“War of Annihilation” in the Occupied Soviet Union, 1941–1942

doi:10.1017/9781108990158.018

15 - “War of Annihilation” in the Occupied Soviet Union, 1941–1942

from Part II - Times and Places

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 May 2025

Edward B. Westermann

Edited by

Mary Fulbrook and

Jürgen Matthäus

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Mary Fulbrook: Affiliation:
University College London
Jürgen Matthäus: Affiliation:
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

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Summary

This chapter highlights the crucial importance of Operation Barbarossa for the Second World War and the Holocaust; summarizes major stages in the escalation of violence (pre-campaign plans for domination, exploitation, and ethnic restratification; murder of Soviet POWs, Jews, and others by Germans, Romanians, and local helpers), their root causes and key agents (Wehrmacht, SS, police, other occupation authorities); explains Nazi perception of “the East” as the locus for the “Final Solution,” the relevance of German anti-partisan warfare, occupation policy priorities (”pacification,” exploitation, elimination of “useless eaters”) for massive loss of civilian life; and situates violence (mass shootings, gas vans, destruction of villages, deportation of forced laborers) in the Soviet Union in the perspective of other features of the Holocaust and the Second World War.

Keywords

Operation Barbarossa escalation of violence POWs “Final Solution”

Information

Type: Chapter
Information: The Cambridge History of the Holocaust , pp. 356 - 376

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108990158.018 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2025

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