Evacuation of the German Population from the Occupied Areas of the Leningrad Oblast in Winter — Spring 1942

Abstract

The article details the evacuation of the German population of occupied areas in the Leningrad Oblast in the winter-spring of 1942, especially planning, organization, and implementation by German authorities. The increase in the scale of the humanitarian catastrophe in many settlements of the region, as well as intensive fighting, forced the command of the 18th Army of the Wehrmacht to begin stage-by-stage evacuation of civilians from the front zone in late autumn of 1941. Those events also affected representatives of the German ethnic minority who were under the auspices of the occupation authorities. From January to April 1942, ethnic Germans were evacuated from the suburbs of Leningrad and a number of settlements in the region. That contingent of 3,749 people was temporarily placed in camps on the territory of Reichsgau of Danzig-West Prussia. Despite statements about the care of ethnic brethren, the attitude of the German authorities towards ethnic Germans from the USSR was largely utilitarian. Upon arrival in the Reich, the settlers were considered primarily as a resource for the Germanization of the annexed Polish territories. At the same time, ethnic Germans, from the position of national-socialist ideology, were not considered a homogeneous community. The value of each of them was determined during verification procedures.