Patterns of Recruitment and Deportation of the Stary Oskol District Inhabitants during German Occupation

УДК 94(47)«1941–1945»

DOI 10.28995/2073-0101-2019-4-1102-1114

Vladimir I. Kovalev

Gubkin Branch of the V. G. Shukhov Belgorod State Technological University, Gubkin, Russian Federation

Patterns of Recruitment and Deportation of the Stary Oskol District Inhabitants during German Occupation

Abstract

The article studies relations of the Stary Oskol district civilian population with the German and Hungarian military command organizations and the local collaborationist administration on transfer of young workers to Germany. The blitzkrieg having failed, Nazi Germany needed cheap labor provided by occupied Soviet territories. Having analyzed the existing documentary material, the author concludes that the Stary Oskol district administration and its city council, assisted by foremen and village elders, failed to organize a full scale recruitment campaign and deportation of civilian population to work in Germany. The idea of recruiting and driving civilians to work in Germany is formulated by the author clearly and convincingly. The article discusses the local collaborationist authorities’ plan and practice of reducing or abolishing capitation tax for those who went to work in Germany voluntarily. The paper proves that the majority of the Stary Oskol district residents were driven to work in Germany by force. The author analyzes age requirements for deported residents from Stary Oskol, suburban settlements, and villages. The article is valuable because its author tries to rethink the process of recruitment and transfer of civilians from the Stary Oskol district during the occupation. The great advantage of the work is that a significant part of archival documents is introduced into scientific use for the first time. The article expands the notions of national historiography on the activities of local collaborationist administration in recruitment and forced deportation of Soviet citizens to work in Germany. The novelty of the research is that it is the first study of patterns of recruitment and driving civilians of a particular area to work in Germany during 7 months of occupation.

Keywords

Historical sources, archival document, recruitment, deportation, settlement, rural management, elder, collaboration, Starooskol'skiy district.

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References

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About author

Kovalev Vladimir Ivanovich, PhD in History, associate professor, of Gubkin Branch of the V. G. Shukhov Belgorod State Technological University, Russian Federation, +7-908-789-30-52, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Submitted 13.02.2019, published (for citation):

KOVALEV, V. I. Osobennosti verbovki i ugona zhitelei Starooskol'skogo raiona v period germanskoi okkupatsii [Patterns of Recruitment and Deportation of the Stary Oskol District Inhabitants during German Occupation. In Russ.]. IN: Vestnik arhivista / Herald of an Archivist, 2019, no. 4, pp. 1102-1114. doi 10.28995/2073-0101-2019-4-1102-1114