Teilbezirk Taurien
| Reichskommissariat Ukraine | ||||||||||
| Reichskommissariat of Germany | ||||||||||
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.svg) Reichskommissariat Ukraine in 1942.
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| Capital | Rowno (Rivne) | |||||||||
| Languages | German (official) Ukrainian Polish · Crimean Tatar |
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| Government | Civil Administration | |||||||||
| Reichskommissar | ||||||||||
| • | 1941–1944 | Erich Koch | ||||||||
| Historical era | World War II | |||||||||
| • | Established | 17 July 1941 | ||||||||
| • | Disestablished | 29 August 1944 | ||||||||
| Population | ||||||||||
| • | 1941 est. | 37,000,000 | ||||||||
| Currency | Karbovanets | |||||||||
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| Today part of |
 Ukraine Poland Belarus
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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 August 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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Wikipedia