Reichskommissariat (English:RealmCommissariat) is aGerman word for a type of administrative entity headed by a government official known as aReichskommissar (English:RealmCommissioner). Although many offices existed, primarily throughout theImperial German andNazi periods in a number of fields (ranging frompublic infrastructure andspatial planning toethnic cleansing), it is most commonly used to refer to thequasi-colonial administrative territorial entity established by Nazi Germany in severaloccupied countries duringWorld War II. While officially located outside theGerman Reich in a legal sense, these entities were directly controlled by their supreme civil authorities (theReichskommissars), who ruled their territories as Germangovernors on behalf of and as representatives ofAdolf Hitler.[1]
The introduction of these territorial administrations served a number of purposes. Those established or planned to be established inWestern andNorthern Europe were in general envisioned as the transitional phases for the incorporation ofGermanic countries outside pre-war Germany into an expanded Nazi state.[2] Their eastern counterparts served primarilycolonialist andimperialist purposes, as sources ofLebensraum forGerman settlement and theexploitation of natural resources.[3][4]
Another contrast was the level of administrative overhaul implemented in these two types. As in most other territories conquered by the Germans, local administrators and bureaucrats were pressured to continue their regular day-to-day operations (especially at the middle and lower levels) albeit under German oversight. Throughout the war, theReichskommissariats in Western and Northern Europe retained the existing administrative structure, while in the eastern ones, new structures were introduced.[5] All of these entities were intended for eventual integration into aGreater Germanic Reich (German:Großgermanisches Reich) encompassing the general area ofEurope stretching from theNorth Sea to theUral Mountains, for which Germany was to form the basis.[2]
Just after the start ofOperation Barbarossa,Alfred Rosenberg suggested that to facilitate the break-up of theSoviet Union andRussia as a geographical entity, conquered Soviet territory should be administered in separate Reichskommissariats:
The interest in part of Turkestan of Germany's major Axis partner, theEmpire of Japan (seeAxis power negotiations on the division of Asia during World War II), could have become a topic of discussion regarding their own contemporaneous establishment of theGreater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.
| National | |
|---|---|
| Other | |
