Ober Ost

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Oberbefehlshaber der gesamten Deutschen Streitkräfte im Osten Supreme Command of All German Forces in the East Military occupation authority of the German Empire ←   ←   ← 1915 – 1918 →   →   → Flag Coat of arms Capital Not specified Political structure Military occupation Supreme Commander  - 1915-? Prince Leopold of Bavaria Historical era World War I  - Established 1915  - Treaty of Brest-Litovsk March 3, 1918  - German surrender November 11, 1918  - Disestablished 1918

Ober Ost is short for Oberbefehlshaber der gesamten Deutschen Streitkräfte im Osten, which is a German term meaning "Supreme Command of All German Forces in the East". During World War I Ober Ost was in command of the Eastern front, most notably in Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, parts of Poland, and Courland. The land it controlled was around 108,808 km². It came about out of a need to control a newly conquered land about which almost nothing was known. Ober Ost was created in 1914, and its first leader was Paul von Hindenburg, a Prussian military hero. When Chief of the General Staff Erich von Falkenhayn was dismissed from office in 1916 von Hindenburg replaced him, and Prince Leopold of Bavaria was given control of the Ober Ost.

Contents 1 Policies 2 Parallels with Nazi German Policy 3 Communication with Locals 4 Administrative divisions 5 References 6 Further Reading 7 See also

[edit] Policies

Prior to the war this area was unknown by the Germans, and was assumed to be a unified Russian entity. Never before had the Germans seen Jews in this magnitude before. The area was torn by war, and since the German army had never seen the area before, they assumed that the chaotic state it was in due to the war was the ordinary state of affairs.^[1] Because the area contained such a diverse ethnic population Ober Ost ruled the land with an iron fist, in an effort to control the chaotic war torn land. The movement policy, or "Verkehrspolitik", divided the land without regard to the preexisting social and ethnic organization and patterns. One was not allowed to move between the districts, which destroyed the livelihood of many merchant Jews, and prevented indigenous people from visiting friends and relatives in neighboring districts.^[2] They also tried to civilize the people in the Ober Ost controlled land, attempting to integrate German ideals and institutions^[2] with existing cultures. They brought in railroads, however only Germans were allowed to ride them, and the schools were taught by German instructors, since they had not trained Lithuanians.^[3]

Upon Ober Ost's inception in 1915, Erich Ludendorff, von Hindenburg's second in command, immediately set up a system of managing the large area under Ober Ost’s jurisdiction. Although von Hindenburg was technically in command, it was Ludendorff who was in control of the administration. There were ten staff members, each with a specialty (finance, agriculture, etc.), and the area itself was divided into Courland, Lithuania, and Bialystok-Grodno, each overseen by a district commander. Ludendorff's plan was to make Ober Ost a colonial territory for the settlement of his troops after the war, as well as provide a German haven for German refugees from inner Russia.^[3] In addition, Ludendorff quickly organized the Ober Ost so that it was a self sustaining region, growing all its own food, and even exporting excesses to Berlin. The largest resource was one that Ludendorff was unable to exploit without difficulty. The locals had no interest in helping obtain a German victory, as they had no say in their government, and were subject to increasing requisitions and taxes.^[3]

[edit] Parallels with Nazi German Policy

Vejas Gabriel Liulevicius postulates in his book War Land on the Eastern Front: Culture, National Identity, and German Occupation in World War I, that a line can be traced from Ober Ost's policies and assumptions to Nazi Germany's plan and attitudes towards Eastern Europe. His main argument is that "German troops developed a revulsion towards the 'East', and came to think of it as a timeless region beset by chaos, disease and barbarism", instead of what it really was, which was a region suffering from the ravages of warfare.^[4] He claims that the encounter with the East formed an idea of 'spaces and races' that needed to be "cleared and cleansed". Although he has garnered a great deal of evidence for his thesis, including government documents, letters and diaries, in both German and Lithuanian, there are still problems with his work. For example he does not say much about the reception of German policies by native populations.^[4] Also, "he makes almost no attempt to relate wartime occupation policies and practice in Ober Ost to those in Germany's colonial territories overseas".

[edit] Communication with Locals

There were a great many problems with communication with indigenous persons within the Ober Ost. Among the upper class locals the soldiers could get by with French or German, and in large villages the Jewish populations would speak German or Yiddish, "which the Germans would somehow comprehend".^[5] But in the rural areas and amongst peasant populations soldiers had to rely on interpreters who spoke Latvian, Russian, or both.^[5] These language problems were not helped by the thinly stretched administrations, which would sometimes number 100 men administrating an area as large as Rhode Island.^[5] In addition the clergy were at times relied upon to spread messages to the masses, since this was an effective way of spreading a message to people who speak a different language.^[5] A young officer-administrator named Vagts relates that he listened (through a translator) to a sermon by a priest who tells his congregation to stay off highways after nightfall, hand in firearms, and not to have anything to do with Bolshevist agents, exactly as Vagts had told him to do earlier.

[edit] Administrative divisions

Wilna Administrative Area was a unit of administrative division of German-controlled territory of the Ober Ost. It bordered the so-called Southern Lithuania area to the south and Kaunas government precinct to the north. The area was formed roughly in the parts of former Vilna Governorate and Suvalki Governorate of the Russian Empire.^[6]

[edit] References

[edit] Further Reading

War Land on the Eastern Front: Culture, National Identity, and German Occupation in World War I Vejas Gabriel Liulevicius Review author[s]: Matthew R. Schwonek The Journal of Military History, Vol. 65, No. 1. (Jan., 2001), pp. 212-213. Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0899-3718%28200101%2965%3A1%3C212%3AWLOTEF%3E2.0.CO%3B2-8

Stone, N (1975). The eastern front 1914-1917. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.

[edit] See also

• United Baltic Duchy