Kings and the Pawns

Leonid Rein was born in Byelorussia (then part of the USSR) and graduated from Haifa University. While studying for his Ph.D. he received the Wolf Foundation’s student grant of excellence and his dissertation was awarded a prize by the Norbert and Lisa Schechter Foundation. He is currently a Senior Researcher at the International Institute for Holocaust Research, Yad Vashem (Israel), specializing in Nazi occupation policies, local collaboration, and the Holocaust in the Soviet territories.

• PrefaceAbbreviationsIntroductionChapter 1. Collaboration in Occupied Europe: Theoretical OverviewDefining the CollaborationComparative OverviewThe BackgroundThe Nazi Attitude toward CollaborationThe Collaboration and CollaboratorsEconomic CollaborationPolice CollaborationCollaboration in the Persecution of JewsMilitary CollaborationChapter 2. Historical BackgroundGeneral InformationByelorussia between Two World Wars“Reunification” of ByelorussiaThe Outbreak of the WarChapter 3. German Policies in Byelorussia (1941–1944)The Eastern Policies of the Third ReichHitler’s Vision of the EastThe Ostministerium and the Eastern PolicyThe Wehrmacht and the East GermanVisions of ByelorussiaGermans and Byelorussian Nationalists on the Eve of the Nazi Invasion into the USSRThe Nazi Regime in Byelorussia: From Invasion to OccupationLocal Self-Administration and OccupationAgricultural Policies of the German OccupierLabor Policies under German OccupationThe Outcome and Shift in Occupation PoliticsChapter 4. Byelorussian “State-Building”: Political Collaboration in Byelorussia“Local Self-Administration”The Byelorussian Popular Self-Aid OrganizationThe Union of Byelorussian Youth (SBM)The Byelorussian Central CouncilChapter 5. The Cross and the Hooked Cross: the Church’s Collaboration in Occupied ByelorussiaBackgroundRosenberg’s InfluenceFrom Theory to PracticeChapter 6. Ideological Collaboration in Byelorussia: The “Legal” Press as a Propagandist Tool of the Nazis’ New EuropeChapter 7. Collaboration in the Politics of RepressionCollaboration in the HolocaustThe Extermination Process in ByelorussiaChapter 8. Military-Police Collaboration in ByelorussiaThe BeginningsLocal Auxiliary Security Forces: Strength, Structure and the German AttitudeDogmatism vs. Reality: Byelorussian "Self-Defense" and the "Home Guard"Strange Allies: Armija Krajowa and Germans"Untermenschen" in SS UniformsSummaryAppendix: SS and Military RanksGlossaryBibliographyIndex of PlacesIndex of Persons

“Rein provides an enormous quantity of detail making the book a slow read and a specialist’s study. It is, however, extremely valuable for an understanding of a less known Eastern European area of German occupation and has much to tell us about ethnic relations in the former Soviet Union and the Holocaust as well.”  ·  European History Quarterly“Rein presents the phenomenon of collaboration in Byelorussia in all its facets. His results are even more astonishing in that he could not use any archives or libraries in Byelorussia but instead relied on a broad basis of sources from archives in Germany, the USA and Israel. Without doubt, Rein’s study presents a new standard work on the history of national-socialist occupation of Byelorussia.”  ·  H-Soz-u-Kult“Rein’s thorough study of collaboration in Byelorussia is an important contribution to studies on collaboration, German occupation, and our understanding of the war Nazi Germany unleashed against the Soviet Union, but as the author himself explains, this is far from the final word on the subject... Rein’s text reinforces the fact that compared to Germany, which has opened its archives and continues to critically examine the Nazi period, the former states of the Soviet Union that suffered under occupation have a long road ahead of them.”  ·  Slavic Military Studies Review