Fortifications around Kiev

[dieseltaylor]

A truly linteresting site found by Cranky at WeBoB. A Ukrainian who has done a series on things in the Ukraine including her forays into Chernobyl

Rather touchingly someone is paying for the website for free because of the content.

http://www.kiddofspeed.com/

And this is the Kiev stories

http://www.theserpentswall.com/page1.html

[gautrek]

Very nice photos

[abneo3sierra]

Always considered it Hitler's worst error, to bring in the Party to be so cruel to the Ukrainians...a willing force that at first greeted the Wehrmacht as liberating heroes...if he had made use of that manpower pool, things likely would have been somewhat different in the long haul. Instead he persecuted them nearly as bad as Stalin did.

[Michael Emrys]

Always considered it Hitler's worst error, to bring in the Party to be so cruel to the Ukrainians...a willing force that at first greeted the Wehrmacht as liberating heroes...if he had made use of that manpower pool, things likely would have been somewhat different in the long haul. Instead he persecuted them nearly as bad as Stalin did.

That was the accepted wisdom for a long time. Further analysis suggests that a more lenient policy would not have done Hitler much good militarily. The plan was that the German army in the SU would live off the land as much as possible, which it did. Ukrainians were starving because of mainly of two things. One is that the German production, harvesting, and distribution of agricultural goods was inefficient. The other is that the bulk of what did get taken up went to the army, especially fodder for the horses. If the Germans had not taken it locally, they would have had to bring it in from outside, and the transportation system was already stressed.

Then there is the question of how many "Freedom Fighters" the Germans could have enlisted in Ukraine. Sure, they would want to be rid of the Communists, but that doesn't mean that they would have been enthusiastic supporters of the Reich. But even supposing that they had been, Germany would have had to arm and supply them, which gets us back to the stressed transportation system again. During the critical years 1941-43 Germany was not yet suffering such a manpower shortage that they would have been eager to flesh out their armies with yet more foreigners. Their experience with foreign allies to date was not that encouraging and would never improve except in rare instances.

None of this should be taken as any kind of justification for the cruel and barbaric practices of the Nazis here and in the other lands which they occupied. I just wanted to point out that there was little if any military incentive to change it.

Michael

[Stalins Organ]

I think one of the points is that if you get the civil population "on side" then agricultural production doesn't drop away, you don't need so many troops in rear areas and local "militias" can often take care of the smaller partisan groups that can survive in such conditions.

You also have less stress on the transport situation as civil transport and storage works more or less properly.

Directly recruiting people into the front line military is not necessarily the aim of "humane" policies.

the Lokot autonomy was such a "state" in occupied Russia.

Germans did not interfere in the affairs of the Lokot Autonomy as long as their transports were kept safe and the republic delivered the required food quotas to the Wehrmacht.

It supported a substantial military force (8-12,000 men including some armour & AA - the equiment mentioned is captured ex-sov, so not a drain on German production), was substantially free of partisan activity & existed until over-run by the Sov's

[Medex]

Thanks for the Kiev link. I enjoyed that. That girl has quite a sense of humor.