M.G. Stepanov
Aspirant of the chair in Russian History with the N.F. Katanov Khakassian State
University
Before the war about 333 people of German nationality were living in the Autonomous Region of Khakassia (in accordance with the census records of the year 1939).1 From the so-called “special contingent” deported to the Krasnoyarsk Territory in the autumn of 1941, a group of Soviet-Germans was formed up for further transportation to Khassia. The matter in question was dealt with by a regional “troika” appointed on the 8 September 1941, which consisted of a representative of the Khakassian regional committee of the VKP (B), the regional NKVD department and the executive committee of the regional council. This regional “troika” planned the forced resettlement of totally 10500 Soviet citizens of German nationality in Khakassia. In order to be able to gain ground in the new place of residence, they were prepared to allow credits issued by the agricultural cooperative bank up to two-thousand rubles. The credits were subject to a five years’ term. 2
During the session of the Khakassian party regional committee on the 18 November 1941 the problem of lodging the German resettlers, who had just arrived in Khakassia, was discussed in details. The attenders came to the following conclusion: “During the inspections carried out by the regional committees of the VKP (B) in the districts of Ust-Abakan, Bograd and Beisk, it was realized that most of the resettlers who had been taken to Khakassia were quartered and had already been integrated to the production process of kolkhoz farms and enterprises in their new places of residence. At the same time it turned out that the district committees of the VKP (B), the executive committees of the district councils, as well as the departments in charge of the assigning of land, do not fulfil their job satisfactorily with regard to the admittance of resettlers to the kolkhoz farms. Hence, none of the settlements of the Sharypovo District were accepted members of the kolhoz; in Ust-Abakan only 43 out of 184 farmed pieces of land were part of a kolkhoz farm. In principle, the district committees of the VKP (B) and the executive committees of the district councils are not aware of the actual state of affairs at all, at least as far as it concerns the admission of special resettlers in kolkhoz organisations. It seems, as if they simply let things slide, without taking the slightest care of them”.3 During the session it was also pointed out that specialists from among the special resettlers were not assigned to work in accordance with their professional education and skill. This situation became particularly apparent in the Sharypovo District. We have positive proof that women are not sufficiently involved in production process; apart from this, there is evidence that some resettlers refuse to do physical work on kolkhoz farms (Bograd, Sharypovo, Ust-Abakan). 4
The deportation of Germans from the Volga districts only described the first stage of an emerging repressive state policy towards national minorities.
There were more than 30 NKVD special commandants’ offices on Khakassian territory.
One of their major tasks was to find out the exact number of family members, as well as the total number of special resettlers; the securing of extensive means of control with regard to the migration of special resettlers within the different dictricts and colonies; the finding of special resettlers fit for work with the objective of providing them with a job; an early thwarting of attempts to escape; the issuance of questionnaires to the special resettlers.5 Thus, the German special resettlers were not only bound to their whereabouts within the district, but to a definite commandant’s office, as well. They were made an object of total control on the part of the authorities.
The next step of the state’s policy of repression towards Germans was the mobilization of the entire population fit for work into labour armies. The call-up orders for all men and women fit for work were carried out by the military commissariat. From among this contingent were formed up special labour units, labour columns and brigades – thus representing a distinguished three-part organizational structure. The trud armies (labour armies) comprised elements of military service, production activities and a confinement system, - such, as it was practised within the GULAG. First signs of coming up labour armies began to show late in 1941, when the first labour colonies were formed up from among mobilized Ukrainia Germans and Germanswho had been removed from the Red Army. The mass character became manifest after the passing of two decrees by the USSR State Committee of Defense dated the 10 January and 14 February 1942 “About procedural rules regarding the use of German special resettlers at the age of 17 to 50 years”. Labour armies existed till the year 1946, and when the so-called “zones” (compounds; translator’s note), were liquidated, the labour armists received the permission to send for their families and changed into the category of special resettlers. 6
Already in January 1942 the Kraslag of the Krasnoyarsk camp complex was in a position to receive 8000 Germans to use their working power for the lumber industry. In the Autonomous Region of Khakassia Germans were assigned to work for purposes of the USSR People’s Commissariat of Communication – the construction of the Stalinsk – Abakan railroad line. The mobilized Germans were obliged to appear in the premisses of the local military commissariats in winter clothes in good repair, with an additional set of underwear, bedding, a mug, a spoon and provisions for a period of ten days. The behaviour of the mobilized Germans kept in “labour columns”, was under sharp control. During a session of the NKVD of the USSR they issued the order to apply maximum penalty on those offending against discipline, refusing to go to work, refusing to follow the call-up at all and “deserting from the work brigades”.7
During the war 30 people from among the Germans were repressed in Khakassia. (As compared to this number, 371 individuals were arrested in Khakassia during the war for having committed political crimes).8
Some new structure in the development of political repressions in Khakassia was the enforcement of punitive measures against the so-called “special contingent”, which had been deported to the region – primarily Germans deported from the Volga regions. The local authorities considered them as as potentially “counter-revolutionary elements”. The low standard of living and hard working conditions account for the fact that the poeples deported to the region did not show any loyalty towards the measures of the Soviet state.
Already late in 1941, the NKGB organs began to arrest individuals from among the deported Volga-German special contingent. They also came for V.I. Kronwaldt, who was working for the village consumer cooperative in Sharypovo District as a groom. He was accused of “having spoken disparagingly on the material situation of the kolkhoz farmers in October 1941, while they were assigned to work, of having discredited the kolkhoz farms by also menacing the heads of the kolkhoz…. Kronwaldt said: “May the kolkhoz farmers work for their kolkhoz farm … The Soviet power is playing fast and loose with its honest and upright people, it humiliates it and starves it to death” “.9 Kronwaldt was convicted of this remark by the regional court on the basis of section 58-10, para 2 of the RFSFR Criminal Code and sentenced to maximum penalty – execution by shooting with confiscation of his entire property.10
In 1942 they arrested another German special resettler, I.N. Staub, who was working for the Budionny kolkhoz farm as a driver. He was convicted of “systematic circulation of counter-revolutionary, pessimistic and defeatist rumours …” 11 At that time they also came for the German special resettler P.I. Kaiser; she was working for the sewing-workshop. During the preliminary proceedings they “found the following facts”: “Kaiser shows a hostile attitude towards the existing principles of socialist structure, systematically agitated by means of counter-revolutionary, defamatory speeches addressed to the population about party leaders and the Soviet government and prognosticated the inevitable decline of the Soviet power being at war against fascist Germany. One of the witnesses questioned during the preliminary proceedings said: “In July 1942 I was in Kaiser’s apartment, when she was just involved in a discussion about war activities. She turned round to me and said: “You know that the Russians are already convionvinced themselves that Hitler is going to gain the victory, and this is entirely understandable, after all. The Germans see that the Red Army has no chance to take a rest””. Another witness stated: “On the 20 October 1942, while the Germans were called up into the labour army, Kaiser announced, by expressing all her hostility against the Soviet power: “The leaders of the Soviet government intend to exterminate us, i.e. all Germans; their narcissism does not permit them to capitulate, and for this reason they do not feel sorry for anybody, neither for the Germans nor the Russians. Well then, now they have us in the hollow of their hands, but one day they will recall us. Their situation at the front is rather bad. The world has never experienced humiliations of such horrendous proporations!””12 – The court collegium of criminal proceedings with the Khakassian regional court sentenced P.I. Kaiser on the basis of section 58-10, para 2 of the RSFSR Criminal Code to a ten years’ imprisonment. She was to serve the sentence in one of the NKVD USSR corrective labour camps and subsequent deprivation of universal suffrage for a period of five years.13
It has to be mentioned that during the war some Soviet Germans who were affected by repressions, occupied leading positions within the national economy. In 1942 an action was brought against Burmeister, the head of the railroad building section. He was not only accused of anti-Soviet agitation, but also charged on the following: “The arrestee systematically sabotaged the realization of tasks set by the state with regard to the construction of the railroad line and refused to go to work; the norm within his section was fulfilled merely by 50%.He was the instigator of organized interference with the working process”.14 A practically analogous charge was brought against citizen Kerber (Körber?), who was accused in 1942 of “having sabotaged the rafting of timber which was part of the forestry production system. Every day he ostentatiously refused to go to work. At that time he was agitating in a way that undermined the whole production process. His demoralizing behaviour was directed against the fulfilment of work norms with regard to the rafting of timber”. 15
In 1945 the arrested the German special resettler T.J. Gertner (Gärtner?). She was accused of “systematic anti-Soviet agitation with defeatist character, which she tried to spread among the special resettlers, hostile commenting on the USSR at war against fascist Germany, as well as the praising of Hitler’s Germany and the invincible German army … She held inflammatory speeches against the Soviet press and broad-casting programme…”. 16
The arresting of citizens from among the special contingent deported to Khakassia permitted us to suppose with a degree of certainty that suppressions were taken against people, i.e. repeated punitive measures were taken after mass deportations had already taken place from traditional settlement areas.
Thus, political repressions applied for ethnical reasons developed into a mighty mechanism under conditions of a totalitarian state, which affected destructively on the national self-confidence of the deported ethnic groups. Apart from this, they yet strengthened the violent methods concerning the “solution” of the national question in the USSR. During the Great Patriotic War a special contingent from among the Soviet Germans was deported to the Autonomous Region of Khakassia – Germans which the regime had found guilty to having been accomplices of the hostile occupying power. As a result of the mass deportation and the organization of a special resettlemet system they were deprived of their rights to chose the place of residence and their whereabouts themselves. They were also told which kind of work they were to do – and this usually was hard physical labour on kolkhoz farms or for industrial enterprises in Khakassia. Moreover, during the war, the regime was characterized in an active way by the appearance of the “Fifth Column” (not only in towns but also in the places of special resettlement), and those belonging to this category were considered accomplices of the occupying enemy, of National Socialist Germany and its satellite states. As source of this “Fifth Column” were considered all representatives of the German people who had been deported to the region. Oppressing the mostly unloyal “anti-Soviet” stratum or those which were categorized as such, the state was striving for a homogenous perception and opinion on the events happening in their own country and in the world, a homogenity which corresponded to the general mechanism and the directives in force.
1. Branch of the Central State Archive of the Republic of Khakassia
2. List 1, file 798, folio 161
Ibidem – folio 196, 197
3. Ibidem – folio 316
4. Ibidem – folio 317
5. S.N. Ziablitseva. Particularities of state repressive policy with regard to
citizens of German
nationality between 1940 and 1960. // Political repressions in Khakassia and
other regions
of Siberia (1920-1950). Materials provided by the interregional scientific-
practical
conference of the 20 December 2000 in Abakan / Resp. Editor A.P. Sheksheev. –
Abakan:
Journalist, 2001 – p. 92.
6. The mobilization of Germans into labour colonies … I. Stalin. Collection of
documents
(1940s). Moscow: Gotika, 1998. – p. 8.
7. Wolter, G. “Zone of total Peace” (Russian germans during and after the war).
Moscow:
Variag, 1998. – p. 7.
8. Summarized by the author; see: Book of Memory in commemoration of the victims
of
political repressions in the Republic of Khakassia / compiled by N.S. Abdin. –
Abakan:
Strezhen, 1999. – Vol. 1. – p. 21-432, Abakan: Strezhen, 2000. – Vol. 2. – p.
14-252.
9. Central State Archive of the Republic of Khakassia, fond R-674, list 1 a.
Squashed
proceedings N° 21910, folio 48 (duplex).
10. Ibidem – folio 51 (duplex)
11. Ibidem – squashed proceedings N° 14036, FOLIO 5
12. Ibidem – squashed proceedings N° 13605, folio 3,3 (duplex)
13. Ibidem – folio 65
14. Ibidem – squashed proceedings N° 21856, folio 3
15. Ibidem – squashed proceedings N° 20416, folio 3
16. Ibidem – squashed proceedings N° 13597, folio 46 (duplex)
Collected materials from the conference “The Germans in Siberia” (13 to 16 October , Krasnoyarsk).