To Be Like All But Different: Germans in Soviet Trudarmee

Abstract

This article analyses a peculiar form of labour mobilisation, known as the ‘trudarmee’, to which ethnic Germans in the Soviet Union, along with some other nationalities, were subjected in 1942–1945 after their initial deportations from the areas in which they had lived. The labour mobilisation of the war years was a form of forced labour obligation which existed outside of the immediate realm of the ‘traditional’ forced labour of the Gulag. The article considers the compatibility of the two forms of labour mobilisation and demonstrates that the ‘trudarmee’ labour mobilisation had features of both free and forced labour and thus deserves a space of its own in the existing historiography of Stalinism.

Notes

The bibliography on this question includes in particular: Otto Pohl (1997, 1999, 2000, pp. 267–93); Bougai (1989, pp. 135–44; 1991, pp. 141–60; 1996, 1998); Alieva (1993); Vormsbekher (1989, pp. 193–203); and Isakov (1990, pp. 36–39); also such works as: Slavgorodskaya (1998); Brul' (1999); Polyan (2001, 2002); Schmaltz (1998, pp. 215–47); Schmaltz and Skinner (2002); Skinner (2000a, 2000b); and Bel'ger (1992, pp. 150–56).

An important study in Russian is that by Gerber (1996, pp. 97–116).

Besides ethnic Germans, Finns, Hungarians, Rumanians, and Italians were mobilised into the labour armies during the war. However, ethnic Germans by far outnumbered representatives of other nationalities and hence became the main source of research on labour armies (Kokurin 1995, p. 64).

See, for example, O.A. Gerber, ‘Istochniki izucheniia problemy ispol'zovaniia prinuditel'nogo truda mobilizovannykh nemtsev v ugol'noi promyshlennosti Kuzbassa v 194-e gody,' in Rossiiskie Nemtsy: problemy istorri, iazyka i sovremennogo polojeniia, 97–116.

RGASPI (Rossiiskii Gosudarstvennyi Arkhiv Sotsial'noi i Politicheskoi Istorii) (formerly RTsKhIDNI, Rossiiskii Tsentr Khraneniya i Dokumentatsii Noveishei Istorii), fond 644, opis 1, delo 19, lines 49–50.

RGASPI, f. 644, op. 1, d. 36, l. 175, and published in Istoriya rossiiskikh nemtsev v dokumentakh (1763–1992 gg) (Moscow, 1993), pp. 172–73.

RGASPI, f. 644, op. 1, d. 19, ll. 49–50.

GARF (Gosudarstvennyi Arkhiv Rossiiskoi Federatsii), f. 9479, op. 1, d. 110, ll. 39, 11, 121, 123; and GARF, f. 9414, op. 1, d. 1169, l. 38.

See, for example, Viola (2001, pp. 730–55).

See, for example, III Kongress (2001).

For a detailed discussion of possible motives for ethnic deportations, as well as the structure of the special settlements as it emerged in the second half of the 1940s, see Mukhina (2007, especially pp. 32–36 and 81–109).

GARF, f. 9479, op. 1, d. 133, l. 306.

GARF, f. 9479, op. 1, d. 213, l. 1; GARF, f. 9479, op. 1, d. 377A, ll. 299–301; see also Bougai and Gonov (1998, p. 233).

GARF, f. 9479, op. 1, d. 157, ll. 206–10; Kriger (2001, p. 234).

GARF, f. 9479, op. 1, d. 146, ll. 102–6.

GARF, f. 9479, op. 1, d. 146, ll. 102–6; GARF, f. 9479, op. 1, d. 147, ll. 84–89; GARF, f. 9401, op. 1a, d. 172, ll. 107–11; GARF, f. 9401, d. 184, ll. 62–65; d. 179, ll. 80–81.

A statement published in Dvigatel', 5 July 1941.

Some mobilised workers argued that they were not only forced to work for the war effort but were also placed behind barbed wire (Nemtsy 2006, p. 63). Though in some locations this was indeed the case (especially when the mobilised people worked in isolated locations away from any villages or residential communities), most were placed with local families or within the boundaries of particular villages and were restricted by administrative measures to reside in one location without the immediate attributes of a forced labour camp such as barbed wire or barking dogs. For examples, see various memoirs in Nemtsy (2006).

GARF, f. 9414, op. 1, d. 1183, ll. 6–125. In this report there was a mix of information based on location (without the specification of work type) and the information based on the type of employment.

McCauley gives statistics in numbers which existed after the monetary reform of 1961 when money was exchanged at a ratio of 1:10 (McCauley 1993, pp. 190–91).

‘Statisticheskaya tablitsa TsSU SSSR’, RGAE, f. 1562, op. 41, d. 113, ll. 161f&b.

One kilo is 2.2 pounds; a litre of milk is roughly equal to a quart of milk.

‘Doklad ot 8 marta 1946 goda’, RGASPI, f. 17, op. 88, d. 694, ll. 54–57, and published in Dokumenty sovetskoi istori, pp. 503–5. The price of R50 per loaf of bread was reported for Ivanovo Oblast'.

GARF, f. 9401, op. 12, d. 154, l. 181.

GARF, f. 9414, op. 1, d. 1169, ll. 41–45.

GARF, f. 9414, op. 1, d. 1183, ll. 7–30.

Official rations for civilians in 1943–1944 also were not necessarily up to these standards. Calorific values of civilian rations were distributed in the following way: children under 13—1,067 calories a day (including 400 grams of bread a day); adult dependants of workers—780 calories/day (including 300 grams of bread); white-collar employees—1,074 calories/day (400 grams of bread); manual workers—1,913 calories/day (700 grams of bread) (Barber & Harrison 1991, p. 214).

Individual calorific values of each type of food for the first category were as follows: oatmeal or pasta—50–70 calories (average of 200 calories/cup); meat or fish—100 calories (average of 150 calories/3oz); fats—117 (9 calories/gram); potatoes—216 (84 calories/4oz) or carrots/cabbage—52 (20 calories/4oz); sugar—48 (15 calories/4 grams); other (5 grams of flour and salt)—about 50 calories. The total calorific value ranged from 414 to 581 calories/day.

GARF, f. 9401, op. 1a, d. 153, ll. 40–43. The resolution is mentioned in the same document.

Calculated based on statistics in GARF, f. 9414, op. 1, d. 1172, ll. 1–15; d. 1207, ll. 3–5.

GARF, f. 9401, op. 1a, d. 155, l. 33.

GARF, f. 9401, op. 1a, d. 155, ll. 33–34.

These women would be allowed to go back home only at the war's end. GARF, f. 9479, op. 1, d. 157, ll. 206–10.

All four quotes are from Rempel' (1996, p. 78).

GARF, f. 9414, op. 1, d. 1183, l. 417.

GARF, f. 9401, op. 12, d. 154, l. 181.

GARF, f. 9479, op. 1, d. 355, ll. 92–93.

GARF, f. 9414, op. 1, d. 1183, ll. 2–10.

GARF, f. 9414, op. 1, d. 1183, l. 20.

GARF, f. 9414, op. 1, d. 1183, l. 120.

For example, similar reports cited Sevastopol' housing districts with 5,943 square metres for 1,341 people. All from Documents 48–50 in Zubkova et al. (2003, pp. 169–182, here pp. 170–71, 176).

‘Trudovoi podvig Kazakhstana’, calculated by Agentsvo RK po statistieke, Kazakhstanskaya Pravda, 193, 17 August 2006.

For example, TsGAUzSSR, f. 314, op. 6, d. 13, ll. 10, 11; ll. 97–99f&b; ll.110–114; l. 198; ll. 203–205.

GARF, f. 9414, op. 1, d. 1157, ll. 149–150.

The exact number is 928,299. GARF, f. 9479, op. 1, d. 364, l. 305.

See discussion in Mukhina (2007); and see for example, GARF, f. 9414, op. 1, d. 1157, ll. 149–150; TsGAUzSSR, f. 314, op. 6, d. 13, ll. 10, 11; ll. 97–99f&b; ll.110–114; l. 198; ll. 203–205.

Numerous interviews and memoirs present this argument.

GARF document, dated 1 October 1939, published in German (1996, p. 254).

GARF, f. 9479, op. 1, d. 89, l. 256.

GANO, f. p-4, op. 5, d. 352, l. 38; GANO, f. 1030, op. 1, d. 210; and GANO, f. p-4, op. 34, d. 182, and also published in Polyan (2001, pp. 284–313).

GARF, f. 9479, op. 1, d. 355, l. 89; there are similar statistics for various settlements in various location throughout f. 9479, op. 1, d. 315–67.

GARF, f. 9479, op. 1, d. 579, l. 285.

GARF, f. 9479, op. 1, d. 579, l. 285; also GARF, f. 9479, op. 1, d. 248, l. 58; GARF, f. 9401, op. 1, d. 2158–65, l. 141.

Individual reports were occasionally issued to allow the employment of skilled workers according to their qualifications. However, there were certain restrictions for work in production sectors that were regarded as of high sensitivity and importance. For example, the employment of German tractor drivers was allowed but Germans were prohibited from working close to any hydro-electric station equipment. Yet similar restrictions were not placed on people with advanced post-secondary training; for example, see GARF, f. 9479, op. 1, d. 148, l. 127.

See footnote 52.

GARF, f. 9479, op. 1, d. 213, l. 1; GARF, f. 7523, op. 1, d. 116, l. 10.

GARF, f. 7523, op. 72, d. 576, l. 79.