Area of the Commander-in-Chief in the East Gebiet des Oberbefehlshabers Ost (German) | |
|---|---|
| 1914–1918 | |
 Ober Ost (administrative scope and organization in March 1917) | |
| Status | Military occupation authority of theGerman Empire |
| Capital | Königsberg(HQ, 1919)[citation needed] |
| Official languages | German |
| Common languages | Polish,Lithuanian,Latvian,Estonian |
| Supreme Commander | |
• 1914–1916 | Paul von Hindenburg |
• 1916–1918 | Leopold of Bavaria |
| Chief of Staff | |
• 1914–1916 | Erich Ludendorff |
• 1916–1918 | Max Hoffmann |
| Historical era | World War I |
• Established | 1914 |
| 3 March 1918 | |
| 11 November 1918 | |
• Disestablished | 1918 |
| Currency | |
| Today part of | Latvia Lithuania Poland Belarus |
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TheArea of the Commander-in-Chief in the East (German:Gebiet des Oberbefehlshabers Ost), also known by its German abbreviation asOber Ost, was anoccupied territory encompassingGerman sections of theEastern Front, during theWorld War I (1914–1918). It was headed by theCommander-in-Chief of all German Forces in the East (German:Oberbefehlshaber der gesamten Deutschen Streitkräfte im Osten), one of the highest-ranking positions in thearmed forces of theGerman Empire. Institutional development and territorial evolution of theOber Ost was varying over the years, depending on political and military decisions related to governance over the occupied territories. After the creation ofGovernment General of Warsaw in October 1915, theOber Ost was encompassing formerRussian provinces (governorates) ofCourland,Grodno,Kovno,Suwałki, andVilna. In 1917-1918, it was expanded further towards governorates ofMinsk,Livonia,Estonia, and other temporarily held regions to the east and north. It was governed in succession by field marshalsPaul von Hindenburg andLeopold of Bavaria. It was abandoned after the end ofWorld War I.[1][2]
Ober Ost was set up by KaiserWilhelm II in November 1914, initially under the command ofPaul von Hindenburg, aPrussian general who had come out of retirement to achieve theGerman victory of theBattle of Tannenberg in August 1914 and became a national hero. When theChief of the General StaffErich von Falkenhayn was dismissed from office by the Kaiser in August 1916, Hindenburg took over at the General Staff, andPrince Leopold of Bavaria took control of theOber Ost.
By October 1915, theImperial German Army had advanced so far to the east that centralPoland could be put under a civil administration. Accordingly, the German Empire established theGovernment General of Warsaw and theAustro-Hungarian Empire set up theGovernment General of Lublin. The militaryOber Ost government from then on controlled only the conquered areas east and north of central Poland.
After the signing of theTreaty of Brest-Litovsk of March 1918, theOber Ost effectively spanned present-dayLithuania,Latvia,Belarus, parts ofPoland, andCourland, all of which had been part of theRussian Empire.[3]
Ober Ost governed in a very strict and often cruel way. The movement policy (Verkehrspolitik) divided the territory without regard to the existing social structures and ethnic patterns. Movement between the districts was forbidden, which destroyed the livelihood of many merchants and prevented people from visiting relatives and friends in neighboring districts. The Germans also tried to "civilize" the people in theOber Ost-controlled lands, attempting to integrate German ideals and institutions with the existing cultures. They constructed railroads but only Germans were allowed to ride them and schools were established and staffed with German instructors.[4]
In 1915, when large territories came underOber Ost's administration as a result of military successes on the Eastern Front,Erich Ludendorff, von Hindenburg's second-in-command, set up a system of managing the large area now under its jurisdiction. Although von Hindenburg was technically in command, Ludendorff had actual control of the administration. There were ten staff members, each with a specialty (finance, agriculture, etc.). The area was divided into theCourland District, theLithuania District and theBialystok-Grodno District, each overseen by a district commander. Ludendorff's plan was to makeOber Ost a colonial territory for the settlement of his troops after the war and to provide a haven for German refugees from Russia.[4] Ludendorff quickly organizedOber Ost so that it was a self-sustaining region, growing all its own food and even exporting surpluses to Berlin. The largest resource was one that Ludendorff was unable to exploit effectively: the local population had no interest in helping obtain a German victory, as it had no say in the government and was subject to increasing requisitions and taxes.[4]
There were many problems with communication with local persons within theOber Ost. Among the upper-class locals, the soldiers could get by withFrench orGerman, and in large villages, the Jewish population would speak German orYiddish, "which the Germans would somehow comprehend".[5] In the rural areas and amongstpeasant populations soldiers had to rely on interpreters who spokeLithuanian,Latvian orPolish.[5] The language problems were not helped by the thinly-stretched administrations, which would sometimes number 100 men in areas as large asLuxembourg.[5] Theclergy at times had to be relied upon to spread messages to the masses since that was an effective way of spreading a message to people who speak a different language.[5] A young officer-administrator namedVagts related that he listened (through a translator) to a sermon by apriest who told his congregation to stay off highways after nightfall, hand in firearms and not to have anything to do withBolshevist agents, exactly asVagts had told him to do earlier.[5]
Under the Ober Ost administration, various policies ofGermanization were also implemented. Thus from 1 June 1918, mandatory classes ofGerman language, starting from the first grade, were introduced in all primary schools throughout the Ober Ost.[6]
Provisional nature of theOber Ost administration in occupied regions did not imply annexation or secession, nor did German government formally implemented such solutions, until the outbreak ofRussian Revolution in March 1917. Since theBerlin Conference ofCentral Powers in August 1917, German authorities intensified various political steps and initiatives aimed to define new geopolitical realities, based on plannedclient states, within German-dominatedMitteleuropa.[7]
Such plans plans were already implemented inPoland, and similar efforts were intensified inOber Ost regions after the outbreak of theBolshevik Revolution in November 1917. Relying mainly on nativeBaltic German nobility and various conservative groups of other peoples in occupied regions, Germany allowed the proclamation of aLithuanian state, and continued to pressure the newly createdSoviet Russia to accept emerging political realities. By February 1918, Germany conducted asuccessful offensive and captured entireLivonia andEstonia, and also large parts of Belarus and Ukraine, thus expandingOber Ost towards north and east.[8]
Already on 3 March 1918, under theTreaty of Brest-Litovsk, Soviet Russia was forced to accept the loss of all regions to the west of the agreeddemarcation line, thus effectively relinquishing all claims on Poland, Lithuania and Courland, and also accepted that various other regions - to the east of the demarcation line (entire Estonia and Livonia, and western parts of Belarus and Ukraine) will remain under provisional German occupation until the conclusion of the general peace in Europe.[9]
Thus, new geopolitical realities were defined, allowing political leaders ofBaltic Germans to proclaim theDuchy of Courland as an independent state on 8 March 1918, that was formally recognized by Germany on 15 March.[10] Following that example, local German and other conservative leaders in Latvia and Estonia decided on 12 April (1918) to proclaim the independence of Livonia-Estonia. Both newly created states were fully dependent on Germany, and thus "independent" only by name, since effective power in those lands continued to be exercised throughOber Ost administration. On 22 September 1918, Germany recognized independence of Livonia-Estonia, and on 5 November (1918) those lands were merged with Courland into the newly proclaimedUnited Baltic Duchy,[11] that collapsed by 28 November of the same year, since German government in Berlin and pro-German leaders in eastern lands were forced to accept emergence of new and independent national states (Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia).[12][13][14]
Already by the end of 1917, the question of possible separation of military and civilian administrations in the Ober Ost territories was discussed on several occasions in the highest, both military and political circles of the German Empire, but those issues were postponed for the future.[15]
Finally in August-September 1918, the scope of Ober Ost responsibilities was reduced to military affairs only, while civilian administration was detached from its formal jurisdiction and reorganized, by setting up two distinctive administrations, one for theBaltic lands, and the other forLithuania. Since both territories were still occupied by German armies, the newly created administrations were effectively set up as transitional, and tasked with implementation of new policies, formally aimed on the creation of permanent civilian administrative structures. In the norther section, German politician Alfred von Gossler was appointed governor of the Baltic lands, while his deputy was Hans Joachim von Brockhusen, a son-in-law of field marshal Hindenburg. Under Gossler′s jurisdiction were three provincial administrators: von Zahn (in Estonia), von Both (in Livonia), Küster (in Courland), and a city administrator Hopf (in Riga).[16][17]
The administrative division ofOber Ost was structured on several levels. The main administrative units were provinces, orVerwaltungsgebiete (administrative territories). Each was, like Germany proper, subdivided intoKreise (districts);Landkreise (rural districts) andStadtkreise (urban districts). Since jurisdiction and territorial scope of Ober Ost was evolving in time, its administrative organization was also changing, in accordance with current military and political needs. Initially, in the autumn of 1915, the entire Ober Ost territory was divided into six provinces, each of them headed by a German provincial administrator (governor): Alfred von Gossler in Courland (Mitau), Franz-Joseph zu Isenburg-Birstein in northwestern Lithuania (Kovno), von Beckerath in Vilnius, Rüdiger von Haugwitz in Suwalki, Theodor von Heppe in Grodno, and von Bockelberg in Bialystok.[18]
In March 1917, regional administration was reorganized, dividing Ober Ost into three provinces:Kurland,Litauen, andBialystok-Grodno.[19] Under that division, the following districts existed in 1917:[20]
| Bialystok-Grodno | Kurland |
|---|---|
| Alekszyce | Bauske |
| Bialystok, Stadtkreis | Doblen |
| Bialystok, Landkreis | Goldingen |
| Bielsk | Grobin |
| Grodno, Stadtkreis | Hasenpot |
| Grodno, Landkreis | Libau, Stadtkreis |
| Lida, Stadtkreis | Mitau, Landkreis |
| Ost | Talsen |
| Planty | Tuckum |
| Radun | Windau |
| Sokolka | N/a |
| Swislocz | |
| Wasilischky | |
| Wolkowysk |
| Litauen | |
|---|---|
| Augustow | Rossienie |
| Birshi | Russisch-Krottingen |
| Johanischkele | Saldugischki |
| Kiejdany | Schaulen |
| Koschedary | Schirwinty |
| Kowno, Stadtkreis | Sejny |
| Kowno, Landkreis | Siady |
| Kupzischki | Skaudwile |
| Kurszany | Suwalki |
| Maljaty | Telsze |
| Mariampol | Uzjany |
| Okmjany | Wiezajcie |
| Olita | Wilkomierz |
| Podbrodzie | Wilna, Stadtkreis |
| Pojurze | Wilna, Landkreis |
| Poniewiez | Wladislawow |
| Rakischki | Wylkowyschki |
The total area was 108,808 km2 (42,011 sq mi), containing a population of 2,909,935 (by the end of 1916).[21]
With the end of the war and collapse of the empire, the Germans started to withdraw, sometimes in a piecemeal and disorganized way, fromOber Ost around late 1918 and early 1919.[22] In the vacuum left by their retreat, conflicts arose as various former occupied nations declared independence, clashing with the various factions of theRussian Revolution and subsequentCivil War, and with each other. For details, see:
By 1919, the remaining military units in the region were:
The Lithuanian historian Vėjas Gabrielius Liulevičius postulates in his bookWar Land on the Eastern Front: Culture, National Identity, and German Occupation in World War I, that a line can be traced fromOber Ost's policies and assumptions toNazi Germany's plans and attitudes towards Eastern Europe. His main argument is that "German troops developed a revulsion towards the 'East' and came to think of it as a timeless region beset by chaos, disease and barbarism", instead of what it really was, a region suffering from the ravages of warfare.[23] He claims that the encounter with the East formed an idea of "spaces and races", which needed to be "cleared and cleansed". Although he has garnered a great deal of evidence for his thesis including government documents, letters and diaries in German and Lithuanian, there are still problems with his work. For example, he does not say much about the reception of German policies by native populations.[23] Also, he "makes almost no attempt to relate wartime occupation policies and practice inOber Ost to those in Germany'scolonial territories overseas".[23]
52°13′59″N21°01′12″E / 52.23306°N 21.02000°E /52.23306; 21.02000
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