WI: Hitler Allies with Ukrainians Rebels during WWII

But you just said that the main output was in Eastern Ukraine. It would rather help enlist the support of Western Ukrainians in subjugating the East, putting the screws on them harder than before.
East Ukraine seems like it would have been substantially more productive, although of course without exact statistics one cannot know for sure. However, denying West Ukraine production to the German war effort is still going to have substantial impact since after all, the Nazi policy of extraction makes sense in a narrow agricultural base. More collaborationist troops in East Ukraine will doubtless assist to extract additional production, but at the same time it also increases the number of idle mouths.
 

Deleted member 1487

And if there was ever a time you don't reveal more how much you buy into German general apologia...
Pardon? I think you are confusing what I am saying for what I personally believe with that I am saying was told to the rank and file. He certainly told his very told generals more, that it was a race war and they were to destroy Russia as a state and eradicate Jews and communism, but no one in the military was let in on the full extent of the Generalplan:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generalplan_Ost
The body responsible for the drafting of this plan was the Reich Main Security Office (Reichssicherheitshauptamt - RSHA), the security organization of the SS responsible for fighting all enemies of Nazism. It was a strictly confidential document, and its contents were known only to those at the topmost level of the Nazi hierarchy.


No, the core war from its conception to its execution, was about racist conquest and exploitation. For the Germans, fighting communism was tied up within that racist context, not something that existed outside of it. The German people are not going to be willing to die by their millions in frozen fields for no material benefit to themselves beyond the altruistic glow of liberating the oppressed Slavs from the scourge of Communism.
Yes, which was known only to specific insiders. It was not publicly announced that the war was anything but against communism and the highest levels of the military did not even know fully what was planned, even if they knew elements of the exterminationalist efforts. Certainly the German army was willing to fight communism due to years of propaganda around that:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_Bolshevism#Nazi_Germany
The war, presented in racial and ideological terms, was about the destruction of the Soviet state, propaganda did not say what came after in terms of the planned genocide, colonization, and cruel exploitation. Destroying communism was enough to motivate the German soldier to fight initially, then it was fear of losing the war and what would happen to them if they lost. Part of the problem with the German military in WW2 was that it considered itself a tool of the political establishment and didn't think strategically/politically about what came after the violence, their job WAS just the violence. They saw fighting the war as a means of destroying the threat to themselves from their hated ideological enemy.

Outside the territories annexed by the Soviets in 1939, Ukrainian reaction was on the average no different from the Russian reaction.
Got a source on that? In the end you're right except for the parts the UPA had control over, but initially the Ukrainians in the western parts of Soviet Ukraine were pretty welcoming of the Germans. That changed pretty quick based on their treatment.

No matter how nicely the Germans treat them, the Ukrainians are not going to give up so much resources that they themselves will starve to death, which is what the Germans need to take in order to get "all the necessary food and raw materials that were seized IOTL." Simply feeding the conquered Soviet population would be such a huge draw on Germab stocks and transport that the Germans could never hope to logistically sustain their operations beyond the frontier regions.

The atrocities perpetrated on the Soviet citizenry were not some regrettable unpleasantness the invasion could have done without. They were a key factor in making the whole venture worthwhile to Nazi Germany. Without them, the invasion loses not just economic legitimacy, but even the OTL facade of logistical sustainability.
Sure the UPA will ensure they have their minimum necessary at very least, but they wouldn't have a problem inflicting their own 'Holodomor' on Russian identity people in what they consider 'their' Ukraine. So a lot of Russian speaking people in the Ukraine SSR would starve like IOTL, but with UPA help. As already pointed out the areas where the UPA were strongest weren't the best farm areas, the Russian inhabited parts of Ukraine were, so they'd suffer as per OTL. I am well aware that the planned requisition atrocities were based on the need of the German army, but in term of where the food was coming from it seems it was areas that the UPA was weakest in and in areas where Russian identity/language was the strongest, which means those areas suffer, while the least agriculturally productive areas that are under the UPA produce soldiers/police for the new Ukrainian allies of the Germans, so they spend their efforts taking from the Russians in Ukraine on behalf of the war effort, while their supporters in Galicia and West Ukraine get to keep most of their stuff. If you have numbers on how much was taken from West Ukraine IOTL I'd like to see it.

In which case, the entire history of the world, much less the war, is so altered that the Germans can't even begin to contemplate an invasion of Soviet territory.
That is debateable, do you have numbers of what and where requisitions from Ukraine IOTL happened to back up your point?
 

Deleted member 1487

East Ukraine seems like it would have been substantially more productive, although of course without exact statistics one cannot know for sure. However, denying West Ukraine production to the German war effort is still going to have substantial impact since after all, the Nazi policy of extraction makes sense in a narrow agricultural base. More collaborationist troops in East Ukraine will doubtless assist to extract additional production, but at the same time it also increases the number of idle mouths.
Is there any numbers about what was produced in and taken from West Ukraine in 1941 and beyond? If we don't know the figures we have no basis to make the claims that you do above. Collaborationist troops in East Ukraine did not exist, they came from the West, as the East considered themselves ethnically and culturally Russian and were loyal to Moscow by and large. Most of the partisans fighting the Germans happened East of the Dniepr as a result. Mobilizing the West Ukrainians to manage the 'East Ukrainians' would let them handle the population control and requisitions, as politically/ideologically the West Ukrainians saw the Russians living the East of their SSR as the enemy.
 
BS, watch German propaganda videos they call themselves liberators. So, this caricature is ahistoric
Huh? The Croats and Slovakians fought hard for the Germans. So did the Balts when given the opportunity. It is amazing how hard people will fight when you let them have a country.
Slovaks sent 1 mechanized and 1 security division to Soviet Union. Mech fought well in 1941 at Kiev, defense on Mius and 1942 participating on taking Rostov. In 1943 was basically destroyed. Slovaks since then didn't show mich enthusiasm to fight for Germans and actually in 1944 tried to open Carpathians for Soviets.
 
Is there any numbers about what was produced in and taken from West Ukraine in 1941 and beyond? If we don't know the figures we have no basis to make the claims that you do above. Collaborationist troops in East Ukraine did not exist, they came from the West, as the East considered themselves ethnically and culturally Russian and were loyal to Moscow by and large. Most of the partisans fighting the Germans happened East of the Dniepr as a result. Mobilizing the West Ukrainians to manage the 'East Ukrainians' would let them handle the population control and requisitions, as politically/ideologically the West Ukrainians saw the Russians living the East of their SSR as the enemy.
I've stated several times that what I've said is not confirmed because there are no hard statistics I've yet found, but the poverty of Western Ukraine is well remarked on in various places, and therefor I feel quite confident that the region would fall into the similar thin calorific base I described. Conversely, the argument that Western Ukrainians would be useful for population control and agricultural requisitions is easily accusatory to the same complaint; unless if it can be indicated what the efficiency of the German occupation was in extracting Eastern Ukrainian agricultural output, then any improvements brought about by the West Ukrainians (which would require some knowledge about the efficiency of grain requisition and whether diminishing returns might occur) collaborating is unknown and no claims can be made about increased agricultural extraction.

If you re-read what I said I stated "More collaborationist troops in East Ukraine will doubtless assist to extract additional production", which does not connote Eastern Ukrainian collaboration troops, due to the usage of the word "in". The grammatical structure of the sentence implies that additional collaboration troops located in the region would be useful, but it does not indicate their source, tying into a general thread of discussion concentrating upon Western Ukrainian forces being used for collaboration purposes.
 
Hell, I have the old Wehrmacht propaganda newspapers from my Great-grandfather and they justify the wars as either provoked by British agends or as a war of liberation.

It sounds absurd but the German propaganda was extremely effective and a lot people actually believed that they were the liberators who fought against the vile Soviet butchers.
I followed a Estonian youtube channel and he had the German newsreels with subtitles. Suffice it to say, what you are saying is the truth.
 
Slovaks sent 1 mechanized and 1 security division to Soviet Union. Mech fought well in 1941 at Kiev, defense on Mius and 1942 participating on taking Rostov. In 1943 was basically destroyed. Slovaks since then didn't show mich enthusiasm to fight for Germans and actually in 1944 tried to open Carpathians for Soviets.
They also fought in Poland btw.
 

Deleted member 1487

If you re-read what I said I stated "More collaborationist troops in East Ukraine will doubtless assist to extract additional production", which does not connote Eastern Ukrainian collaboration troops, due to the usage of the word "in". The grammatical structure of the sentence implies that additional collaboration troops located in the region would be useful, but it does not indicate their source, tying into a general thread of discussion concentrating upon Western Ukrainian forces being used for collaboration purposes.
I misread what you wrote, thanks for the clarification.
 
They also fought in Poland btw.
And the war was hard to sell to populations and soldiers. Shortly before war 3 planes with crew of 2 each deserted to Poland. Moat of them ended up in RAF. As a matter of fact one of pilots passed last December. He was last surviving member of RAF from former Czechoslovakia.

Slovak government propagated war against Poland as liberation war as territories taken by Poland in 1938 and one ceded by Prague in 1923 with Slovak majority were taken. Which kind of worked.

Less popular was declaration of war on USA as many Slovaks had relatives living there.

War against USR was similary umpopular as soldiers heard stories from their fathers who fought in Russia in WWI. As Slovakia didn't share border there was no bad nlood. Once there soldiers have seen beauty of communism and felt sorry for people nut generally Slovak soldier didn't felt need to be there. However morale was high and results after some early troubles were relatively good. However as time went and no more modern weapons were comming morale started to decline.

Morale. Interestingly reason for high morale was promise of circulation Slovak government made. After soldier served their draft time they would be sent home. However replacements comming were of much worst quality and especially were already comming
Much less motivated.
 
^^^Funny, your comments there about how because they did not share a border with the USSR it would be hard to motivate them to fight when morale was low ironically would not apply to Ukrainians, fighting for their survival.

So, if you can get Slovaks to fight into 44 for no reason, surely you can get Ukrainians to fight the Russians.
 
^^^Funny, your comments there about how because they did not share a border with the USSR it would be hard to motivate them to fight when morale was low ironically would not apply to Ukrainians, fighting for their survival.

So, if you can get Slovaks to fight into 44 for no reason, surely you can get Ukrainians to fight the Russians.
Slovaks didn't fight for Germans in 1944 though. Actually basically since summer 1943 Slovakia did't had combat troops in USSR. Desertion from security division were high, it was increasin among Fast Division and at the end in summer 1943 huge number of soldiers, over 2000 from div of some 8000 deserted. They become nucleus of 2nd Czechoslovak Para Brigade.
Same was happening with pilots of so called second tour of 13 Staffel. Basically 3rd. I would consider first flying B-534s. First tour of pilots on Bf 109 was doing great. Morale was going down with next tour and At least 2 pilots flew to Soviet side with their Bf109, new radiostations as well as radio mexhanic in fuselage.

In 1944 Slovaks were not fighting Soviets at all. They were planing to open Carpathian passes. This didn't worked as planned but Actually Uprising against Germans closed important railway for two months.

I guess Ukrainians would be doing bit better especially one from western regions. On other side with "independent" Ukraine I can immagine even bigger massacres of Poles and Czech population in western Ukraine. Jews well it would go as OTL.
 
I think that Eastern Ukraine wasn't fully Russified in 1941 yet. Holodomor did open the land for Russians, but I think there were Ukrainians in decent numbers left over, east of the Dnieper.
 
Higher number of Ukrainians in UPA given by some is 200 000. So we can assume at least some 200 000 troops could be available to Ukrainian Army. But well indeed for that to work you need Germans to accept Declaration of Ukrainian Independence from June 1941.
 
Hell, I have the old Wehrmacht propaganda newspapers from my Great-grandfather and they justify the wars as either provoked by British agends or as a war of liberation.

It sounds absurd but the German propaganda was extremely effective and a lot people actually believed that they were the liberators who fought against the vile Soviet butchers.

It only sounds absurd knowing Hitler's and Himmler's war aims. But, this is where modern WW2 scholarship falls down.

Because Hitler and Himmler were busy dickering around in castles about to half or not the population of ethnic Russians in the East doesn't mean the line soldiers were ginned up into a genocidal anti-Slav frenzy as modern historians have a tendency to depict it as.

The war aims told the troops in a Totalitarian state need not be and were not the war aims of their government.
 

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The war aims told the troops in a Totalitarian state need not be and were not the war aims of their government.

As opposed Democratic governments are completely fair and honest to their troops. XD

What makes propaganda believable it's that it is then and there, when actions take place. People wonder whats going on, because, hell their neighbours are going nuts, and then the government is providing them with all the answers they need. With a hearty warning that anybody, who provides differing view might be working for Enemy. We can think that people of these times were stupid or misguided, but in truth they were no wiser then us. I bet that after reading analysis of 2000's and 2010's as a grumpy old man I would wonder "how on Earth we could bought into that?" (or would it be "hah I knew it from the start!" well, time will tell.)
 
Higher number of Ukrainians in UPA given by some is 200 000. So we can assume at least some 200 000 troops could be available to Ukrainian Army. But well indeed for that to work you need Germans to accept Declaration of Ukrainian Independence from June 1941.
There would be forced conscriptions as well, so probably all Soviet Ukrainian POWs are forced into the new UPA army, as well as men of fighting age. Essentially, it will be a manpower pool like Romania with much worse arms.
 
There would be forced conscriptions as well, so probably all Soviet Ukrainian POWs are forced into the new UPA army, as well as men of fighting age. Essentially, it will be a manpower pool like Romania with much worse arms.
Well I guess it would be disaster if they were armed worst then Romanians end sent to front lines.
Curious how many weapons especially heavy, which would be possible to repair stayed on battlefields and if would be possible at least some to use to arm Ukrainians. But on other side, Germans were using whatever facilities were not evacuated for their own purposes and wouldn't be very tempted to share them.

Germans didn't allow their allies from before Operation Barbarossa started to collect and transport captured/ abandoned weapons and vehicles and transport them back to their countries for repairs. Slovaks were interested in 1941 but pressed to abandon such attempts and basically smuggled to Slovakia 1 or 2 trains. Slovaks as well as Romanians and Hungarians were interested in improving their weaponry with captured weapons but it didn't worked out. Romanians managed to use undercarriages of captured T-60 tanks and Soviet F-22 guns, together with salvaged armor from BT tanks and produce some 34 TACAM T-60 tank destroyers.

TACAM_T60_cage.png
 
Well I guess it would be disaster if they were armed worst then Romanians end sent to front lines.
Curious how many weapons especially heavy, which would be possible to repair stayed on battlefields and if would be possible at least some to use to arm Ukrainians. But on other side, Germans were using whatever facilities were not evacuated for their own purposes and wouldn't be very tempted to share them.

Germans didn't allow their allies from before Operation Barbarossa started to collect and transport captured/ abandoned weapons and vehicles and transport them back to their countries for repairs. Slovaks were interested in 1941 but pressed to abandon such attempts and basically smuggled to Slovakia 1 or 2 trains. Slovaks as well as Romanians and Hungarians were interested in improving their weaponry with captured weapons but it didn't worked out. Romanians managed to use undercarriages of captured T-60 tanks and Soviet F-22 guns, together with salvaged armor from BT tanks and produce some 34 TACAM T-60 tank destroyers.

TACAM_T60_cage.png
Hmm...
If I am to materialize the timeline, i will probably give the Ukrainian Army German Reserve Eqiupment and scavenged Soviet Equipment. I would probably give this new Ukrainian Army the Stahlhelm and well as the earlier Russian Liberation Army.
 
Well I guess it would be disaster if they were armed worst then Romanians end sent to front lines.
True. They would be simply infantry used for screening the enemy, and perhaps can hold some sort of parity if not outnumbered.

Curious how many weapons especially heavy, which would be possible to repair stayed on battlefields and if would be possible at least some to use to arm Ukrainians.

Ukrainian POWs may have some old T34 and T26s given to them. 76 mm anti-tank guns, Russian small arms. They would pretty much be armed with abandoned soviet arms, which ironically means the Germans probably still build some ammo in Ukraine for them.

[/quote]Germans didn't allow their allies from before Operation Barbarossa started to collect and transport captured/ abandoned weapons and vehicles and transport them back to their countries for repairs.[/quote]
Being that the Russians would have taken most of Ukraine's machine equipment, giving them left-over tanks might have been less big of a deal. They would have been unable to actually copy them and build them on their own.

But, I agree, the Germans resisted letting their allies build German weapons on license for too long.
 
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