German-occupied Europe

History

Several German-occupied countries initially entered World War II as Allies of the United Kingdom or the Soviet Union. Some were forced to surrender before the outbreak of the war such as Czechoslovakia; others like Poland (invaded on 1 September 1939) were conquered in battle and then occupied. In some cases, the legitimate governments went into exile, in other cases the governments-in-exile were formed by their citizens in other Allied countries. Some countries occupied by Nazi Germany were officially neutral. Others were former members of the Axis powers that were subsequently occupied by German forces, such as Italy and Hungary.

Concentration camps

Main article: Nazi concentration camps

Germany operated thousands of concentration camps in German-occupied Europe. The first camps were established in March 1933 immediately after Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany. Following the 1934 purge of the Sturmabteilung (SA), the concentration camps were run exclusively by the Schutzstaffel (SS) via the Concentration Camps Inspectorate and later the SS Main Economic and Administrative Office. Initially, most prisoners were members of the Communist Party of Germany, but as time went on different groups were arrested, including "habitual criminals", "asocials", and Jews.

After the beginning of World War II, people from German-occupied Europe were imprisoned in the concentration camps. About 1.65 million people were registered prisoners in the camps, of whom about a million died during their imprisonment. Most of the fatalities occurred during the second half of World War II, including at least 4.7 million Soviet prisoners who were registered as of January 1945.

Following Allied military victories, the camps were gradually liberated in 1944 and 1945, although hundreds of thousands of prisoners died in the death marches.

After the expansion of Nazi Germany, people from countries occupied by the Wehrmacht were targeted and detained in concentration camps. In Western Europe, arrests focused on resistance fighters and saboteurs, but in Eastern Europe arrests included mass roundups aimed at the implementation of Nazi population policy and the forced recruitment of workers. This led to a predominance of Eastern Europeans, especially Poles, who made up the majority of the population of some camps. The ethnicities of captured people were various other groups from other different nationalities were transferred to Auschwitz or sent to local concentration camps.

Occupied countries

The countries occupied included all, or most, of the following nations or territories:

Governments in exile

Allied governments in exile

Axis governments in exile

Neutral governments in exile

Notes

References

Bibliography

• Bank, Jan. Churches and Religion in the Second World War (Occupation in Europe) (2016).
• Gildea, Robert and Olivier Wieviorka. Surviving Hitler and Mussolini: Daily Life in Occupied Europe (2007).
• Klemann, Hein A.M. and Sergei Kudryashov, eds. Occupied Economies: An Economic History of Nazi-Occupied Europe, 1939–1945 (2011).
• Lagrou, Pieter. The Legacy of Nazi Occupation: Patriotic Memory and National Recovery in Western Europe, 1945–1965 (1999).
• Scheck, Raffael; Fabien Théofilakis; and Julia S. Torrie, eds. German-occupied Europe in the Second World War (Routledge, 2019), 276 pp. online review.
• Snyder, Timothy. Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin (2010), on Eastern Europe.
• Toynbee, Arnold, ed. Survey of International Affairs, 1939–1946: Hitler's Europe (Oxford University Press, 1954), 730 pp. online review; full text online free.

Primary sources

• Carlyle Margaret, ed. Documents on International Affairs, 1939–1946. Volume II, Hitler's Europe (Oxford University Press, 1954), 362 pp.

References

1. Berend, Iván T.. (2016). "An Economic History of Twentieth-Century Europe: Economic Regimes from Laissez-Faire to Globalization". Cambridge University Press.
2. Encyclopædia Britannica, [https://web.archive.org/web/20130330193920/https://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/648813/World-War-II/53572/German-occupied-Europe German occupied Europe.] World War II. Retrieved 1 September 2015 from the [[Internet Archive]].
3. Prazmowska, Anita. (1995-03-23). "Britain and Poland 1939–1943: The Betrayed Ally". Cambridge University Press.
4. Moorhouse, Roger. (2014-10-14). "The Devils' Alliance: Hitler's Pact with Stalin, 1939–1941". Basic Books.
5. (2012-10-12). "The Munich Crisis, 1938: Prelude to World War II". Routledge.
6. (2001-08-30). "Europe in Exile: European Exile Communities in Britain 1940–45". Berghahn Books.
7. Hanson, Victor Davis. (2017-10-17). "The Second World Wars: How the First Global Conflict Was Fought and Won". Basic Books.
8. Cornelius, Deborah S.. (2011). "Hungary in World War II: Caught in the Cauldron". Fordham Univ Press.