administration, the employees of the local administration bodies of the PMA and the RKU took an active part in both the preparatory measures and the purely technical support of actions for the extermination of the Jews. With the assistance of the local administrative staff members, the German authorities managed to settle the matter of registration and identification of the Jewish population, establish an effective system of control over issuing personal documents, as well as search and selection of places for conducting the massacres. Without their active participation, the Nazis would not have been able to organize actions of extermination people so quickly, as well as to identify systematically those who managed to avoid death and were hiding from the persecution of the German occupiers. Also quite actively, some employees of local administration bodies participated in propagandistic provision and justification of massacres of the Jews in Ukraine. Local authorities took part in the redistribution of property that belonged to the killed Jews. A great part of the former Jewish property, with the permission of the German authorities, was given to the local authorities, and the funds received after its sale were transferred to the bank accounts of the local authorities and used to finance their activities. At the same time, many employees of local administration bodies, using their official position, tried to obtain part of the property of people who had already been killed.