“Turncoats, Traitors, and Provocateurs”: Communist Collaborators, the German Occupation, and Stalin’s NKVD, 1941–1943 Cover Image
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“Turncoats, Traitors, and Provocateurs”: Communist Collaborators, the German Occupation, and Stalin’s NKVD, 1941–1943
“Turncoats, Traitors, and Provocateurs”: Communist Collaborators, the German Occupation, and Stalin’s NKVD, 1941–1943

Author(s): Jeffrey Burds
Subject(s): Political history, Government/Political systems, Political behavior, WW II and following years (1940 - 1949), History of Communism, Fascism, Nazism and WW II
Published by: SAGE Publications Ltd
Keywords: World War II; Soviet Union; Commissar Order; Communist Collaborators; Stalin;

Summary/Abstract: Historians have long assumed that Germany closely followed a take-no-prisoners policy in dealing with captured communists in the East. That was the direct conclusion to be drawn from Hitler’s notorious Commissar Order issued on the eve of the Barbarossa invasion, which prescribed summary execution of all communists and communist officials. Data published in the Soviet Union largely confirmed this impression, reflecting a dramatic reduction in Communist Party members during the first six months of the war in the East. New data suggest, however, that far from annihilating communist cadres as part of the so-called “Jewish-Communist” threat, the German occupation authorities instead recruited many former communists for service in occupation governmental work, as spies, or in other roles vital to German authorities in eastern zones. Post-Soviet archives offer profound insights into the development of Stalin’s special policy towards these suspected communist turncoats.

  • Issue Year: 32/2018
  • Issue No: 03
  • Page Range: 606-638
  • Page Count: 33
  • Language: English