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Reichskommissariat Ukraine

Reichskommissariat Ukraine
Reichskommissariat of Germany
1941–1944
Flag Emblem
Reichskommissariat Ukraine in 1942.
Capital Rowno (Rivne)
Languages German (official)
Ukrainian
Polish · Crimean Tatar
Government Civil Administration
Reichskommissar
 •  1941–1944 Erich Koch
Historical era World War II
 •  Established 1941
 •  Disestablished 1944
Population
 •  1941 est. 37,000,000 
Currency Karbovanets
Preceded by
Succeeded by
Ukrainian SSR
Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic
Today part of  Ukraine
 Poland
 Belarus

During World War II, Reichskommissariat Ukraine (abbreviated as RKU), was the civilian occupation regime of much of German-occupied Ukraine (which included adjacent areas of modern Belarus and pre-war Poland). Between September 1941 and March 1944, the Reichskommissariat was administered by Reichskommissar Erich Koch. The administration's tasks included the pacification of the region and the exploitation, for German benefit, of its resources and people. Adolf Hitler issued a Führer Decree defining the administration of the newly occupied Eastern territories on 17 July 1941.

Before the German invasion, Ukraine was a constituent republic of the USSR, inhabited by Ukrainians with Russian, Polish, Jewish, Belarusian, German, Romani and Crimean Tatar minorities. It was a key subject of Nazi planning for the post-war expansion of the German state and civilization.

Nazi Germany launched Operation Barbarossa against the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941 in breach of the mutual Treaty of Nonaggression. The German invasion resulted in the collapse of the western elements of the Soviet Red Army in the former territories of Poland annexed by the Soviet Union. On July 16, 1941, Hitler appointed the Nazi Gauleiter Erich Koch as the Reichskommissar for the planned Reichskommissariat Ukraine, which was created by the Führer's decree on August 20, 1941. Originally subject to Alfred Rosenberg's Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories, it became a separate German civil entity. The first transfer of Soviet Ukrainian territory from military to civil administration took place on September 1, 1941. There were further transfers on October 20 and November 1, 1941, and a final transfer on September 1, 1942, which brought the boundaries of the province to beyond the Dnieper river.


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