the soviet partisan movement 1941-1944 by edgar m. howell

THE OCCUPATION FALTERS 101
lective basis to individual production on a cooperative or independent
basis." The Kolkhozes were to be changed to cooperative establishments
to be farmed on a communalistic basis with compulsory collaboration,
each collaborator retaining for his own use, tax-free, a strip of land
belonging wholly to him. 13
Actually, the German political leadership had no intention of carrying
out a real land reform and returning the soil to the peasants. One month
after the publication of the land decree Hitler assured his advisers that it
was only natural that the occupied east, rather than Germany, should
pay for the war.
The predominant part of the agricultural soil in those territories
must, . . . remain the property of the state, as before; thus the profits
from the agricultural production of these enormous state-owned lands
will . . . accrue exclusively to the [German] State, and may be used for
the liquidation of the internal war debt. . . . 14
Almost from the very beginning the result of the failure to alter the
system at an earlier date and to propagandize the change was evident.
The expansion of the partisan movement with a resultant increase in
terror raids on the natives in the rural areas made even preparatory work
for executing the new measures difficult, and in some areas brought it
completely to a halt. Rayons which in February 1942 had been clear of
the bands and in which it had been planned to institute the first land
reform were so infested with irregulars by March that the entire civil
and economic administration was unable to function. Further, due to
the partisan activity and the absence of effective German counteraction
a good portion of the population behind Army Group Center so feared
reprisals by the bands that they refused to take advantage of the proffered
opportunity. 15
But only a small percent of the collectives were converted, and then
generally only by the Wehrmacht administration and not by the Reichskommissariate.
16 Koch was avowedly against giving the people anything,
17 and even though the agrarian policy had originally been the
idea of his superior, Rosenberg, he consistently refused to put it into
13
Die neue Agrarordnung, Erl. des Reichsministers fuer die besetzten Ostgebiete
v. 16/2/42 in Dr. Alfred Meyer, Das Recht der besetzten Ostgebiete. Teil Ostland,
Wirtschaft, Ernaehrung und Landwirtschaft, Landwirtschaft. O III, D66.
14 Ltr, Bormann (on behalf of Hitler) 25 May 42, in Hitler'sTischgespraeche im
Fuehrcrhauptquartier 1941--42, Henry Picker, ed. (Bonn, 195 1 ) ,136.
15
Lagebericht 4, 23.III.42., Wi Kommando Bryansk, KTB, 17.XII.42.-31.III.42.
Wi/ID 2.84.
16
See: Bericht, Ortskommandantur Taganrog, 6.VIII.42,, Anl. z. KTB, Lageberichte,
H. Geb."B,"18.V.42.-16.I.43.; II Aufzeichnung ger. Braeutigam, 25.X..42 ,
in I.M.T., op.cit., XXV. DD. 331-42.
17
See Koch's speech to agricultural officials at Rovno, 28 Aug 42. 99/456,
Rosenberg Collection.