KALUGA CITY GOVERNMENT DURING THE OCCUPATION BY NAZI GERMANY (OCTOBER-DECEMBER 1941): TRENDS IN RELATIONS WITH THE GERMAN OCCUPATION AUTHORITIES (based on the materials of the State Archive of Kaluga Region)

Abstract

In the article, the author, analysing a significant layer of recently introduced sources of the regional archive, seeks to pay attention to the consideration of the insufficiently studied problem of the development of regional collaboration during the occupation of the territory of Kaluga City by the Axis in the WW2. In historical science, the concept of “collaborationˮ is defined as cooperation with the enemy of a certain part of the population in the interests of the enemy state and with the detriment to their homeland. The most priority to study is its administrative form, expressed in the creation by the occupiers of administrative entities under the control of persons from among the local population. Temporarily occupying large areas of western Russia, for the convenience of managing the captured front-line territory and realising its own goals, the German command was forced to seek support in the part of the population loyal to the occupiers, giving the latter certain authority. This is how the so–called local self-government bodies came to life – special administrative institutions, personified by city and district councils, institutes of headmen and “volost aldermen”. To date, it is topical for historical science to investigate the nature of the relationship with the German occupiers, to study the role of those structures in the occupation policy of the Germans by the example of their direct functioning in the City of Kaluga.