Where the Iron Crosses Grow

Despite the harsh measures inflicted during the occupation, there was some degree of local collaboration, even from ethnic Russians and Ukrainians. The teenager Lidiya I. Chyernih noted that, “among them [the Germans], there were good and bad people,” and went on to describe how German troops employed Russian civilians as cooks, laundry help, and for other odd jobs, which provided a source of food. However, Chyernih noted that Romanian troops were more brazen and more likely to loot or rape. Gottlob Bidermann, whose unit was lodged with Crimean Tatars in the winter of 1941/42, noted a similar dynamic: German soldiers got on fairly well with the local population, but the Romanians were prone to misbehavior. As the Germans found elsewhere in Eastern Europe, there were always people – even Communist Party members – willing to work with the occupiers in return for food or other privileges. In Sevastopol, P. Supryagin was appointed the head of a puppet city council and willingly assisted the Germans in rounding up individuals targeted for elimination. The Germans established a small local auxiliary police force in Sevastopol, with volunteers taken from POW camps, as they did in other Crimean cities. In Yalta, Colonel Viktor I. Maltsev, a captured VVS officer, willingly volunteered his services to the Germans to “fight the Bolsheviks”; Maltsev had been arrested and tortured by the NKVD in 1938–39. Eventually, he would join Vlasov’s anti-Soviet forces.

Nevertheless, the mythical Gotengau never materialized in the Crimea. A few Volksdeutsche colonies were established to harvest cotton, and Alvensleben began referring to Sevastopol as “Theodorichhafen” and Simferopol as “Gotenburg” – names that the Wehrmacht never used. Organization Todt was brought to the Crimea, but instead of refurbishing Soviet fortifications or port facilities, they wasted most of their efforts on ridiculous civil-engineering projects. Frauenfeld and Alvensleben tried to erase traces of the old Crimea and replace it with a new Gothic-inspired creation, but the Third Reich proved more adept at destruction than creation. When Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler visited the Crimea in spring 1943, he was pleased with the progress made in removing the indigenous population and the arrival of a small number of Volksdeutsche settlers to begin the colony of Gotengau. Himmler visited a farm and was shown a cotton crop that was nearly ready for harvesting, proof that the German investment in the Crimea was about to bloom. He was less pleased when a local German army commander complained that he didn’t have enough troops to defend the coastline from possible Soviet amphibious raids, but that Alvensleben was pressuring him to divert men and vehicles to assist with his colonization scheme. Himmler turned away from the Generalmajor without saying a word, thinking that the military mind could not understand what the Third Reich was trying to build here in the Crimea.

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“For twenty years we were prisoners of the godless Soviets and we have hungered and worked day and night. Now we wish to help the German Army with all our strength and with our hearts.”

Aliev Nambed, Tatar Volunteer in II./IR 399

After years of Soviet oppression, many Crimean Tatars welcomed the Germans as liberators. Manstein was willing to grant special status to the Crimean Tatars, and he ordered his troops to respect their religion and customs – but in return, he expected the Tatars to assist AOK 11 in identifying and pacifying pro-Soviet elements in the Crimea. He authorized the creation of Muslim committees – which had no real authority – in occupied Crimean towns, in order to give the appearance of some autonomy. For strategic reasons, the German Foreign Ministry also favored cooperation with the Crimean Tatars, since they viewed their assistance as useful for getting Turkey to join the Axis coalition arrayed against the Soviet Union. To this end, in November 1941 the German Foreign Ministry invited three Crimean Tatar exiles in Turkey – Edige Kirimal, Cafer Seidahmet, and Mustecip Ulkusal – to visit Berlin for consultations. Eventually, the pro-German Kirimal was selected to be a representative for Crimean Tatar interests. In 1940 it was estimated that there were 218,000 Crimean Tatars out of the Crimea’s total population of 1,126,800. The Wehrmacht also regarded the Tatars as a potential source of military manpower, although no mention was made of Hitler’s long-term plans for the Crimea, which would eventually result in their land being taken.