Occupied Soviet Territories Research Articles

ВСПОМОГАТЕЛЬНАЯ ПОЛИЦИЯ В СИСТЕМЕ НАЦИСТСКОГО ОККУПАЦИОННОГО РЕЖИМА НА СОВЕТСКИХ ТЕРРИТОРИЯХ (НА ПРИМЕРЕ БЕЛОРУССКОЙ ССР)

This article is devoted to the study of the role and place of the collaborationist auxiliary police, which was an important part of the Nazi security forces during the occupation of Soviet territories. The reasons for the appearance and genesis of such police formations are shown on the example of the Belarusian SSR. Their typology is considered, with the help of which it was possible to establish that the main types of police in the territory of this Soviet republic were the «service of order», «self-defense» and Auxiliary Police of order, the reasons for the creation of which directly depended from the increase in the level of partisan danger in the occupied territories. As a result of the conducted research, it was found that the auxiliary police were the most massive collaborationist formations in the occupied Soviet territories, and their role in Nazi repressive policies (for example, participation in the Holocaust) is quite significant. Nevertheless, the level of combat capability of the police remained low for a number of reasons and only decreased with the course of the occupation, which forced the Nazi administration to look for other forms of military collaboration. One of these reasons was the interethnic relations on the territory of the Belarusian SSR, which allows us to call the auxiliary police an essential factor in the dynamics, for example, of Belarusian-Polish and Belarusian-Russian relations.

Women’s Daily Life in the Occupation: Sexual Violence in Documents and Soviet Propaganda

The problem of sexual violence in the occupied Soviet territories during the Great Patriotic War is an under-researched and taboo subject in the Russian public sphere. It is viewed either from the perspective of collaboration in prostitution and cohabitation, or from the perspective of gender discrimination and sexual violence. At the same time, it is extremely difficult to differentiate these features of women’s everyday life under the conditions of the “war of annihilation”. Based on the documents of the Extraordinary State Commission for the Investigation of the Atrocities of the German Fascist Invaders, partisan reports, and other documents, as well as articles from the wartime periodical press, the author compares images of sexual violence with the practices of women’s everyday life under occupation. In the propaganda of the warring countries, the image of the abused female body was actively used to incite hatred of the enemy. Rape and the forcing of women under occupation to work in brothels were presented in this light. A comparison of propaganda images and specific facts of violence presented in official and ego-documents shows the existence of discrepancies between images and practices. While rape was fairly accurately portrayed in official texts, the problem of prostitution was less accurately reflected in reality. Individual women used their bodies as a means of survival and received various material benefits in return. The population did not perceive legal prostitution in the categories of propaganda and interpreted it as a betrayal. Although some decrees were passed during the war in both Germany and the USSR that treated violence against women as a crime, women were not recognised as victims in the Soviet public trials or at the Nuremberg Tribunal and did not receive compensation. During the transition to peace, the problem of sexual violence lost its pragmatic propaganda function and was excluded from the collective memory. Nevertheless, the increase in violence against women during the Second World War led to the adoption of the Geneva Convention for the Protection of Victims of War in 1949, which was ratified by the Soviet Union in 1954.

ABVER-3: METHODS OF COUNTER-INTELLIGENCE ACTIVITIES ON THE TERRITORY OF THE USSR (June 1941 - February 1942)

The key to the successful operation of any army is the well-organized work of its units responsible for counterintelligence. In the Wehrmacht, this function was assigned to abwehr-3 – one of the departments of abwehr (German military intelligence and counterintelligence). The source base is based on captured German documents, a set of which was found in the funds of the Central Archive of the Ministry of Defense. The scientific novelty of the study lies in the fact that for the first time documents are introduced into scientific circulation that were previously inaccessible to the scientific community and the public. The article analyzes the methods used by the Abwehr-3 in the period from June 1941 to February 1942 in the occupied Soviet territories. The activities of the German counterintelligence to suppress enemy propaganda, the Abwehr method of preserving state secrets, and instructions on the behavior of Wehrmacht soldiers in captivity that were in force during the Second World War are considered. Such an Abwehr-3 method as conspiracy is considered in detail, the main requirements for the storage of secret documents in the Wehrmacht are given. It is shown that officers of the Abwehr-3 performed the role of censors in Nazi Germany. The main scientific result: the authors showed that the work of the German counterintelligence was strictly regulated and placed on a fairly high methodological level. This conclusion emphasizes the fact that on the fields of the secret war, Soviet intelligence was confronted by a serious enemy, which was possible to defeat only with high professionalism and devotion to duty.

To seek vengeance or not? How the Evolution of Revenge Propaganda Occurred in the Soviet Military Periodical Press

ABSTRACT This article examines the evolution of Soviet revenge propaganda between August 1941 and April 1945, and argues that it set out to cultivate sentiments of revenge in soldiers’ behavior. Indeed, so successful was this approach that in the final months of the war (February–May 1945) the Red Army’s political departments sought to redefine the concept of revenge as a way to suppress violence. Revenge propaganda started in August 1941, and initially showed a ‘class’ paradigm that distinguished between the concepts of ‘German’ and ‘Fascist’. This changed in May 1942. Demands for revenge became more anti-German, and centered on the publication of materials discussing the atrocities of German troops in the occupied Soviet territories. As the Red Army moved towards the German borders, and during the fighting in Germany (August 1944–May 1945), military newspapers again changed the perspective of revenge. They were instructed to use stories of Ostarbeiters and Soviet POWs about their time in ‘German slavery’ to encourage a desire for revenge on the Germans. In February 1945, the policy of revenge propaganda changed once more, as the desire for retribution threatened the offensive. Revenge was redefined, this time with the purpose of preserving captured property, to prevent arson in German cities, and to curb the number of cases of looting. From April 1945 onwards, military newspapers encouraged military personnel to treat Germans, POWs and civilians, humanely, appealing to their readers to maintain the honor and dignity of the Red Army.

German Population Local Evacuations from the USSR Occupied Regions in winter-spring 1943

One of the elements of the “total war” declared by the Nazi leadership in February 1943 was the massive displacement of the civilian population of the occupied Soviet territories to the deep rear. As a rule, these movements were voluntary compulsory. Among those who were also subjected to mandatory evacuation were ethnic Germans, who, as a rule, enjoyed the special patronage of the occupation authorities. Most of them, of course, could not help fearing reprisals after the return of Soviet power and therefore preferred to retreat with the Wehrmacht. As a result, during the first few months of 1943, thousands of refugees of German nationality were quickly evacuated from several occupied regions of the RSFSR, the Ukrainian SSR, and the BSSR. Some of them, by decision of the SS leadership, remained on the territory of the Reichskommissariat “Ukraine”, while others left for the imperial region of Warthegau and the General Government. Despite their very modest scale, these evacuations had at least two main outcomes. First, they became, in a sense, a prototype (especially at the organizational level) of administrative relocations that unfolded in the autumn of the same year on the territory of Ukraine. Some considerations (such as the idea of the concentration of German refugees on the right bank of the Dnieper or in Galicia) would later form the basis for further plans of the Nazi leadership. Secondly, the arrival of a fairly large contingent of Soviet Germans in the Reich required several changes to the legal framework governing the procedure for their naturalization. A significant part of these innovations will determine the fate of the majority of German immigrants from the USSR practically until the end of the war.
 In the presented article, based on the involvement of a significant array of documents from the archival funds of Germany, the characteristic features of the evacuation of ethnic Germans from the occupied regions of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus in winter-spring 1943 are considered.

МАТЕРІАЛЬНО-ПОБУТОВЕ ЗАБЕЗПЕЧЕННЯ НІМЕЦЬКИХ БІЖЕНЦІВ З СРСР НА ТЕРИТОРІЇ РЕЙХУ НАПРИКІНЦІ ДРУГОЇ СВІТОВОЇ ВІЙНИ

Throughout the fall of 1943 – the spring of 1944 almost the entire German population was taken out of the occupied Soviet territories by the German authorities. The immediate reason for this, as is known, was the loss of strategic initiative on the Eastern Front. By the autumn of 1944, the number of all evacuated ethnic Germans was about 360,000. Most of the German contingent was sent to the territory of Warthegau district. All the rest were in several other regions of Germany. The Warthegau administration began active preparations for the reception of German refugees already in early January 1944. Immediately after arriving in the Reich, they, according to the established procedure, underwent a medical examination, pest control and only then went to the camps. Many German officials described the situation of the evacuated Germans as catastrophic, paying attention to what was immediately evident – a lack of clothes and shoes. Besides, the German authorities were concerned about the arrangement of the life of the new migrants, the bulk of whom was planned to be used as agricultural workers. The SS leadership tried to solve the problem of material and domestic security of German refugees from the USSR by attracting its resources and through support from various business entities. As a result, by the end of the war, the German authorities had not been able to completely solve the problem of the material and social security of ethnic Germans from the USSR. The main reason was the lack of resources and the almost complete reorientation of many enterprises to defense needs. Domestic disorder hugely negatively affected the moral and psychological state of many migrants. In turn, the lack of clothing and shoes often led to refusals to go to work. With growing discontent among the settlers at the end of 1944, the Nazi authorities tried to fight mainly through propaganda, trying to convince them that sooner or later, after the victory of Germany, their life would become much better.

Place Renaming and German Policy-Making in Temporarily Occupied Soviet Territories

The article discusses the transfer of territory-remapping strategies by Nazi Germany from Europe to the occupied territories of the USSR, with a particular focus on place renaming. Measures concerning toponymy and onomastics were generally well-rooted in the policy of the Third Reich. In the year of 1942, as the German occupation zone in the Soviet Union reached its peak for the whole period of the war, specific guidelines for renaming were issued to secure the acclaimed territories. On the functional side, the guidelines were to eliminate confusion in the correspondence between administrative bodies of the occupied lands and their Berlin leadership. The author shows that each renaming decision could be due to several factors, but ultimately these were meant to contribute to further legal and cultural appropriation of the occupied territories and their subsequent Germanization. Renaming of places in the German way took different forms. Most commonly, it went through the integration of the Nazi ideology into the context of European and world history. The national socialists declared themselves heirs to Germany’s great past, the successors of its best traditions. The “Germanization” of place names in different occupation zones had different dynamics. Logically, the farther the occupied territories were from the Western border of the USSR, the fewer German names they featured. The article showcases how the “derussification” policy was used to disrupt the links with the Soviet past, to foster separatist tendencies, and ultimately to verbalize the expectations of a “blitzkrieg” victory. Renaming of toponymic objects also aimed to reduce the population’s resistance to occupation, as well as increase the loyalty to the occupiers. The paper builds on archival documents, the occupation press, eyewitness accounts.

Проблемы территориального развития СССР в 1945 г.: доклад Н. Н. Колосовского Комиссии Академии наук СССР по мобилизации ресурсов Урала, Западной Сибири и Казахстана на нужды обороны страны

The article introduces into scientific use a report of Nikolai N. Kolosovsky, founder of the Soviet local school for economic geography. It was written in 1945, in the last months of the Great Patriotic War, for a dispute held in at the Commission of the USSR Academy of Sciences on mobilizing the resources of the Urals, Western Siberia and Kazakhstan for needs of national defense. During the war, N. N. Kolosovsky supervised deployment of war industry in the Urals and solved related transport organization problems. In his report, Kolosovsky expounds his views on restoring Soviet economy in light of approaching victory. The published source captures the author’s temporarily determined socio-political attitudes, as well as his professional considerations. The report was compiled several months before the beginning of the Cold War. A contains a number of references to the international cooperation of the USSR and its allies from anti-Hitler coalition. N. N. Kolosovsky does not question neither imminent assistance of the Western countries in the economic development of the postwar USSR, nor Soviet successful entry into the European market, which is subsequently to become Eurasian. The report reflects the mood of the euphoria that briefly engulfed Soviet society, soon to be destroyed by the confrontation of the two superpowers. Another valuable aspect of the report is the author’s steadfast habit of looking at any given topic through the lens of further development of Soviet Eastern regions. It allowed N. N. Kolosovsky to juxtapose direct military damage caused by the Nazis to the the occupied Soviet territories and “indirect” damage caused by forced reorganization of industry of the rear regions according to wartime demands. His observations allow Kolosovsky to predict the future problems in territorial development of the USSR and to point out concrete ways for their resolution.

Istoriografiya kollaboracionizma na okkupirovannykh evropeyskikh i sovetskikh territoriyakh v gody vtoroy mirovoy voyny

Istoriografiya kollaboracionizma na okkupirovannykh evropeyskikh i sovetskikh territoriyakh v gody vtoroy mirovoy voyny

Save your Souls: Jewish Conversion and Survival in the Occupied Soviet Territories During the Holocaust1

Save your Souls: Jewish Conversion and Survival in the Occupied Soviet Territories During the Holocaust1

Коллаборационизм на советских оккупированных территориях: историография последних лет

Коллаборационизм на советских оккупированных территориях: историография последних лет

Krössinsee (zachodniopomorski Złocieniec-Budowo) i inne narodowosocjalistyczne „zamki zakonne”. Budowa – funkcja – kostium stylowy

In 1934, construction began on training centers for the upper echelons of future NS leadership: the Vogelsang in the Eifel, Krössinsee (Polish Złocieniec-Budowo) in western Pomerania, and Sonthofen in Allgäu. Through the enormous efforts of the German Labor Front (DAF) the training centres, called Ordensburgen (literally: ‘castles of the orders’), were completed in 1936. In the meantime, much literature has been published on all of the NS Ordenburgen, yet an investigation of the genesis and analysis of their form is still lacking, which this essay partially attempts to address.
 The intention was undoubtedly to build Ordensburgen on the southern, western and eastern fringes of the Reich distanced less than 60 kilometres from the border. Rosenberg, who had made a statement to this effect in a speech in 1934, coined the name ‘Ordensburg’ in connection with the Teutonic Order – the proud champion of ‘Germanness’. The name evoked other echoes from history: young men who were trained for warfare and administration and who lived a life closed of from outside influences. The name also recalled the medieval orders of knights who exercised their power as a military authority along the frontiers of Christianity from Spain to Palestine.
 If we go beyond a formal interpretation of the Ordensburgen, what can be seen in all the three structures is the important symbolic function of towers (two rectangular brick towers were erected in Kroessinsee in 1939). In all of them so-called Tingplätze were built, a kind of open-air theatre for political rallies. Moreover, the architect Clemens Klotz embraced the modern age. In adhering to contemporary thought, he blended the cosiness of the Heimatstil with the monumentality and pathos of Neoclassicism. Other forms are also found, such as oval risalites derived from ‘Neues Bauen’ or the protruding window reveal, or the use of unworked stone blocks, something that was particularly characteristic of NS architecture. Yet despite the name ’Ordensburg’, formal references to medieval architecture are sparse. The most apparent examples are seen in the Sonthofen architecture of Herman Giesler in the proportions of the main tower or the vaulted ceilings of the tavern (the so-called Fuchsbau).
 After 1945, the Ordensburgen became the military barracks of the victors: Vogelsang was British until 1950, then Belgian; Sonthofen was American until 1956 and then turned over to the German Bundeswehr; Krössinsee was used by the Soviet army from 1947 or 1948, and afterward became the Polish Budowo. Vogelsang was opened to the public in 2006. Today, we face ongoing questions about the preservation and new uses of the Ordensburg structures and facilities. The designation of the former NS training centres as memorial sites, in which the juncture between Ordensburgen and the NS crimes finds physical expression, will presumably be the sole way to ensure their continued existence. Between 1939 and 1940, approximately 260 Ordensjunkers (the name derived from ‘Junker’: a nobleman from the landed class) were sent from Krössinsee on military assignment to the area of Poznań (‘Warthegau’), from where up to a half a million Poles and Jews were expelled to the Government General. Further documentation shows the involvement of the Ordensjunkers in the Holocaust during 1941 in the occupied Soviet territories. In making the buildings of the Ordensburgen accessible to the public, while at the same time laying bare the reality behind the mystique, it seems necessary to proceed on a different path than that which has been taken up to now. ‘Domesticating’ the testimonies of a terror regime has been expressed in ways such as the oversized colourful pillows for visitor seating at the Wewelsburg Castle or the garish plastic forms in Vogelsang. Tus, in addition to taking stock of the buildings and making a case for their preservation, the serious question that must be asked is how to deal with this kind of legacy.
 (translated by Sharon Nemeth)

15. La Wehrmacht, le corps des généraux et la Shoah

For a long time, the participation of the Wehrmacht in the Holocaust was denied, ignored or underestimated in Germany. Only more recent research has clearly shown that the deprivation of rights, deportation and murder of Jews in the occupied territories which were managed by the Wehrmacht would hardly have been possible without the active participation of military departments. This applies to France, Belgium, Serbia and Greece, but especially to the occupied Soviet territories, in which the indiscriminate genocide was initiated in 1941. Over half a million Jews were murdered in the military operation area in the East alone, with the indulgence as well as administrative and logistical support of the Wehrmacht. On the military side, the main responsibility for these precedentsetting mass crimes was borne by the generals, who consciously engaged in Hitler’s intended racial ideological war of extermination and, in this context, accepted the Holocaust themselves.

К вопросу о масштабах коллаборационизма в годы Великой Отечественной войны 1941-1945 гг. На материалах Смоленской области

The article assesses the scope of collaboration in occupied Soviet territories in the days of the Great Patriotic War. This topic is a matter of intense debate in modern Russian scholarship. The most controversial issue is the extent to which Soviet citizens participated in events organized by invaders in occupied territories and the support which local population lent to occupation authorities. The article assesses potential threat of collaborationism in political, as well as economic terms. Having seized the richest and most economically developed regions of the country, the enemy could have significantly strengthened his military potential. National historiography has not yet integrated all data on stratification of local population in their stance toward invaders. It is an extremely difficult task to accomplish nationwide. As occupied territories were culturally, historically and socio-politically heterogeneous, it should be approached by studying republics and regions on a standalone basis. The case-study of the Smolensk region draws on archival materials to determine the share of Soviet citizens cooperating with occupation authorities within the framework of ‘administrative collaboration.’ It concludes that the number of Smolensk families whose members can be classified as ‘administrative collaborators,’ did not exceed 12%, whereas more than 9% of Smolensk families had members who took an active part in the struggle against invaders in the partisan detachments. Thus, the article demonstrates that two extreme irreconcilable phenomena in the occupied territories — collaborationism and partisans movement — were practically in balance. The absolute majority of Smolensk residents (almost 80%) did their utmost to avoid participation in both. Further developments in the Smolensk region proved that their ‘neutrality’ was conditional: the population remained loyal to the Soviet government and formed a social base for large-scale resistance to the occupation policy. Smolensk region became one of the centers of the partisan movement. To a certain extent, Smolensk data can be extrapolated to other western regions of the Russian non-black earth area.

The Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (Mel'nyk Faction) and the Holocaust: The Case of Ivan Iuriiv

This article explores the career path of Ivan Iuriiv, a supporter of the faction of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists led by Andrii Mel’nyk (OUN-M). During World War II Iuriiv joined Sonderkommando 10a of Einsatzgruppe D, and as a member of this detachment he played an active role in the extermination of Jewish communities in occupied territories of the Ukraine and the RSFSR. The author uses unpublished sources from German, Ukrainian, American, and Israeli archives to examine Iuriiv’s political views, his involvement in Nazi crimes, his role as an OUN-M activist in the creation of Ukrainian auxiliary police forces in occupied Soviet territories, and his postwar fate in Western Europe and Canada. This close examination of Iuriiv’s career and experiences contributes to our understanding of the participation of ethnic Germans in the Holocaust.

Soviet Women Collaborators in Occupied Ukraine 1941–1945

Despite the recent growth in scholarship on collaboration in the occupied Soviet territories during the Second World War, there appears to be a gap in the historiography concerning civilian women and their experiences under occupation. Soviet post‐war war crimes trials reveal that women made up a small but important number of local collaborators with the Nazi occupation regime in Ukraine. The crimes these women committed during the German occupation ranged from denunciation, to helping the occupation regime through administrative work, to actively being an agent provocateur and a spy. Some had little participation in the Nazi atrocities while others had first‐hand involvement in interrogations and beatings of victims. A few of the women even denounced fellow neighbors, friends and family members to the occupiers. This article argues that there was no one stereotypical female collaborator nor was there one dominant motivating factor for collaboration among the women in this study. Their age, nationality, educational and socio‐economic background varied significantly, and so did their motivations and degrees of involvement in the Nazi murder of Jews and Soviet partisans. The reasons for the women collaborators’ actions during the occupation were as individual and varied as the women themselves.

Toward a Central Database of Evacuated Soviet Jews' Names, for the Study of the Holocaust in the Occupied Soviet Territories

Previously unknown data from central Russian archives show that Soviet, post-Soviet, and Western historians have substantially overestimated the number of Soviet citizens evacuated in 1941 and 1942. This research note advocates a central database of evacuated Soviet Jews' names, including social and demographic information on each. The author suggests as its basis name lists and card catalogues from central and regional archives in Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and other republics of the former USSR, as well as from the Tracing and Information Center of the Russian Red Cross. The database would afford more precise information on the numbers of refugees from, and victims of, the Holocaust in the occupied Soviet territories, improve possibilities for the sociological and demographic study of both groups, and help ascertain heretofore unknown names of Soviet Jews martyred by the Nazis and their allies. The database would serve such pragmatic purposes as genealogical research and compensation cases of the Claims Conference.

Revisiting the Meeting of the Staatssekretäre on 2 May 1941: A Response to Klaus Jochen Arnold and Gert C. Lübbers

In my article 'Germany's Staatssekretaire, Mass Starvation and the Meeting of 2 May 1941',' I posit that the meeting of the Staatssekretire on 2 May 1941 was an official session of the Economic Command Staff East, the management committee responsible for economically administering the occupied Soviet territories. Those present, namely the relevant representatives of the German ministerial bureaucracy and the Wehrmacht, signalled their endorsement of the ruthless exploitation of Soviet foodstuffs for the benefit of the invading troops and the home front, and at a cost of the lives of tens of millions of Soviet civilians. The meeting served to elaborate and co-ordinate the approach already sanctioned by Germany's supreme leadership. In this way, the meeting had massive implications for German occupation policy in the Soviet Union. With their article 'The Meeting of the Staatssekretaire on 2 May 1941 and the Wehrmacht: A Document up for Discussion',2 Klaus Jochen Arnold and Gert C. Liibbers have written a direct response to and critique of my article and the theses contained therein. In writing their article, Arnold and Liibbers have two principal aims. First, they seek to exonerate the Wehrmacht from their participation in the planning that is, the premeditated preparation of atrocities against civilians and prisoners of war in the Soviet territories at all costs. They do this in two ways: by playing down the importance of senior Wehrmacht officers such as General Georg Thomas in endorsing and planning these atrocities; and by giving the responsibility for this criminal intent exclusively to Adolf Hitler, his nominated successor Hermann Goring, and the Staatssekretair in the Ministry for Food and Agriculture, Herbert Backe. Secondly, by laying the blame at the door of a mere few, Arnold and Liubbers contest the centrality of the forced creation of food surpluses in German occupation policy for the Soviet Union, the agreement reached between the Wehrmacht, Party agencies and the German ministerial bureaucracy on this policy and, in particular, the nature and significance

Controlled Escalation: Himmler's Men in the Summer of 1941 and the Holocaust in the Occupied Soviet Territories

Most scholars who study Holocaust perpetrators have invested more energy in discussing the role of the leadership in the centers of executive power than in investigating the actions of the killers in the field. Research on the latter has focused on identifying personal motives and collective attitudes; comparatively few insights are offered into the synergies between units and agencies or between center and periphery at a specific time. This article explores this interaction for the critical phase of Operation Barbarossa, during which German units, and especially Himmler's SS- and policemen, crossed the line from persecution to the murder of Jewish men, women, and children en masse. The author examines the leadership's expectations and concerns prior to Operation Barbarossa, and analyzes Himmler's response to and interference in his men's actions in the East.

Germany’s Staatssekretäre, Mass Starvation and the Meeting of 2 May 1941

On 2 May 1941, seven weeks before the launch of Operation Barbarossa, a meeting of senior German officials, including many ministers' deputies, or Staatssekretšre, took place, which would establish the nature of the economic policy of ruthless exploitation pursued by the invaders and occupiers in the Soviet Union. In a chillingly matter-of-fact way, those present declared that 'x million people will doubtlessly starve, if that which is necessary for us is extracted from the land'. This article focuses on the meeting, its minutes and the men who attended, whilst placing it firmly in the context of the planning for German economic policy in the occupied Soviet territories. In addition, the article considers the importance of gatherings of the Staatssekretšre, the equivalent of British Permanent Secretaries, in National Socialist Germany, as a forum for inter-ministerial policy co-ordination, and draws comparisons between the meeting in Berlin on 2 May 1941 and the disproportionately better-known Wannsee Conference of 20 January 1942, the most infamous of all the Staatssekretšre discussions.