Bezirk Bialystok

Bezirk Bialystok Okręg białostocki
Bezirk of the Greater German Reich
← 1941–1945 →
Flag
Bezirk Bialystok in 1942.
Capital		Białystok 53°08′N 23°09′E / 53.133°N 23.150°E / 53.133; 23.150Coordinates: 53°08′N 23°09′E / 53.133°N 23.150°E / 53.133; 23.150
History
-	Established	June 1941
-	Disestablished	January 1945
Political subdivisions		8 kreisskomissariats
Today part of		Poland  Belarus

Bezirk Bialystok (German for District or Region of Białystok, also Belostok),^[1] was the new administrative unit of Nazi Germany that existed during the World War II occupation of Poland. It was located to the south-east of East Prussia, in the present-day northeastern Poland as well as in smaller sections of adjacent present-day Belarus and Lithuania.^[2]

The territory lay to the east of the Molotov-Ribbentrop line and was consequently occupied by the Soviet Union and incorporated into the Belarussian Soviet Socialist Republic. In the aftermath of the German attack on the Soviet Union in June 1941, this western portion of the then Soviet Belarus (which until 1939 belonged to the Polish state), was placed under German Civilian Administration (Zivilverwaltungsgebiet). As the Bezirk Bialystok, the area was under German rule from 1941 to 1944/1945, without ever formally being incorporated into the German Reich.^[2]

The district was established because of its perceived military importance as a bridgehead on the far bank of the Memel.^[3] Germany had desired to annex the area even during the First World War, based on the historical claim arising from the Third Partition of Poland, which had delegated Białystok to Prussia from 1795 to 1806 (see New East Prussia).^[4]

In contrast to most other territories that lay east of the Molotov-Ribbentrop line and which were permanently annexed by the Soviet Union following the Second World War, most of the territory was later returned to Poland.^[2]

History

After the start of Operation Barbarossa against the Soviet forces in eastern Poland, the invading Wehrmacht soldiers first murdered 379 people, 'pacified' 30 villages, burned down 640 houses and 1,385 industrial buildings in the area.^[5]

The first decree for the implementation of Civil Administration in these newly occupied eastern territories was issued on 17 July 1941. The borders of this area ran from the southeastern protrusion of East Prussia (the Suwalki triangle) following the Neman river up to Mosty (excluding Grodno), including Volkovysk and Pruzhany up to the Bug River to the west of Brest-Litovsk and then following the border of the General Government to East Prussia.^[2]

Nazi German map of the Third Reich dated March 1944 which includes Bezirk Bialystok (top-right, light blue)

Personalausweis of Bezkirk Bialystok (1943).

The establishment of Bezirk Bialystok followed on 1 August 1941; it was simultaneously excluded from the operational zones of the German Army in the Soviet Union. From then until 1944, Gestapo and SS engaged in executions in the area, for example in the Nowosiółki forests near Choroszcz, where 4,000 people were executed. Other places of execution and atrocity existed like in the Osuszek forest near the village of Piliki.^[5] At the same time, some small areas to the east of the 1939–1941 German-Soviet border were incorporated into the East Prussian district of Scharfenwiese. With this the city of Scharfenwiese henceforth held more hinterland to the east.^[2]

The center of administration for Bezirk Bialystok was the Polish city of Białystok. The East Prussian Higher President and Gauleiter Erich Koch from Königsberg (modern-day Kaliningrad) was appointed Civilian Commissioner for the area, later Chief of Civil Administration (Chef-der-Zivilverwaltung).

Murder operations

Heinrich Himmler visited the newly formed Bezirk Bialystok district on 30 June 1941 and pronounced that more forces were needed in the area, due to potential risks of partisan warfare. The chase after the Red Army's rapid retreat left behind a security vacuum, which required urgent deployment of additional personnel.^[6] Scrambling to meet this "new threat", Gestapo headquarters formed Kommando SS Zichenau-Schroettersburg which departed from sub-station Schröttersburg (Płock) under the leadership of SS-Obersturmführer Hermann Schaper (* 1911) with express mission to kill Jews, communists and the NKVD collaborators across the local villages and towns. On July 3 additional formation of Schutzpolizei arrived in Białystok, summoned from the General Government. It was led by SS-Hauptsturmführer Wolfgang Birkner, veteran of Einsatzgruppe IV from the Polish Campaign of 1939. The relief unit, called Kommando Bialystok,^[7] was sent in by SS-Obersturmbannfuhrer Eberhard Schöngarth on orders from the Reich Main Security Office, due to reports of Soviet guerrilla activity in the area with Jews being of course immediately suspected of helping them out.^[8] The first stage of the Nazi persecutions mainly involved applying collective punishment to various villages where any form of real-or-imagined threat had been identified. Terror operations were enacted to prevent assistance to independence movements but mostly to round-up and persecute local Jews. Targeted buildings were being destroyed, possessions robbed, communities mass murdered or sent to labor camps or prisons. Gruppenführer Nebe reported to Berlin on 14 November 1941 that, up until then 45,000 persons had been eliminated.^[5]

The situation of the local population did improve after the Raid on Mittenheide. The Germans introduced the policy of finding and forcing anyone who could be of the German ancestry, even based on the "pure German looks" in some cases, to accept the German ancestry card (usually 4th category "The Traitors of the German Nation," in spite of the ominously sounding name, it meant elevation over the rest of the population). The Germans were harkening back to the times of the New East Prussia.^[2]

On 1 November 1941 the city of Grodno including its surroundings was transferred from the Reichskommissariat Ostland to Bezirk Bialystok.

Resistance

During the night of 15–16 August 1943, the Białystok Ghetto Uprising began. This was an insurrection in Poland's Białystok Ghetto by several hundred Polish Jews who began an armed struggle against the German troops finishing off the liquidation of the 15,000 people still living in the Ghetto. This Ghetto's victims were ultimately destined for the Treblinka extermination camp. It was organized and led by Antyfaszystowska Organizacja Bojowa, an organisation that was part of the Anti-Fascist Block, and was the second largest ghetto uprising, after the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, in Nazi-occupied Poland during World War II.^[2]

On 20 October 1943 the southern border between the East Prussian district Sudauen (Suwałki) in the Province of East Prussia and Bezirk Bialystok was adjusted and moved back to the northern side of the Augustów Canal.

In July and August 1944 Bezirk Bialystok was taken over by the Red Army up to the Narew-Bobr line. The government seat for the Chief of Civil Administration was then moved to Bartenstein. In January 1945 the Red Army overrun the last areas of Bezirk Bialystok, namely the remaining parts of the districts Łomża and Grajewo, driving the Germans completely out of the territory.

A German map of the Bezirk Bialystok made in July 1944.

Administrative structure

At the time of its establishment, Bezirk Bialystok had a population consisting of 1,383,000 inhabitants. Of these 830,000 were of Polish, 300,000 of White Ruthenian (Belarusian), 200,000 of Ukrainian, 50,000 of Jewish and 2,000 of German origin.

Bialystok District was divided into eight county-level administrative units, called district police stations (German: kreiskommissariate, Polish: komisariatów powiatowych). These were the police stations Bialystok (Kreiskommissariat Nikolaus), Bielsk-Podlaski (Kreiskommissariat Tubenthal), Grajewski (Kreiskommissariat Piachor, then Knispel), Grodno (Kreiskommissariat Plötz), łomża (Kreiskommissariat Gräben), Sokolski (Kreiskommissariat Seiler), Volkovysk (Kreiskommissariat Pfeifer) and the city of Białystok.

Erich Koch was appointed "civil commissioner" (Zivilkommissar) on August 1, 1941, and later appointed as Chief of Civil Administration (Chef der Zivilverwaltung) of Bezirk Bialystok until 27 July 1944. During this period, he was the Gauleiter of East Prussia and Reichskommissar in Reichskommissariat Ukraine. Day-to-day activities were handled by his permanent deputy head of the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP) in Königsberg, East Prussia, Waldemar Magunia from 15 August 1941 until 31 January 1942. He was replaced on 1 February 1942 until 27 July 1944 by Friedrich Brix, Landrat (District Mayor) of Tilsit.

In film

Hollywood director Mel Brooks in his film The Producers was inspired enough by the Bezirk Bialystok grisly history to name his berserk Broadway charlatan, Max Bialystock.

References

• Gnatowski M., „Białostockie Zgrupowanie Partyzanckie". Białystok 1994

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