Reichskommissariat Turkestan - the fifth Reichskommissariat of the Third Reich , planned to be created by the Nazi command on the basis of the Turkestan Soviet republics of the USSR .
On the eve of the beginning of World War II, the German theorist of Eastern policy Alfred Rosenberg worked out a plan for creating a number of semi-state puppet formations - Reich commissariats - headed by German governors - Reich commissars on the territory of the defeated Soviet Union . This plan provided for the creation of five Reich Commissariats: Ukraine , the Caucasus , Ostland , Muscovy and Turkestan itself.
Content
Territories and administrative divisions
Initially, it was planned to include the territories of five Central Asian SSRs in the Reichskommissariat of Turkestan: KazSSR , UzSSR , TurSSR , TajSSR and KirSSR [1] . The population of these territories united not only a single, Turkic and partially Iranian origin, but also a common Muslim religion. For ethnic and religious reasons, it was also planned to include the territories of Altai , Bashkiria and Tataria as part of Greater Turkestan, as well as, according to some data [2] , Mari El and Udmurtia , which belong to the Finno-Ugric group of peoples and whose population mainly professes Orthodox Christianity.
Turkestan Legion
In the fall of 1941, a Kazakh social and political activist Mustafa Shokai , who was respected among the Turkestans and moderately cooperating with the Nazis, set the German leadership the conditions on which he agreed to lead the collaborative Turkestan legion , which was supposed to be formed from the volunteers and prisoners of war of Turkic origin as they move east. According to these conditions, the authorities of the Third Reich were to:
1. To train personnel for the future of the Turkestan state in German educational institutions;
2. To create military formations from among their captured compatriots, which should be used only when approaching the borders of Turkestan.
This position did not suit Germany in any way: Hitler planned to use the legionnaires as "cannon fodder", and in another capacity they did not interest him at all. Then Shokai wrote a letter to the Minister of Foreign Affairs Ribbentrop , in which he refused the offer to head the Turkestan Legion. As a result, he soon died (probably was poisoned) in a Berlin hospital, and the closest associate, Uzbek Vali Kayum, stood at the head of the legion.
On the other hand, as indicated in the book of O. V. Romanko “Muslim Legions in the Second World War”, the Nazis assigned territories such as Xinjiang , the Volga Region and even the North Caucasus and Azerbaijan to the future Reich Commissariat of Turkestan, which, in essence, contradicted Rosenberg’s plans regarding the formation of the Reich Commissariat of the Caucasus .
The main role in the political training of the legionnaires was assigned to their treatment in a nationalistic spirit. So, the soldiers of the Turkestan Legion were promised the creation of a Turkestan state - Greater Turkestan - under the protectorate of Germany. At the same time, it should include, in addition to Central Asia and Kazakhstan, also Bashkiria, the Volga region, Azerbaijan, the North Caucasus and the Uyghur Xinjiang (Western China). At the same time, the Germans said about the Volga Tatars that they were “the most educated, active and politically valuable elements from all the Turkic peoples of the USSR”
Practice
Despite the fact that the management apparatus of the Reichskommissariat was formed in 1941, the Germans did not succeed in transferring to the real management of the Turkestan territories.
See also
- Reichskommissariat Muscovy (planned)
- Reichskommissariat Caucasus (planned)
- Reichskommissariat Turkestan (planned)
- Reichskommissariat Don Volga (planned)
- Reichskommissariat Ostland (1941-1944)
- Reich Commissariat Ukraine (1941-1944)
- Reich Commissariat of the Netherlands (1940-1945)
- Reich Commissariat of Norway (1940-1945)
- Reich Commissariat Belgium and Northern France (1944)
Notes
- ↑ Bezymensky A. A. The general plan “Ost”: intentions, goals, reality // Questions of history. - 1978. - No. 5. - S. 78
- ↑ Plan for dividing the world between the Axis countries. Archived on February 8, 2012.