German-occupied Europe | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1938–1945 | |||||||
| Anthem: Das Lied der Deutschen lit. 'The Song of the Germans' | |||||||
.svg) Map of Germany and all European territory under German occupation by August–September 1942, excluding puppet states:
| |||||||
| Capital | Berlin | ||||||
| Official languages | German | ||||||
| Reichskommissar | |||||||
• 1938–1945 | Fritz Katzmann | ||||||
| Reichsstatthalter | |||||||
• 1938–1945 | Adolf Eichmann | ||||||
• 1940–1946 | Heinrich Himmler | ||||||
• 1941–1945 | Hermann Göring | ||||||
| Historical era | Interbellum (until 1939) World War II (until 1945) | ||||||
| 12 March 1938 | |||||||
| 1 September 1939 | |||||||
| 22 June 1941 | |||||||
| 3 September 1943 | |||||||
| 13 January 1945 | |||||||
| 22 March 1945 | |||||||
| 7 May 1945 | |||||||
| 8 May 1945 | |||||||
| 5 June 1945 | |||||||
| Area | |||||||
| Total (1941) | 3,300,000[1] km2 (1,300,000 sq mi) | ||||||
| Population | |||||||
• Total (1941) | 238,000,000[1] | ||||||
| Currency | Reichsmark (ℛℳ) | ||||||
| |||||||
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German-occupied Europe or Nazi-occupied Europe refers to the European sovereign states that had their territory partly or wholly occupied by Germany at any point between 1938 and 1945. Peaking in 1941–1942, Germany and the other Axis powers (namely Italy) were governing more than half of the entire continent's population through direct administration, civil occupation, and military occupation, as well as by establishing puppet states. Germany's expansionist campaigns under the Nazi Party of Adolf Hitler ultimately led to the beginning of World War II in 1939.[2] Also inside some of these occupied states, particularly Poland, was a large network of Nazi camps that facilitated what would later become known as the Holocaust.
The Wehrmacht occupied European territory:
- as far north and east as Franz Josef Land in the Soviet Union
- as far south as Gavdos in Greece
- as far west as Ushant in the France
German weather stations within Europe existed as far north as Schatzgräber in Franz Josef Land's Alexandra Land. Although the Kriegsmarine operated globally during World War II, it was chiefly focused on establishing and maintaining hegemony in the North Atlantic, especially the North Sea.
History
[edit]Several German-occupied countries initially entered World War II as Allies of the United Kingdom[3] or the Soviet Union.[4] Some were forced to surrender before the outbreak of the war such as Czechoslovakia;[5] others like Poland (invaded on 1 September 1939)[2] were conquered in battle and then occupied. In some cases, the legitimate governments went into exile, in other cases the governments-in-exile were formed by their citizens in other Allied countries.[6] Some countries occupied by Nazi Germany were officially neutral. Others were former members of the Axis powers that were subsequently occupied by German forces, such as Italy and Hungary.[7][8]
Concentration camps
[edit]| Part of German-occupied Europe | |
|---|---|
 Head of the SS, Heinrich Himmler, inspects captured prisoners in German occupied Minsk, August 1941. | |
| Date | 1941–1945 |
Attack type | Starvation, death marches, executions, forced labor |
Germany operated thousands of concentration camps in German-occupied Europe. The first camps were established in March 1933 immediately after Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany. Following the 1934 purge of the Sturmabteilung (SA), the concentration camps were run exclusively by the Schutzstaffel (SS) via the Concentration Camps Inspectorate and later the SS Main Economic and Administrative Office. Initially, most prisoners were members of the Communist Party of Germany, but as time went on different groups were arrested, including "habitual criminals", "asocials", and Jews.
After the beginning of World War II, people from German-occupied Europe were imprisoned in the concentration camps. About 1.65 million people were registered prisoners in the camps, of whom about a million died during their imprisonment. Most of the fatalities occurred during the second half of World War II, including at least 4.7 million Soviet prisoners who were registered as of January 1945.
Following Allied military victories, the camps were gradually liberated in 1944 and 1945, although hundreds of thousands of prisoners died in the death marches.
After the expansion of Nazi Germany, people from countries occupied by the Wehrmacht were targeted and detained in concentration camps. In Western Europe, arrests focused on resistance fighters and saboteurs, but in Eastern Europe arrests included mass roundups aimed at the implementation of Nazi population policy and the forced recruitment of workers. This led to a predominance of Eastern Europeans, especially Poles, who made up the majority of the population of some camps. The ethnicities of captured people were various other groups from other different nationalities were transferred to Auschwitz or sent to local concentration camps.
Occupied countries
[edit]The countries occupied included all, or most, of the following nations or territories:
Governments in exile
[edit]Allied governments in exile
[edit]
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Axis governments in exile
[edit]| Government in exile | Capital in exile | Timeline of exile | Occupier(s) |
|---|---|---|---|
 Kingdom of Bulgaria
|
 Vienna, Greater German Reich
|
Sep 16, 1944 – May 10, 1945 | Kingdom of Bulgaria Kingdom of Greece Kingdom of Yugoslavia
|
 French State
|
Sigmaringen, Greater German Reich
|
1944 – Apr 22, 1945 |  Provisional Government of the French Republic
|
 Kingdom of Hungary
|
Vienna, Greater German Reich
|
Mar 28/29, 1945 – May 7, 1945 |  Czechoslovak Republic Kingdom of Hungary Kingdom of Romania Kingdom of Yugoslavia
|
| Kingdom of Romania
|
Vienna, Greater German Reich
|
1944–1945 | Kingdom of Romania
|
 Montenegrin State Council
|
 Zagreb, Independent State of Croatia
|
Summer of 1944 – May 8, 1945 | Kingdom of Yugoslavia
|
 Slovak Republic
|
Kremsmünster, Great-German Reich
|
Apr 4, 1945 – 8 May 1945 | Czechoslovak Republic
|
 Government of National Salvation
|
Kitzbühel, Great-German Reich
|
Oct 7, 1944 – 8 May 1945 |  Soviet Union
|
Neutral governments in exile
[edit]| Government in exile | Capital in exile | Timeline of exile | Occupier(s) |
|---|---|---|---|
 Belarusian Democratic Republic
|
Prague, Czechoslovak Republic (1923–1938)
|
1919 – present | German Reich/Greater German Reich Realm Commissariat East Realm Commissariat Ukraine Republic of Poland Soviet Union
|
 Republic of Estonia
|
 Stockholm, Kingdom of Sweden(1944 – Aug 20, 1991) |
Jun 17, 1940 – Aug 20, 1991 | Reichskommissariat Ostland Soviet Union
|
 Ukrainian People's Republic
|
Warsaw, Republic of Poland (1920–1939)
|
1920 – Aug 22, 1992 | German Reich/Greater German Reich Kingdom of Hungary Kingdom of Romania Reichskommissariat Ukraine Soviet Union
|
See also
[edit]- Areas annexed by Nazi Germany
- Underground media in German-occupied Europe
- Drang nach Osten ("The Drive Eastward")
- Greater Germanic Reich
- Lebensraum ("Living Space")
- Neuordnung ("New Order")
- Pan-Germanism
Notes
[edit]- ^ Including the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia and the General Governorate for the Occupied Polish Region
- ^ Although there was substantial popular support in Austria for some type of (re)unification with Germany, Chancellors Engelbert Dollfuss and his successor Kurt Schuschnigg wanted to maintain at least some type of independence. Dollfuss had implemented an authoritarian regime now termed Austrofascism, continued by Schussnigg, which imprisoned many members of the Austrian Nazi Party and the Social Democratic Party which both favored unification. Violence by Austrian Nazi Party members including the assassination of Dollfuss, along with German propaganda and ultimately threats of invasion by Adolf Hitler, eventually led Schuschnigg to capitulate and resign. Hitler, however, did not wait for his hand-picked successor, Austrian Nazi Arthur Seyss-Inquart, to be sworn in and ordered German troops to invade Austria at dawn on 12 Mar 1938, where they were met with cheering crowds and an Austrian army previously ordered not to resist.
- ^ Upon request of its Nazi-dominated senate, the city was directly annexed to Germany along with the surrounding Polish Pomeranian Voivodeship.
- ^ In a referendum in 1935, over 90% of residents supported reunification with Germany over remaining a League of Nations protectorate of France and the United Kingdom or joining France.
References
[edit]- ^ a b Berend, Iván T. (2016). An Economic History of Twentieth-Century Europe: Economic Regimes from Laissez-Faire to Globalization. Cambridge University Press. p. 72. ISBN 9781107136427.
- ^ a b Encyclopædia Britannica, German occupied Europe. World War II. Retrieved 1 September 2015 from the Internet Archive.
- ^ Prazmowska, Anita (1995-03-23). Britain and Poland 1939–1943: The Betrayed Ally. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521483858.
- ^ Moorhouse, Roger (2014-10-14). The Devils' Alliance: Hitler's Pact with Stalin, 1939–1941. Basic Books. ISBN 9780465054923.
- ^ Goldstein, Erik; Lukes, Igor (2012-10-12). The Munich Crisis, 1938: Prelude to World War II. Routledge. ISBN 9781136328329.
- ^ Conway, Martin; Gotovitch, José (2001-08-30). Europe in Exile: European Exile Communities in Britain 1940–45. Berghahn Books. ISBN 9781782389910.
- ^ Hanson, Victor Davis (2017-10-17). The Second World Wars: How the First Global Conflict Was Fought and Won. Basic Books. ISBN 9780465093199.
- ^ Cornelius, Deborah S. (2011). Hungary in World War II: Caught in the Cauldron. Fordham Univ Press. ISBN 9780823233434.
Bibliography
[edit]- Bank, Jan. Churches and Religion in the Second World War (Occupation in Europe) (2016).
- Gildea, Robert and Olivier Wieviorka. Surviving Hitler and Mussolini: Daily Life in Occupied Europe (2007).
- Klemann, Hein A.M. and Sergei Kudryashov, eds. Occupied Economies: An Economic History of Nazi-Occupied Europe, 1939–1945 (2011).
- Lagrou, Pieter. The Legacy of Nazi Occupation: Patriotic Memory and National Recovery in Western Europe, 1945–1965 (1999).
- Mazower, Mark (2008). Hitler's Empire: Nazi Rule in Occupied Europe. London: Allen Lane. ISBN 9780713996814.
- Scheck, Raffael; Fabien Théofilakis; and Julia S. Torrie, eds. German-occupied Europe in the Second World War (Routledge, 2019), 276 pp. online review.
- Snyder, Timothy. Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin (2010), on Eastern Europe.
- Toynbee, Arnold, ed. Survey of International Affairs, 1939–1946: Hitler's Europe (Oxford University Press, 1954), 730 pp. online review; full text online free.
Primary sources
[edit]- Carlyle Margaret, ed. Documents on International Affairs, 1939–1946. Volume II, Hitler's Europe (Oxford University Press, 1954), 362 pp.
External links
[edit]- Map of Europe in 1942
- Allies
- BBC – History – Germany advances through Europe (pictures, video, facts & news)
