How to Lose a Guerrilla War

[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.

[Kernunnos]

All in all, this nazist's state of mind is the key to understand their defeat in Soviet lands.

At first they were perceived as liberators, and doubtlessly many wehrmacht soldiers were there with the genuine intention of being restorers of civilization in a land brutalized by communism.

Such was also the spirit that had been imbued into italian troops, who as well were convinced of being crusaders bringing back Christ into the land of former Russia and Ukraine.

Soon the real state of mind of the nazi party that was dictating german's troop behavior came to surface, and the people under Soviet occupation became quickly convinced that the liberators were often in fact no different from their soviet masters ...

Actually if Hitler hadn't been so convinced of the supposed racial inferiority of the various russian Volks he would have won that war with supreme ease, just by bringing into that lands crosses, priests and a sufficient number of white russian exiles to rule them, reestablishing a civilized government: it would not have been difficult to him to instaurate a friendly fascist oriented government in the mold of the ones of Italy, Spain or hungary.

Actually i believe he wasn't convinced of any actual slavic racial inferiority, he just wanted their land in full ownership, without any living Slav remaining there to call for their eventual return to slavic ownership.

[Menydh]

Originally Posted by Breha

At first they were perceived as liberators, and doubtlessly many wehrmacht soldiers were there with the genuine intention of being restorers of civilization in a land brutalized by communism.

In a way, not too different to what happened to Napoleon in Spain.

He thought that he would be cheered as a liberator [from the opresion of the ancient régime] by the Spaniards. He even harangued his troops with this argument.

But it was the Spanish people and not the official statements who saw him as an invader and rebelled, especially after he sat his brother on the Throne of Spain.

[Whiteruthenian]

I can recall the words from my beloved “Nationalism”: “If you organize yourselves in a nation, in this way you’ll limit aggressiveness of other nations”. There is an opinion, that the Belarusian nation has not finished its formation even now. In years 1941-1944 “Belarus” was simply “a dim geographic concept” (© general commissar Wilhelm Kube). Since the Belarusians hadn’t organized themselves in a nation at that time, there was nothing to limit aggressiveness of neighboring nations. It is really striking how many sides Belarusian took at that war: Soviets, Germans, Poles, even Ukrainian UPA. These nations all played their games (and Soviets were much better at their game than Germans, it must be acknowledged), but Belarusians weren’t able to play their own game yet (there were only attempts to do it). That is the main cause of the enormous figure of losses during that war among Belarusians, and the main lesson of that war for us, in my opinion. Unfortunately at the moment here the image of that war prevails which was created by Soviet propagandists. It is really sad.

Well, there is a positive side of that situation, though. If Belarusians didn’t fight at all, it would have meant that they are a weak race, which is doomed to let its destiny be decided about by others. But they did fight (mostly not under their own flags).

I recall also the words by a German official about the Union of the Belarusian youth (if it was not a fake, of course). He wrote (in a document) that, although it was dangerous to awaken the national feeling among Belarusians, but after the capitulation of the USSR Germans would be strong enough to take care of it. Why so few people understand this obvious thing I have no idea: nationalism can transform a population (object) into a nation (subject). It is like a perpetuum mobile – creation of energy from nothing. It’s like a miracle. I love nationalism.