The German occupants' policy in the sphere of providing the population with the first needthings (on the example of the regions of the military zone in Ukraine in 1941-1943)

During the stage of Germany's planning to attack USSR a great attention was paid to Ukraine. It had to become an agrarian and raw material base for the Third Reich, a sales market for German industrial products. During the period of war it had to be turned into the main depot for Wehrmacht. Thereupon the Nazi leadership had several approaches to carrying out the occupation policy. But the military operations progress made the Germans reconsider their original plans. By means of "auxiliary bodies" that consisted of the representatives of the local population they rebuilt industrial enterprises and necessary infrastructural facilities in Ukraine. In most cases those local bodies (district and city councils (boards)) exactly were interested in providing the population with jobs and means of subsistence and turned out to be the initiators for rebuilding factories and plants. One of the ways for solving that problem was the renewal of craftsmen activity. The supreme goals of military-economic investment were maintaining the growing needs of Wehrmacht. But they subordinated the process of rebuilding enterprises and regulated craftsmen activities. As a result all output (production) was used to perform that task. The results of the following policy were disastrous shortage of foodstuffs and first need things, the processes of deurbanization as far as the population of such large cities as Kharkiv, Stalino, Sumy, Voroshilovgrad was doomed to suffer from starvation and tried to move to rural areas. The criticism by the military administration officials who shared A.Rozenberg's ideas on "more lenient" occupation policy in Ukraine did not change the situation in general.

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