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140-574: Berezovca may refer to: Berezovca County, Transnistria , a territorial entity in Transnistria Governorate ( ro:Județul Berezovca, Transnistria ) Berezovca District, Berezovca County, Transnistria , a territorial entity in Transnistria Governorate ( ro:Raionul Berezovca, județul Berezovca ) Berezovca, a village in Calarașovca commune, Moldova [REDACTED] Topics referred to by

280-657: A border and commercial agreement addressing several open issues in January 1941. According to historian Robert Service , Joseph Stalin was convinced that the overall military strength of the Soviet Union was such that he had nothing to fear and anticipated an easy victory should Germany attack; moreover, Stalin believed that since the Germans were still fighting the British in the west, Hitler would be unlikely to open up

420-409: A de facto military rear area , Ion Antonescu ended the civilian administration of the region and dismissed Governor Alexianu. At the same time or roughly two weeks later (15 February 1944 ), the very name "Transnistria" was dropped; the region – now under General Gheorghe Potopeanu (from 1 February 1944 ) – officially became a territory under military administration. On 15 March 1944, Potopeanu ordered

560-606: A 12th-century Holy Roman Emperor and Crusader , put into action Nazi Germany's ideological goals of eradicating communism and conquering the western Soviet Union to repopulate it with Germans . The German Generalplan Ost aimed to use some of the conquered people as forced labour for the Axis war effort while acquiring the oil reserves of the Caucasus as well as the agricultural resources of various Soviet territories, including Ukraine and Byelorussia . Their ultimate goal

700-468: A German military attaché and sent word to Zhou Enlai . The Chinese maintain the tipoff helped Stalin make preparations, though little exists to confirm the Soviets made any real changes upon receiving the intelligence. In early 1941, Stalin's own intelligence services and American intelligence gave regular and repeated warnings of an impending German attack. Soviet spy Richard Sorge also gave Stalin

840-484: A German order establishing a boundary between Transnistria and the rear of Army Group South. The resulting territory was divided into 13 counties, each ruled by a high-ranking officer with the role of prefect. A county was further divided into raions, each raion being ruled by a praetor ( pretor ), who had much broader powers than the prefect. The entire region, forming a single Governorate, was led by one Governor, Gheorghe Alexianu. Transnistria's administrative configuration

980-470: A Soviet counteroffensive along with the remaining forces of the first echelon. But on 22 June 1941 the first echelon contained 171 divisions, numbering 2.6–2.9 million; and the second strategic echelon contained 57 divisions that were still mobilising, most of which were still understrength. The second echelon was undetected by German intelligence until days after the invasion commenced, in most cases only when German ground forces encountered them. At

1120-586: A Westwards salient created by the Dniester river, centered around Coșnița (today part of the Dubăsari District of the Republic of Moldova ). Today east of the Dniester there are only 237,785 Romance-speaking residents left, a small percentage of the overall population of the region, most of whom live in the actual Transnistria break-away republic . But historically they were the majority: according to

1260-590: A census in Transnistria and the ethnic structure was as follows: Romanian authorities used Transnistria as an "ethnic dump" for Jews and Roma from other regions of the country. Beginning in June 1942, Romanian authorities deported over 25,000 ethnic Roma from Bessarabia and Romania proper to Transnistria. During this same time period, over 90,000 Jews were deported from Bessarabia to Transnistria. The Romanian administration of Transnistria attempted to stabilize

1400-541: A figure greater than the number of Red Army soldiers killed in battle by then. German army commanders cast Jews as the major cause behind the " partisan struggle." The main guideline for German troops was "Where there's a partisan, there's a Jew, and where there's a Jew, there's a partisan" or "The partisan is where the Jew is." Many German troops viewed the war in Nazi terms and regarded their Soviet enemies as sub-human. After

1540-580: A front extending from the Arctic Ocean southward to the Black Sea , were all controlled by the OKH and organised into Army Norway , Army Group North , Army Group Centre and Army Group South , alongside three Luftflotten (air fleets, the air force equivalent of army groups) that supported the army groups: Luftflotte 1 for North, Luftflotte 2 for Centre and Luftflotte 4 for South. Army Norway

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1680-467: A key role in planning for Operation Barbarossa since both Jews and communists were considered equivalent enemies of the Nazi state. Nazi imperialist ambitions rejected the common humanity of both groups, declaring the supreme struggle for Lebensraum to be a Vernichtungskrieg ('war of annihilation'). On August 23, 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union signed a non-aggression pact in Moscow known as

1820-533: A larger country.". Civil service in Transnistria would paradoxically surpass in quality its counterpart within Romania itself. On 19 August 1941, Antonescu decreed the creation of the Romanian Administration in Transnistria. During the first week of the advance, in mid-August 1941, Romanian forces took over all of the region, except for a small area around Odessa , without a fight. At the time,

1960-682: A major escalation of World War II, both geographically and with the Anglo-Soviet Agreement , which brought the USSR into the Allied coalition . The operation opened up the Eastern Front , in which more forces were committed than in any other theatre of war in human history. The area saw some of history's largest battles, most horrific atrocities , and highest casualties (for Soviet and Axis forces alike), all of which influenced

2100-784: A memorandum to Hitler on the dangers of an invasion of the Soviet Union. They argued that the eastern territories ( Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic , the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic , the Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic , the Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic , and the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic ) would only end up as a further economic burden for Germany. It was further argued that

2240-575: A million Soviet Jews as part of the Holocaust . The failure of Operation Barbarossa reversed the fortunes of Nazi Germany. Operationally, German forces achieved significant victories and occupied some of the most important economic areas of the Soviet Union (mainly in Ukraine) and inflicted, as well as sustained, heavy casualties. The German offensive came to an end during the Battle of Moscow near

2380-625: A number far greater than the Germans had at their disposal. The Soviet Union had around 23,000 tanks available of which 14,700 were combat-ready. Around 11,000 tanks were in the western military districts that faced the German invasion force. Hitler later declared to some of his generals, "If I had known about the Russian tank strength in 1941 I would not have attacked". However, maintenance and readiness standards were very poor; ammunition and radios were in short supply, and many armoured units lacked

2520-460: A potential Soviet entry into the pact . After two days of negotiations in Berlin from 12 to 14 November 1940, Ribbentrop presented a draft treaty for a Soviet entry into the Axis. However, Hitler had no intention of allowing the Soviet Union into the Axis and in an order stated, "Political conversations designed to clarify the attitude of Russia in the immediate future have been started. Regardless of

2660-673: A racial war between the disciplined Germans and the Jewish, Romani and Slavic Untermenschen . An 'order from the Führer' stated that the paramilitary SS Einsatzgruppen , which closely followed the Wehrmacht ' s advance, were to execute all Soviet functionaries who were "less valuable Asiatics, Gypsies and Jews." Six months into the invasion of the Soviet Union, the Einsatzgruppen had murdered more than 500,000 Soviet Jews,

2800-512: A siege ensured. German forces were brought into the reinforce the attackers and eventually in October 1941 after two months of fighting, the Romanian army took control of the city. Casualties were significant with Romanian losses standing at 90,020 casualties. Once Romanian troops entered Odessa, they established the headquarters of two of their divisions in the local NKVD building. However,

2940-466: A strategically important railway hub. The Germans resisted at first, but ultimately conceded. Another point of contention was Antonescu's decision to create a civil administration for the region, directly subordinated to himself. This effectively removed the region's administration from Wehrmacht control. Although consternated, the Germans could only acquiesce. Initially, the railways in the region remained under German control. After months of negotiations,

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3080-626: A two-front war and subsequently delayed the reconstruction of defensive fortifications in the border regions. When German soldiers swam across the Bug River to warn the Red Army of an impending attack, they were shot as enemy agents. Some historians believe that Stalin, despite providing an amicable front to Hitler, did not wish to remain allies with Germany. Rather, Stalin might have had intentions to break off from Germany and proceed with his own campaign against Germany to be followed by one against

3220-467: A very narrow military view. Hillgruber argued that because these assumptions were shared by the entire military elite, Hitler was able to push through with a "war of annihilation" that would be waged in the most inhumane fashion possible with the complicity of "several military leaders," even though it was quite clear that this would be in violation of all accepted norms of warfare. Even so, in autumn 1940, some high-ranking German military officials drafted

3360-583: A war of Weltanschauungen ['worldviews']... totally a people's war, a racial war ". On 23 November, once World War II had already started, Hitler declared that "racial war has broken out and this war shall determine who shall govern Europe, and with it, the world". The racial policy of Nazi Germany portrayed the Soviet Union (and all of Eastern Europe) as populated by non-Aryan Untermenschen ('sub-humans'), ruled by Jewish Bolshevik conspirators. Hitler claimed in Mein Kampf that Germany's destiny

3500-572: Is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Transnistria Governorate Limited in the west by the Dniester river (separating it from Bessarabia ), in the east by the Southern Bug river (separating it from the German Reichskommissariat Ukraine ), and in the south by the Black Sea , it comprised the present-day region of Transnistria (which compared to

3640-512: The Einsatzgruppen were assigned to the Wehrmacht ' s units, which provided them with supplies such as gasoline and food, they were controlled by the RSHA. The official plan for Barbarossa assumed that the army groups would be able to advance freely to their primary objectives simultaneously, without spreading thin, once they had won the border battles and destroyed the Red Army's forces in

3780-533: The Donbas second, Moscow third;" but he consistently emphasized the destruction of the Red Army over the achievement of specific terrain objectives. Hitler believed Moscow to be of "no great importance" in the defeat of the Soviet Union and instead believed victory would come with the destruction of the Red Army west of the capital, especially west of the Western Dvina and Dnieper rivers, and this pervaded

3920-562: The German High Command began planning an invasion of the Soviet Union in July 1940 (under the code-name Operation Otto ). Over the course of the operation, over 3.8 million personnel of the Axis powers—the largest invasion force in the history of warfare —invaded the western Soviet Union, along a 2,900-kilometer (1,800 mi) front, with 600,000 motor vehicles and over 600,000 horses for non-combat operations. The offensive marked

4060-761: The Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa —who drowned in Asia Minor while leading the Third Crusade —was not dead but asleep, along with his knights, in a cave in the Kyffhäuser mountains in Thuringia , and would awaken in the hour of Germany's greatest need and restore the nation to its former glory. Originally, the invasion of the Soviet Union was codenamed Operation Otto (alluding to Holy Roman Emperor Otto

4200-506: The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact . A secret protocol to the pact outlined an agreement between Germany and the Soviet Union on the division of the eastern European border states between their respective " spheres of influence ," Soviet Union and Germany would partition Poland in the event of an invasion by Germany, and the Soviets would be allowed to overrun Finland , Estonia , Latvia and the region of Bessarabia . On 23 August 1939

4340-629: The Winter War against Finland in 1939–40 also convinced Hitler of a quick victory within a few months. Neither Hitler nor the General Staff anticipated a long campaign lasting into the winter and therefore, adequate preparations such as the distribution of warm clothing and winterisation of important military equipment like tanks and artillery, were not made. Further to Hitler's Directive, Göring's Green Folder , issued in March 1941, laid out

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4480-538: The majority of whom had nothing to do with the military action. A further number of Odessa Jews were deported to ghettos and concentration camps in the northern half of the region. A Soviet partisan movement was active in the Odessa catacombs from October 1941 to 1944 with varying levels of activity. Romanian troops attempted to flush the partisans out with chemical weapons and by sealing off as many exits as they could. The catacombs were never completely cleared, however

4620-503: The myth of the "clean Wehrmacht, " upholding its honor in the face of Hitler's fanaticism, the historian Jürgen Förster notes that "In fact, the military commanders were caught up in the ideological character of the conflict, and involved in its implementation as willing participants". Before and during the invasion of the Soviet Union, German troops were indoctrinated with anti-Bolshevik , anti-Semitic and anti-Slavic ideology via movies, radio, lectures, books, and leaflets. Likening

4760-432: The revised Julian calendar . The uncertain political status of Transnistria throughout the Romanian occupation meant no clear economic policy was implemented across Transnistria. In addition to the looting of industrial and agricultural resources, Transnistria served as a colony for cheap labor to be used in mines and to rebuild destroyed infrastructure. In spite of popular demand, the Romanian administration, following

4900-744: The 22 June start date was sufficient for the German offensive to reach Moscow by September. Antony Beevor wrote in 2012 about the delay caused by German attacks in the Balkans that "most [historians] accept that it made little difference" to the eventual outcome of Barbarossa. The Germans deployed one independent regiment, one separate motorised training brigade and 153 divisions for Barbarossa, which included 104 infantry, 19 panzer and 15 motorised infantry divisions in three army groups, nine security divisions to operate in conquered territories, four divisions in Finland and two divisions as reserve under

5040-754: The Bug River… In December 1941, Romanian troops, together with Ukrainian auxiliaries, massacred almost all the Jews in Bogdanovka; shootings continued for more than a week." Similar events occurred at the Domanovka and Akmechetka  [ uk ] camps, and (quoting the same source) " typhus -devastated Jews were crowded into the 'colony' in Mohyliv-Podilskyi ." Other camps, also with very high death rates, were at Pechora and Vapniarka ,

5180-628: The Eastern Front precluded it. Romanian opposition parties were against Romanian operations beyond Bessarabia and Bukovina. Two eminent political figures of the day, Iuliu Maniu and Constantin Brătianu , declared that "the Romanian people will never consent to the continuation of the struggle beyond our national borders." The territory was divided into 13 counties (sing. județ ). Below these were subdivisions named Municipiu , Oraș and Raion . In December, 1941 Romanian authorities conducted

5320-510: The German war effort by circumventing the British blockade of Germany . Despite the parties' ostensibly cordial relations, each side was highly suspicious of the other's intentions. For instance, the Soviet invasion of Bukovina in June 1940 went beyond their sphere of influence as agreed with Germany. After Germany entered the Axis Pact with Japan and Italy, it began negotiations about

5460-718: The German campaign in France, in late 1940 they began to reorganise most of their armoured assets back into mechanised corps with a target strength of 1,031 tanks each. But these large armoured formations were unwieldy, and moreover they were spread out in scattered garrisons, with their subordinate divisions up to 100 kilometres (62 miles) apart. The reorganisation was still in progress and incomplete when Barbarossa commenced. Soviet tank units were rarely well equipped, and they lacked training and logistical support. Units were sent into combat with no arrangements in place for refuelling, ammunition resupply, or personnel replacement. Often, after

5600-587: The German example, refused to disband the reviled kolkhozes . Nevertheless, former de-kulakized peasants did get back their houses, although in the cities real estate was not returned to its previous owners. The kolkhoz was renamed obște , and the sovkhozes were renamed "ferme de stat" (state farms). Most of Transnistria's agricultural output was produced by the kolkhozes. Roughly 53,000 railway cars of grain were brought from Transnistria to Romania between September 1942 and June 1943. Without these, as Ion Antonescu admitted, Romania "would have had an enormous crisis". By

5740-454: The Germans were fighting for "the defence of European culture against Moscovite–Asiatic inundation, and the repulse of Jewish Bolshevism ... No adherents of the present Russian-Bolshevik system are to be spared." Walther von Brauchitsch also told his subordinates that troops should view the war as a "struggle between two different races and [should] act with the necessary severity." Racial motivations were central to Nazi ideology and played

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5880-496: The Germans were unprepared. Following the heavy losses and logistical strain of Barbarossa, the Wehrmacht ' s diminished forces could no longer attack along the entire Eastern Front, and subsequent operations to retake the initiative and drive deep into Soviet territory—such as Case Blue in 1942 and Operation Citadel in 1943—were weaker and eventually failed, which resulted in the Wehrmacht ' s defeat. These Soviet victories ended Germany's territorial expansion and presaged

6020-579: The Great 's expansive campaigns in Eastern Europe), but Hitler had the name changed to Operation Barbarossa in December 1940. Hitler had in July 1937 praised Barbarossa as the emperor who first expressed Germanic cultural ideas and carried them to the outside world through his imperial mission. For Hitler, the name Barbarossa signified his belief that the conquest of the Soviet Union would usher in

6160-523: The Mobilisation Plan 1941 (MP-41), called for the deployment of 186 divisions, as the first strategic echelon, in the four military districts of the western Soviet Union that faced the Axis territories; and the deployment of another 51 divisions along the Dvina and Dnieper Rivers as the second strategic echelon under Stavka control, which in the case of a German invasion was tasked to spearhead

6300-532: The Nazi " Thousand-Year Reich ". As early as 1925, Adolf Hitler vaguely declared in his political manifesto and autobiography Mein Kampf that he would invade the Soviet Union , asserting that the German people needed to secure Lebensraum ('living space') to ensure the survival of Germany for generations to come. On 10 February 1939, Hitler told his army commanders that the next war would be "purely

6440-606: The Red Army took Nikolaev and the next day crossed the lower Bug river in force. On April 5, Razdelnaia fell, and therewith the Odessa-Tiraspol highway was cut. On the 19th, after a brief but bitter fight, the Red Army re-entered Odessa. On the April 12, Tiraspol was occupied, and four days later all Transnistria was again in Soviet hands. During the final days, the Germans concentrated on destruction in Odessa, since evacuation

6580-477: The Red Army was developed and promulgated in the 1936 Field Regulations in the form of the Deep Battle Concept . Defence expenditure also grew rapidly from just 12 percent of the gross national product in 1933 to 18 percent by 1940. During Joseph Stalin's Great Purge in the late 1930s, which had not ended by the time of the German invasion on 22 June 1941, much of the officer corps of the Red Army

6720-416: The Romanian government did not prepare to house thousands of people in Transnistria, where the deportees stayed. The people were instead placed in crude barracks without running water, electricity or latrines. Those who could not walk were simply left to die. In total, around 150 ghettos and camps functioned in Transnistria. In Odessa, between 80,000 and 90,000 of the city's roughly 180,000 Jews remained at

6860-528: The Romanians had 60,000 soldiers to conquer the city from its 34,000 defenders. However, the organization was so poor, and the command was so superficial, that the initial assault on the city failed, resulting in a siege . Exploiting this success, the Soviets bolstered the cities defenses with naval marines, warships and paratroopers. Multiple attempts by the Romanian Fourth Army failed and

7000-455: The Soviet Union in Mein Kampf and Hitler's belief that the Red Army would need four years to ready itself. Stalin declared "we must be ready much earlier" and "we will try to delay the war for another two years". As early as August 1940, British intelligence had received hints of German plans to attack the Soviets a week after Hitler informally approved the plans for Barbarossa and warned the Soviet Union accordingly. Some of this intelligence

7140-666: The Soviet Union regained the area in spring 1944, and the Soviet Army advanced into the territory driving out the Axis forces, many thousands of Romanians/Vlachs of Transnistria were killed in those months and deported to gulags in the following years. So, a political campaign was directed towards the rich Moldavian peasant families, which were deported to Kazakhstan and Siberia as well. For instance, in just two days, July 6 and July 7, 1949, over 11,342 Moldavian families (more than 40,000 inhabitants of Ukraine Oblasts) were deported by

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7280-474: The Soviet Union's "most important and strongest enemy," and as early as July 1940, the Red Army Chief of Staff, Boris Shaposhnikov , produced a preliminary three-pronged plan of attack for what a German invasion might look like, remarkably similar to the actual attack. Since April 1941, the Germans had begun setting up Operation Haifisch and Operation Harpune to substantiate their claims that Britain

7420-605: The Soviet Union. With regards to Operation Barbarossa , Antonescu accepted Hitler's ideas that the conflict was a "race war" between the Aryans, represented by the Nordic Germans and Latin Romanians on the Axis side vs. the Slavs and Asians, commanded by the Jews on the Soviet side. Romania in turn committed two armies for the invasion of the Soviet Union, totaling over 300,000 troops between them. For their commitment, Romania

7560-549: The Soviet border even before the campaign in the Balkans had finished. By the third week of February 1941, 680,000 German soldiers were gathered in assembly areas on the Romanian-Soviet border. In preparation for the attack, Hitler had secretly moved upwards of 3 million German troops and approximately 690,000 Axis soldiers to the Soviet border regions. Additional Luftwaffe operations included numerous aerial surveillance missions over Soviet territory many months before

7700-463: The Soviet regime's brutality when targeting the Slavs with propaganda. They also claimed that the Red Army was preparing to attack the Germans , and their own invasion was thus presented as a pre-emptive strike. Hitler also utilised the rising tension between the Soviet Union and Germany over territories in the Balkans as one of the pretexts for the invasion. While no concrete plans had yet been made, Hitler told one of his generals in June 1940 that

7840-550: The Soviets to the forces of Genghis Khan , Hitler told the Croatian military leader Slavko Kvaternik that the "Mongolian race" threatened Europe. Following the invasion, many Wehrmacht officers told their soldiers to target people who were described as "Jewish Bolshevik subhumans," the "Mongol hordes," the "Asiatic flood" and the "Red beast." Nazi propaganda portrayed the war against the Soviet Union as an ideological war between German National Socialism and Jewish Bolshevism and

7980-461: The Soviets, in their current bureaucratic form, were harmless and that the occupation would not benefit Germany politically either. Hitler, solely focused on his ultimate ideological goal of eliminating the Soviet Union and Communism, disagreed with economists about the risks and told his right-hand man Hermann Göring , the chief of the Luftwaffe , that he would no longer listen to misgivings about

8120-685: The World War II whole is only a small strip along the bank of the Dniester) and territories further east (modern Odesa Oblast eastward of the Dniester, southern Vinnytsia Oblast and a small part of Mykolaiv Oblast ), including the Black Sea port of Odesa , which became the administrative capital of Transnistria during World War II. In World War II, the Kingdom of Romania , persuaded and aided by Nazi Germany , took control of Transnistria for

8260-428: The agenda for the next step after the anticipated quick conquest of the Soviet Union. The Hunger Plan outlined how entire urban populations of conquered territories were to be starved to death, thus creating an agricultural surplus to feed Germany and urban space for the German upper class. Nazi policy aimed to destroy the Soviet Union as a political entity in accordance with the geopolitical Lebensraum ideals for

8400-399: The annexation of the eastern part of the country. As a result of the pact, Germany and the Soviet Union maintained reasonably strong diplomatic relations for two years and fostered an important economic relationship . The countries entered a trade pact in 1940 by which the Soviets received German military equipment and trade goods in exchange for raw materials, such as oil and wheat, to help

8540-400: The attack. Although the Soviet High Command was alarmed by this, Stalin's belief that Nazi Germany was unlikely to attack only two years after signing the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact resulted in slow Soviet preparation. This fact aside, the Soviets did not entirely overlook the threat of their German neighbor. Well before the German invasion, Marshal Semyon Timoshenko referred to the Germans as

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8680-447: The benefit of future generations of the " Nordic master race ". In 1941, Nazi ideologue Alfred Rosenberg —later appointed Reich Minister of the Occupied Eastern Territories—suggested that conquered Soviet territory should be administered in the following Reichskommissariate ('Reich Commissionerships'): German military planners also researched Napoleon's failed invasion of Russia . In their calculations, they concluded that there

8820-441: The best food, health and education situation within Axis-occupied Eastern Europe. Under Romanian rule, religious and cultural revivals were permitted, prisoners of war were released and many local Communists were amnestied. This leniency eased local hostility to Romanian occupation after the terror of 1941, also undermining Soviet attempts to recruit partisans. Even while the retreating Romanians were looting Transnistria in March 1944,

8960-412: The border area. In 1930, Mikhail Tukhachevsky , a prominent military theorist in tank warfare in the interwar period and later Marshal of the Soviet Union , forwarded a memo to the Kremlin that lobbied for colossal investment in the resources required for the mass production of weapons, pressing the case for "40,000 aircraft and 50,000 tanks." In the early 1930s, a modern operational doctrine for

9100-447: The building was mined by the Soviets, who blew it up, killing over 61 troops, including 16 officers and one general. In reprisal, Ion Antonescu ordered the arrest and massacre of civilians suspected of aiding the Red Army. When it became clear that identifying individuals directly responsible for the incident would be almost impossible, Antonescu ordered the shooting of Jews. The massacre that followed resulted in 100,000 civilians killed,

9240-408: The bulk of the residents had stayed in the region. People feared Soviet repressions, but "there was no other way out", according to German sources. It is worth noting however, that there was still a very small piece of Transnistrian territory still left under Romanian rule as late as August 1944, according to an OKH map depicting the situation on the Romanian front as of 20 August. This area comprised

9380-517: The course of World War II and the subsequent history of the 20th century . The German armies eventually captured five million Soviet Red Army troops and deliberately starved to death or otherwise killed 3.3 million Soviet prisoners of war, and millions of civilians, as the " Hunger Plan " worked to solve German food shortages and exterminate the Slavic population through starvation. Mass shootings and gassing operations , carried out by German death squads or willing collaborators, murdered over

9520-463: The creation of Transnistria was signed on 19 August, at Tiraspol . It is known as the Tiraspol Agreement . This treaty was consolidated by a convention signed at Tighina on 30 August (the Tighina Agreement ), which however did not clearly define the northern borders of Transnistria. Antonescu claimed the northern towns of Mohyliv-Podilskyi , Zhmerynka and Tulchyn , a request to which Hitler acceded. The final borders were recognized on 4 September, in

9660-430: The creation of military units. Beginning in July 1940, the Red Army General Staff developed war plans that identified the Wehrmacht as the most dangerous threat to the Soviet Union, and that in the case of a war with Germany, the Wehrmacht ' s main attack would come through the region north of the Pripyat Marshes into Belorussia, which later proved to be correct. Stalin disagreed, and in October, he authorised

9800-419: The development of new plans that assumed a German attack would focus on the region south of Pripyat Marshes towards the economically vital regions in Ukraine. This became the basis for all subsequent Soviet war plans and the deployment of their armed forces in preparation for the German invasion. In the Soviet Union, speaking to his generals in December 1940, Stalin mentioned Hitler's references to an attack on

9940-491: The direct control of OKH . These were equipped with 6,867 armoured vehicles, of which 3,350–3,795 were tanks, 2,770–4,389 aircraft (that amounted to 65 percent of the Luftwaffe ), 7,200–23,435 artillery pieces, 17,081 mortars, about 600,000 motor vehicles and 625,000–700,000 horses. Finland slated 14 divisions for the invasion, and Romania offered 13 divisions and eight brigades over the course of Barbarossa. The entire Axis forces, 3.8 million personnel, deployed across

10080-457: The dissemination of the Nazi racial plan, as he informed the 4th Panzer Group that the war against the Soviet Union was "an essential part of the German people's struggle for existence" ( Daseinskampf ), also referring to the imminent battle as the "old struggle of Germans against Slavs" and even stated, "the struggle must aim at the annihilation of today's Russia and must, therefore, be waged with unparalleled harshness." Hoepner also added that

10220-476: The dual purpose of increasing German military supplies and depriving millions of supposedly racially inferior Eastern Europeans. The Romanians never even thought along these lines. Odessa was never cut off from its rural hinterland. Such abundance relative to German-occupied areas was not necessarily limited to Odessa. In early January 1944, Tiger Tank Battalion 503 assembled at Zhmerynka , a town in Transnistria. The Germans were pleasantly surprised to find beer in

10360-469: The economic dangers of a war with the USSR. It is speculated that this was passed on to General Georg Thomas , who had produced reports that predicted a net economic drain for Germany in the event of an invasion of the Soviet Union unless its economy was captured intact and the Caucasus oilfields seized in the first blow; Thomas revised his future report to fit Hitler's wishes. The Red Army's ineptitude in

10500-490: The end of 1941, and the subsequent Soviet winter counteroffensive pushed the Germans about 250 km (160 mi) back. German high command anticipated a quick collapse of Soviet resistance as in the invasion of Poland , analogous to the reaction Russia had during World War I, but instead the Red Army absorbed the German Wehrmacht ' s strongest blows and bogged it down in a war of attrition for which

10640-540: The end of March 1944, the Romanian administration had reopened 335 of the 946 prewar factories, their products being directed primarily towards the Romanian war effort. By the fall of 1943, a total of 1,593 km (990 miles) of railway tracks had been restored. The Romanian policy encouraged private enterprise. By 31 August 1943, Odessa alone had issued 8,610 licenses for economic activity, including: 1,256 groceries, 1,062 restaurants/cafes and 171 "small industries" such as soap factories. An Odessan named Mikhail Dmitrievich Manuilov

10780-472: The end of the month, the Romanians had lost control over the region's northern counties. Partisans, along with the Germans and their Cossack auxiliaries, frequently attacked Romanian officials of all ranks and commandeered their vehicles. Romanian gendarmes, severely outnumbered and in fear for their lives, remained in their quarters. The pretor of Trostineț raion was killed by German soldiers. On 29 January 1944, on account of Transnistria's transformation into

10920-472: The eventual defeat and collapse of Nazi Germany in 1945. The theme of Barbarossa had long been used by the Nazi Party as part of their political imagery, though this was really a continuation of the glorification of the famous Crusader king by German nationalists since the 19th century. According to a Germanic medieval legend, revived in the 19th century by the nationalistic tropes of German Romanticism ,

11060-475: The exact German launch date, but Sorge and other informers had previously given different invasion dates that passed peacefully before the actual invasion. Stalin acknowledged the possibility of an attack in general and therefore made significant preparations, but decided not to run the risk of provoking Hitler. In early 1941, Stalin authorised the State Defence Plan 1941 (DP-41), which along with

11200-630: The first time in history. In August 1941, Adolf Hitler persuaded Ion Antonescu to take control of the territory as a substitute for Northern Transylvania , occupied by Miklós Horthy 's Hungary following the Second Vienna Award . Despite the Romanian administration, the Kingdom of Romania did not formally incorporate Transnistria into its administrative framework; the Nazi-friendly Antonescu government hoped to annex

11340-417: The general population, food in Transnistria was very scarce, through lack of Romanian planning. According to one survivor's account, people would gather outside a slaughterhouse and wait for scraps of meat, skin and bones to be thrown out of the slaughterhouse after the cleaning each morning. He remembers that they were fighting for the bones "just like dogs would" and that people were starving to death. Among

11480-409: The impact of these partisan movements were not significant. The borders of Transnistria were for the most part natural and self-evident: the Black Sea (south) along with the rivers Bug (east) and Nistru (west). The problem of Transnistria's northern border caused some friction between the Germans and Romanians. The latter wanted to push the border north of the town of Zhmerynka (Romanian: Jmerinca),

11620-506: The invasion. Buell adds that an unusually wet winter kept rivers at full flood until late spring. The floods may have discouraged an earlier attack, even if they occurred before the end of the Balkans Campaign. The importance of the delay is still debated. William Shirer argued that Hitler's Balkan Campaign had delayed the commencement of Barbarossa by several weeks and thereby jeopardised it. Many later historians argue that

11760-666: The latter reserved for Jewish political prisoners deported from Romania proper. Many Jews died of exposure, starvation, or disease during the deportations to Transnistria or after arrival. Others were murdered by Romanian or German units, either in Transnistria or after being driven across the Bug River into the German-occupied Ukraine. Most of the Jews who were sent to the camps in Transnistria never returned. Those who survived, around 70,000, returned to Romania in 1945 to find that they had lost their houses. Even for

11900-564: The latter to take over the administration between the Dniester and the Dnieper . Antonescu replied three days later, stating that he could only assume responsibility for the area between the Dniester and the Bug, due to lacking "the means and trained staff". The Romanian leader was however willing to supply security troops for the area between the Bug and the Dnieper. The German-Romanian agreement for

12040-412: The local bazaar, along with other wares that they had not seen in a long time. In 1943, Transnistrian factories, located mainly in and around Odessa, reported a 76% increase in their industrial output. Roughly 37% of this industry was privatized . A shortage of cash along with inflation resulted in the emergence of barter as the primary form of trade. On 14 August 1941, Hitler wrote to Antonescu, asking

12180-598: The local partisans were unable to mobilize civilian support. Orthodox churches of Transnistria fell into the jurisdiction of the Romanian Orthodox Church . Under the leadership of Metropolitan bishop Visarion Puiu , the Romanian Orthodox Church in addition to opening all churches closed by Soviet authorities, set up three hundred new churches across Transnistria. Romanian clergy removed all Church Slavonic material and implemented

12320-569: The negotiations differently and were willing to make huge economic concessions to secure a relationship under general terms acceptable to the Germans just a year before. On 25 November 1940, the Soviet Union offered a written counter-proposal to join the Axis if Germany would agree to refrain from interference in the Soviet Union's sphere of influence, but Germany did not respond. As both sides began colliding with each other in Eastern Europe, conflict appeared more likely, although they did sign

12460-568: The non-German populations in the East. Himmler believed the Germanisation process in Eastern Europe would be complete when "in the East dwell only men with truly German, Germanic blood." The Nazi secret plan Generalplan Ost , prepared in 1941 and confirmed in 1942, called for a "new order of ethnographical relations" in the territories occupied by Nazi Germany in Eastern Europe. It envisaged ethnic cleansing , executions and enslavement of

12600-459: The officers dismissed during the Great Purge were reinstated by 1941. Also, between January 1939 and May 1941, 161 new divisions were activated. Therefore, although about 75 percent of all the officers had been in their position for less than one year at the start of the German invasion of 1941, many of the short tenures can be attributed not only to the purge but also to the rapid increase in

12740-694: The operation was to be carried out. Hitler also renamed the operation to Barbarossa in honor of medieval Emperor Friedrich I of the Holy Roman Empire, a leader of the Third Crusade in the 12th century. The Barbarossa Decree , issued by Hitler on 30 March 1941, supplemented the Directive by decreeing that the war against the Soviet Union would be one of annihilation and legally sanctioned the eradication of all Communist political leaders and intellectual elites in Eastern Europe. The invasion

12880-578: The operational objective of any invasion of the Soviet Union. This assault would extend from the northern city of Arkhangelsk on the Arctic Sea through Gorky and Rostov to the port city of Astrakhan at the mouth of the Volga on the Caspian Sea . The report concluded that—once established—this military border would reduce the threat to Germany from attacks by enemy bombers . Although Hitler

13020-706: The order of the Minister of State Security, I. L. Mordovets, under a plan named "Operation South". The Census statistics for Romanian-speaking population in territories east of the Dniester river are the following: Operation Barbarossa Frontline strength (22 June 1941) Frontline strength (22 June 1941) Total military casualties: 1,000,000+ According to German Army medical reports (including Army Norway ): Other involved country losses Total military casualties: 4,500,000 Based on Soviet archives: Phase 1 Phase 2 Phase 3 Phase 4 Air war Operation Barbarossa

13160-453: The outcome of these conversations, all preparations for the East previously ordered orally are to be continued. [Written] directives on that will follow as soon as the basic elements of the army's plan for the operation have been submitted to me and approved by me." There would be no "long-term agreement with Russia" given that the Nazis intended to go to war with them; but the Soviets approached

13300-516: The plan for Barbarossa. This belief later led to disputes between Hitler and several German senior officers, including Heinz Guderian , Gerhard Engel , Fedor von Bock and Franz Halder , who believed the decisive victory could only be delivered at Moscow. They were unable to sway Hitler, who had grown overconfident in his own military judgment as a result of the rapid successes in Western Europe. The Germans had begun massing troops near

13440-630: The populations of conquered countries, with very small percentages undergoing Germanisation, expulsion into the depths of Russia or other fates, while the conquered territories would be Germanised. The plan had two parts, the Kleine Planung ('small plan'), which covered actions to be taken during the war and the Große Planung ('large plan'), which covered policies after the war was won, to be implemented gradually over 25 to 30 years. A speech given by General Erich Hoepner demonstrates

13580-580: The port of Odessa from the Germans. From early October 1942 to the end of their rule over the region, the Romanians had no major problems with the Germans. Albeit not annexing the region outright, the Romanian Antonescu government organized the territory in the Guvernământul Transnistriei under Romanian governor, Gheorghe Alexianu . The Nazi-allied Antonescu government hoped to annex the territory eventually, but developments on

13720-556: The railways were taken over by the Romanian State in March 1942. The Romanians initially agreed to leave the port of Odessa under German control. This was because there were not enough Romanian engineers to repair the Soviet-inflicted damage. According to Antonescu, Hitler asked his permission to let the Germans use the port, implying recognition for Romania's sovereignty. On 10 June 1942, the Romanians gained control of

13860-412: The rapid defeat of France at the hands of the "invincible" Wehrmacht and by traditional German stereotypes of Russia as a primitive, backward "Asiatic" country. Red Army soldiers were considered brave and tough, but the officer corps was held in contempt. The leadership of the Wehrmacht paid little attention to politics, culture, and the considerable industrial capacity of the Soviet Union, in favour of

14000-539: The region. On 7 December 1941, the University of Odessa was reopened with 6 faculties – medicine, polytechnical, law, sciences, languages and agricultural engineering. The Romanian policy of security during 1942–1943 was successful in keeping Transnistria pacified. The ruthless methods applied by the Germans elsewhere were less successful, as evidenced by the attempts of refugees to escape from German to Romanian jurisdiction. Romanian policies in Transnistria amounted to

14140-458: The remaining Jews in Bessarabia (84,000 of 105,000) and northern Bukovina (36,000 of 60,000) were herded into these as well. A striking paradox is the fact that most of Romanian Jews (375,000) under Antonescu regime survived WW2. The Holocaust Encyclopedia ( United States Holocaust Memorial Museum ) writes that "Among the most notorious of these ghettos… was Bogdanovka , on the west bank of

14280-509: The rest of Europe. Other historians contend that Stalin did not plan for such an attack in June 1941, given the parlous state of the Red Army at the time of the invasion. Stalin's reputation as a brutal dictator contributed both to the Nazis' justification of their assault and to their expectations of success, as Stalin's Great Purge of the 1930s had executed many competent and experienced military officers, leaving Red Army leadership weaker than their German adversary. The Nazis often emphasized

14420-667: The rest of the Royal Romanian Air Force . The following aircraft comprised the Transnistrian air section: Responsibility for the Holocaust in Odessa and Transnistria at large was squarely Romania's, the only country aside from Germany to administer a major Soviet city during World War II. Odessa – at the time, one of the greatest centers of Jewish life and culture in Europe – had been rendered virtually judenrein , despite its population being one third Jewish at

14560-513: The rest of the world learned of this pact but were unaware of the provisions to partition Poland. The pact stunned the world because of the parties' earlier mutual hostility and their conflicting ideologies . The conclusion of this pact was followed by the German invasion of Poland on 1 September that triggered the outbreak of World War II in Europe , then the Soviet invasion of Poland that led to

14700-738: The results of the Russian census (quoted in Romanian sources) of 1793, 49 villages out of 67 between the Dniester and the Southern Bug were Romanian. And further east of the Transnistria Governorate there were many neo-Latin communities: indeed the Romanians/Moldavians in Ukraine – east of the Bug river – were calculated by a German census to be nearly 780.000 (probably an excessive number), and were made plans to move them to Transnistria in 1942/43. But nothing

14840-515: The role of political commissars at the divisional level and below to oversee the political loyalty of the army to the regime. The commissars held a position equal to that of the commander of the unit they were overseeing. But in spite of efforts to ensure the political subservience of the armed forces, in the wake of Red Army's poor performance in Poland and in the Winter War, about 80 percent of

14980-427: The same term This disambiguation page lists articles about distinct geographical locations with the same name. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Berezovca&oldid=1022104184 " Category : Place name disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description

15120-512: The situation in the region during the occupation. To this end, it opened all churches, previously closed down by the Soviets. During 1942–1943, 2,200 primary schools were organized in the region, including 1,677 Ukrainian, 311 Romanian, 150 Russian, 70 German, and 6 Bulgarian. 117 middle and high schools were opened, including 65 middle schools, 29 technical high schools, and 23 academic high schools. Theaters were opened in Odessa and Tiraspol, as well as several museums, libraries, and cinemas throughout

15260-581: The southern section was in Romania. The German forces in the rear (mostly Waffen-SS and Einsatzgruppen units) were to operate in conquered territories to counter any partisan activity in areas they controlled, as well as to execute captured Soviet political commissars and Jews. On 17 June, Reich Security Main Office (RSHA) chief Reinhard Heydrich briefed around thirty to fifty Einsatzgruppen commanders on "the policy of eliminating Jews in Soviet territories, at least in general terms". While

15400-456: The start of World War II. Many Jews were deported to Transnistria from Bessarabia and Bukovina . During the period 1941–1944, 200,000 Romani people and Jews became victims of the Romanian occupation of Transnistria. Not being Romanian territory, Transnistria was used as a killing field for the extermination of Jews. Survivors say that in comparison with the Holocaust of Nazi Germany , where deportations were carefully planned,

15540-553: The start of the invasion, the manpower of the Soviet military force that had been mobilised was 5.3–5.5 million, and it was still increasing as the Soviet reserve force of 14 million, with at least basic military training, continued to mobilise. The Red Army was dispersed and still preparing when the invasion commenced. Their units were often separated and lacked adequate transportation. While transportation remained insufficient for Red Army forces, when Operation Barbarossa kicked off, they possessed some 33,000 pieces of artillery,

15680-656: The survivors were Liviu Librescu and Norman Manea . Antonescu, in a government meeting showed intentions to deport all Jews behind the Ural Mountains if it would be possible: "I have about 10,000 Jews left in Bessarabia, who in a few days will be taken across the Dniester, and if circumstances will allow, they will be taken beyond the Urals". The process of disintegration of Romanian rule in Transnistria started to unfold almost as soon as 1944 began. German operative troops entered northern Transnistria in January 1944. By

15820-464: The territory eventually, but developments on the Eastern Front precluded it. Following the Soviet occupation of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina , a strong concentration of Soviet troops became present on the border with Romania. Nazi Germany wanted Romania as an ally in the war against the Soviet Union for fear that the Soviets were a threat to the Romanian oilfields. Romania in turn aligned their foreign policy with Germany for an assurance against

15960-470: The time the Germans and Romanians captured the city on October 16, 1941. Six days later, a bomb exploded in the Romanian military headquarters in Odessa, prompting a massacre of Jews; many were burned alive. In October and November 1941 alone, Romanian troops in Odessa killed about 30,000 Jews. Transnistria was the site of two concentration camps and several de facto ghettos (which the Romanian wartime government referred to as "colonies"). In addition, most of

16100-500: The trucks for supplies. The most advanced Soviet tank models—the KV-1 and T-34 —which were superior to all current German tanks, as well as all designs still in development as of the summer 1941, were not available in large numbers at the time the invasion commenced. Furthermore, in the autumn of 1939, the Soviets disbanded their mechanised corps and partly dispersed their tanks to infantry divisions; but following their observation of

16240-534: The use of forced labour to stimulate Germany's overall economy and the expansion of territory to improve Germany's efforts to isolate the United Kingdom. Hitler was further convinced that Britain would sue for peace once the Germans triumphed in the Soviet Union, and if they did not, he would use the resources gained in the East to defeat the British Empire . We only have to kick in the door and

16380-506: The victories in Western Europe finally freed his hands for a "final showdown" with Bolshevism. With the successful end to the campaign in France , General Erich Marcks was assigned the task of drawing up the initial invasion plans of the Soviet Union. The first battle plans were entitled Operation Draft East (colloquially known as the Marcks Plan ). His report advocated the A-A line as

16520-526: The war began, the Nazis issued a ban on sexual relations between Germans and foreign slaves . There were regulations enacted against the Ost-Arbeiter ('Eastern workers') that included the death penalty for sexual relations with a German. Heinrich Himmler , in his secret memorandum, Reflections on the Treatment of Peoples of Alien Races in the East (dated 25 May 1940), outlined the Nazi plans for

16660-562: The war. However, Antonescu's stubborn insistence eventually swayed the Germans. While refusing to declare Transnistria's annexation, Antonescu instructed its Governor to work in Transnistria "as if Romania had been installed in those territories for two million years". Part of Romania's grand strategy was to use Transnistria as a bargaining chip at the end of the war to obtain various gains, from Russia or Ukraine or possibly from Germany and Hungary. Romania's immediate aims, however, stemmed from Ion Antonescu's acute inferiority complex. His perception

16800-419: The whole rotten structure will come crashing down. Hitler received the final military plans for the invasion on 5 December 1940, which the German High Command had been working on since July 1940, under the codename "Operation Otto." Upon reviewing the plans, Hitler formally committed Germany to the invasion when he issued Führer Directive 21 on 18 December 1940, where he outlined the precise manner in which

16940-547: The withdrawal of all remaining personnel from the region. The last Romanian-perpetrated massacre during the Holocaust in Transnistria also took place on 15 March 1944, when Romanian gendarmes killed 4 Jews in Slobidka . Shortly before being liberated by the Red Army, Transnistria's urban centers were transferred from Romanian to German control: Bershad roughly 1 week before its liberation, Balta and Zhmerynka both on 16 March and Tiraspol on 19 March. The Romanian mayor of Odessa

17080-411: Was a financial specialist employed by the Soviets and Romanians alike. Although he despised both, he asserted in his postwar memoirs that "life in Odessa gradually improved and its situation was in stark contrast to the situation in the other cities, which were under the German occupation". In their zones of occupation, the Germans practiced a policy of isolating bigger cities from the countryside. This had

17220-405: Was based on Ultra information obtained from broken Enigma traffic. But Stalin's distrust of the British led him to ignore their warnings in the belief that they were a trick designed to bring the Soviet Union into the war on their side. Soviet intelligence also received word of an invasion around 20 June from Mao Zedong whose spy, Yan Baohang, had overheard talk of the plans at a dinner with

17360-432: Was deposed by the Germans on 24 March, being replaced by a Russian engineer and German collaborator named Petrushkov. The Germans officially took over the region on 1 April 1944. The Red Army entered Transnistria on 14 March 1944, taking the town of Bershad . Tulchyn followed on 15 March, Mohyliv-Podilskyi on 20 March, Balta on 29 March and Rîbnița on 30 March. Yampil was liberated on 17 March 1944. Zhmerynka

17500-438: Was done. A far more likely figure was that given by a Romanian daily in March 1943. It reported that, as of the summer of 1942, 23,000 Moldavian families had been located in Soviet territory east of the Bug (under German occupation). A group of these had been made to make records of their folk music "in order to preserve proof of the permanence of the Romanian element in the distant East" (Universul, March 15, 1943). Indeed, when

17640-585: Was executed or imprisoned. Many of their replacements, appointed by Stalin for political reasons, lacked military competence. Of the five Marshals of the Soviet Union appointed in 1935, only Kliment Voroshilov and Semyon Budyonny survived Stalin's purge. Tukhachevsky was killed in 1937. Fifteen of 16 army commanders, 50 of the 57 corps commanders, 154 of the 186 divisional commanders, and 401 of 456 colonels were killed, and many other officers were dismissed. In total, about 30,000 Red Army personnel were executed. Stalin further underscored his control by reasserting

17780-439: Was impossible. Port installations, some industrial facilities, and transportation junctions were blown up (even the electric power plant, various mills, stores of bread, sugar, and other foods were destroyed). Of Odessa's population, scarcely 200,000 remained; many had hidden in the vicinity while some had sought safety in the countryside. And some had left westward with the Romanians and Germans: only those most compromised had left;

17920-475: Was liberated by the Red Army on 21 March. Pervomaisk (of which Golta was a part) was taken on 22 March, followed by Ochakiv on 31 March. The Soviets reached Berezivka on 31 March. On 1 April, Governor Potopeanu was deposed by the Germans and what remained of Transnistria (the 5 administrative centers not yet liberated by the Red Army as of 1 April: Ananiv , Odessa , Ovidiopol , Tiraspol and Dubăsari ) came under official German control. On March 28,

18060-502: Was little danger of a large-scale retreat of the Red Army into the Russian interior, as it could not afford to give up the Baltic countries, Ukraine, or the Moscow and Leningrad regions, all of which were vital to the Red Army for supply reasons and would thus, have to be defended. Hitler and his generals disagreed on where Germany should focus its energy. Hitler, in many discussions with his generals, repeated his order of "Leningrad first,

18200-494: Was only settled fully in November 1941. For two months (3 August to 28 October), all of Pervomaisk was under German occupation. On 28 October, Romania took over the part of Pervomaisk located on the western bank of the river Bug and restored its old name (Golta). In November, the seat of Golta County was moved from Kryve Ozero to Golta. Transnistria had budgetary autonomy and as such made use of its own aircraft, separate from

18340-525: Was promised Bessarabia, Northern Bukovina and the area between Dniester and Southern Bug. On 19 August 1941, Germany and Romania signed an agreement placing Transnistria under the authority of the latter. Altogether, the area amounted to 39,733 square km. The creation of a separate Romanian occupation area was Ion Antonescu's initiative. German leadership was divided about allowing Romania such privilege. Even Hitler, who encouraged Romanian eastward expansion, originally meant to award eastern territories after

18480-471: Was tentatively set for May 1941, but it was delayed for over a month to allow for further preparations and possibly better weather. the purpose of the Russian campaign [is] the decimation of the Slavic population by thirty million. According to a 1978 essay by German historian Andreas Hillgruber , the invasion plans drawn up by the German military elite were substantially coloured by hubris, stemming from

18620-464: Was that his beloved country was being looked down upon by other European countries. From his perspective, raising Romania's ranking required it ruling over other peoples, in an orderly, efficient and "civilized" manner, comparable to how other European states ruled over their Asian and African subjects. According to Antonescu's own words: "Yes. The whole prestige of this country is engaged in Transnistria. We have to demonstrate that we are able to administer

18760-399: Was the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany and many of its Axis allies , starting on Sunday, 22 June 1941, during World War II . It was the largest and costliest land offensive in human history, with around 10 million combatants taking part, and over 8 million casualties by the end of the operation. The operation, code-named after Frederick I "Barbarossa" ("red beard"),

18900-770: Was the real target. These simulated preparations in Norway and the English Channel coast included activities such as ship concentrations, reconnaissance flights and training exercises. The reasons for the postponement of Barbarossa from the initially planned date of 15 May to the actual invasion date of 22 June 1941 (a 38-day delay) are debated. The reason most commonly cited is the unforeseen contingency of invading Yugoslavia and Greece on 6 April 1941 until June 1941. Historian Thomas B. Buell indicates that Finland and Romania, which weren't involved in initial German planning, needed additional time to prepare to participate in

19040-424: Was to create more Lebensraum (living space) for Germany, and the eventual extermination of the native Slavic peoples by mass deportation to Siberia , Germanisation , enslavement, and genocide . In the two years leading up to the invasion, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union signed political and economic pacts for strategic purposes. Following the Soviet occupation of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina ,

19180-718: Was to follow the Drang nach Osten ('turn to the East') as it did "600 years ago" (see Ostsiedlung ). Accordingly, it was a partially secret but well-documented Nazi policy to kill, deport, or enslave the majority of Russian and other Slavic populations and repopulate the land west of the Urals with Germanic peoples, under Generalplan Ost (General Plan for the East). The Nazis' belief in their ethnic superiority pervades official records and pseudoscientific articles in German periodicals, on topics such as "how to deal with alien populations." While older histories tended to emphasize

19320-480: Was to operate in far northern Scandinavia and bordering Soviet territories . Army Group North was to march through Latvia and Estonia into northern Russia, then either take or destroy the city of Leningrad , and link up with Finnish forces. Army Group Centre, the army group equipped with the most armour and air power, was to strike from Poland into Belorussia and the west-central regions of Russia proper, and advance to Smolensk and then Moscow. Army Group South

19460-493: Was to strike the heavily populated and agricultural heartland of Ukraine, taking Kiev before continuing eastward over the steppes of southern USSR to the Volga with the aim of controlling the oil-rich Caucasus . Army Group South was deployed in two sections separated by a 198-mile (319 km) gap. The northern section, which contained the army group's only panzer group, was in southern Poland right next to Army Group Centre, and

19600-421: Was warned by many high-ranking military officers, such as Friedrich Paulus , that occupying Western Russia would create "more of a drain than a relief for Germany's economic situation," he anticipated compensatory benefits such as the demobilisation of entire divisions to relieve the acute labour shortage in German industry, the exploitation of Ukraine as a reliable and immense source of agricultural products,

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