City Mayors, Raion Chiefs and Village Elders in Ukraine, 1941–4: How Local Administrators Co-operated with the German Occupation Authorities

Abstract

AbstractDuring the occupation of Ukraine, city mayors, raion chiefs and village elders played a substantial role in implementing occupation policies. Based in large part on primary sources from regional archives in Ukraine, the current article analyses the role of these local administrators, so far largely neglected in research on the occupation of Ukraine. Whatever their original motives were for joining the local administration (Hilfsverwaltung) – economic, nationalistic, or ethnic reasons, or a desire for better governance, local administrators nevertheless supported forced labour measures and the murder of the local Jewish population by identifying the local Jewish inhabitants, by administering the property of the murdered Jews or by facilitating Jewish forced labour duties. The article treats the city administration in Kamenets-Podol’sk in Podolia as a case study of the involvement of the local administration in the crimes committed under the occupation regime.