[Whiteruthenian]

How to Lose a Guerrilla War:

Lessons Learned From German Anti-Partisan Tactics & Policies in White Russia
May Help the U.S. Army and its Current Problems in Iraq

[read the full article here] or [pdf]

Another counter-productive policy which the Germans used in fighting partisans in Europe and the USSR was the tactic of Kollektive Gewaltmassnahmen (collective punishment) and of summary executions of innocent civilians in retribution for the actions of the guerrillas. If ever there was a recruiting poster for guerrillas, this insane policy fit the bill perfectly. In fact, it was so successful that Soviet partisan forces would often times capture and mutilate some German soldiers, then position them in a grotesque manner in order to derive just exactly the kind of angry and bestial reaction that would bring about a German execution of the local populace. A few days later the local guerrilla unit would swell with recruits – often times these men were not true communist believers but simply peasants too afraid to stay in their villages anymore for fear of being killed in a reprisal shooting.

The war against the partisans therefore, was lost before it was ever started. The idea of Kollektive Gewaltmassnahmen (collective punishment) failed miserably since it gave the peasants no choice but to flee to the woods. Threatened by death if he were to collaborate with the Germans, threatened by death if he were to assist the partisans, threatened by death if he aided any Jews, threatened by death through reprisal if a partisan attack occurred near him, threatened by death if conscripted into the local police, threatened by conscription for slave labor in Germany, and threatened with starvation because his crops were confiscated, the average Byelorussian krestyanin (peasant) had very few options which would help him to live out the war unscathed. His ultimate and best choice turned out to be to join the guerrillas in the woods, where he had a better chance to survive the war.

Some Germans were astute enough to realize that this type of warfare would only lead to the complete alienation of the native population and the eventual increase in partisan strength through recruitment of willing volunteers. Heinrich Lohse, the German Reichskommissar für den Ostland und Weissruthenien, wrote the following comments in a letter to Alfred Rosenberg:

“To lock men, women, and children in barns and then set fire to them does not appear to me to be a suitable way of combating partisans, even if one’s objective were the extermination of the population.”

Many scholars have argued that the German anti-guerrilla struggle in Russia was a success because it kept the front line troops supplied with a relatively acceptable number of men and materiel. However, in my opinion the anti-partisan struggle ultimately proved to be a failure since it neither destroyed the partisan movement nor did it manage to halt its growth. Quite the contrary, harsh Nazi policies seem to have accelerated the downward decline of their control in Byelorussia. It was only a matter of time before the Germans would have lost near total control in the rear areas. The expulsion of German forces from most of the Soviet Union in the summer of 1944 prevented this from happening but the writing was on the wall.