German Propaganda and Policy on the National Question on the Territory of the General District of Belarus in the 1941–1944s

Abstract

Based on previously unpublished historical sources of the National Archive of the Republic of Belarus (NARB), the article examines the problem of German propaganda and policy on the national issue in the General district of Belarus. The study purpose is to determine the content and objectives of propa-
 ganda and policy on the national issue and its effectiveness. Research methods include analysis and synthesis.
 As a result of the research, the author has come to a number of conclusions. First of all, V. Kube, head of the German administration, made a bid to attract Belarusian nationalists to promote the so-called «Russian revolution». «Belarusization» is viewed as a tool for fulfilling economic and political tasks, also as a preventive tool in the fight against the development of the partisan movement. Second, the diverse and large-scale propaganda activities affected all
 spheres of public life, they are schools, churches, media, culture, science, etc.
 Third, the propaganda of the so-called «Belarusization» consisted of two lines, on the one hand, «the idea of national revival of the Belarusian culture, language, the development of national consciousness», and on the other hand, the
 idea of the Belarusian nation’s closeness to the cultural-historical space of Europe and Germany, which is inseparably connected to the historical destiny of Belarus and the «New Europe».
 Fourth, a certain cultural revival observed during the German occupation of the 1941–1944s occurred only within the narrow framework of Belarusian collaboration and did not affect the population in general. Fifth, all the factors, such as «scorched earth» policy, genocide of the Jews, forced «recruitment» of Ostarbeiters, presence of a mass and effective partisan movement, as well as an effective and reliable partisan counter-propaganda were combined to neutralize the propagandists’ efforts and reduce the effectiveness of German propaganda to zero