This articlepossibly containsoriginal research.(February 2024) |
Reichskommissariat Turkestan(also spelled asTurkistan,abbreviated asRKT) was a projectedReichskommissariatthatGermanyproposed to create in Russia and theCentral Asianrepublics of theSoviet Unioninits military conflictwith that country duringWorld War II.[1]Soviet historian Lev Bezymenski claimed that namesPanturkestan,Großturkestan( "Greater Turkestan" ) andMohammed-Reich( "MohammedanEmpire ") were also considered for the territory.[2]
Reichskommissariat Turkestan | |
|---|---|
 Emblem
| |
 | |
| Status | ProjectedReichskommissariatofGermany |
| Capital | TashkentorKazan |
| Government | Civil administration |
| Reichskommissar | |
| Historical era | World War II |
The proposal for aReichskomissariatin this region was made by Nazi ideologistAlfred Rosenberg;however, it was rejected byAdolf Hitlerwho told Rosenberg that Nazi plans ought to be restricted to Europe for the time being.[3]
Background
editPrior to the start ofOperation Barbarossa,Rosenberg included the ethnically mainlyTurkicandMuslimareas of the USSR in Central Asia in his plans for the future establishment of German supremacy in the remnants of the Soviet Union due to the local population's historical antagonism to the extension of Russian control over the area, in spite of his doubts that German conquests would reach that far east.[4]His original proposal entailed the creation ofa stringof "de-Russified"and German-friendlysuzerainties—likely to be someday linked to the Third Reich by either or both the plannedBreitspurbahnthree-meter rail gauge Nazi heavy rail network and the easternmost extensions of theReichsautobahndivided highway system—around the Russian "core area" ofMuscovy,which was to be deprived of its access to theBalticandBlack Seas.These entities wereGreater Finland,theBaltic region,White Ruthenia(Belarus),Greater Ukraine,Greater Caucasia,Turkestan,Idel-Ural,andSiberia,while a stretch of territory on the western frontier with Germany was to become either part of it or otherwise be under its direct control.[4]
This suggestion was rejected byAdolf Hitlerdue to not meeting his stated objective of acquiring sufficientLebensraumin the east for Germany. On Hitler's orders, the proposal for a German civil administration in Central Asia was also shelved by Rosenberg at least for the immediate future, who was instead directed to focus his work on the European parts of the USSR for the time-being.[1]
Rosenberg received advisories on the Turkestan question from Uzbek emigrantVeli Kayyun Han,[2]who from August 1942 headed the Berlin-based collaboratingTurkestan National Committeeunder the auspices of theReich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories.
Territorial extent
edit
Rosenberg's plan projected the inclusion of the five Central AsianSoviet Republicsinto theReichskommissariat:Kazak SSR,Uzbek SSR,Turkmen SSR,Tajik SSRandKyrgyz SSR.[5]The population of these republics was not homogeneously of Turkic ethnicity (particularlyTajikistanwhich is predominantlyIranianorigin, andwhose inhabitantsspeak thePersian language), but overall shared the Muslim religion, some of whose adherents—most specifically in the Middle East—attracted a limited degree ofrespect from members of the Nazi Party's leadership personnel.The German plans also included the territories ofAltai,TatarstanandBashkortostanto the Reichskommissariat on the basis of common religion and ethnicity.[2][6]Some sources even mention the possible inclusion of theMari ElandUdmurtia,regardless of theFinnicorigin of the indigenous peoples of these lands.[6]
The eastern limit of the entire territory was never definitively settled during the Second World War. In the event that the Axis forces would have occupied the remainder of the unconquered Soviet Union, adelimitationof the region along the70° east longitudeline was proposed by theEmpire of Japanin late 1941, which would have marked the western limit of its own holdings in theGreater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.[7]An amended version of this suggestion moved the frontier further eastwards, to the eastern border of the Central Asian republics withChina,and along theYenisei riverinSiberia.[8]
See also
editReferences
edit- ^abDallin, Alexander (1958).German rule in Russia 1941–1945: A Study of Occupation Policies,p. 65(see note 1). Westview press.
- ^abcBezymenskiĭ, Lev (1968).Sonderakte "Barbarossa".Deutsche Verlag-Anstalt.p. 225.
- ^Alexander Dallin. German rule in Russia, 1941-1945: a study of occupation policies. Westview Press, 1981. P. 53.
- ^abBerkhoff, Karel Cornelis (2004).Harvest of despair: life and death in Ukraine under Nazi rule,p. 47.Copyright by the President and Fellows of Harvard College.
- ^Безыменский А. А. Генеральный план «Ост»: замыслы, цели, реальность // Вопросы истории. – 1978. – № 5. – С. 78 (in Russian)
- ^abПлан раздела мира между странами ОсиArchived2012-02-08 at theWayback Machine(in Russian)
- ^Weinberg, Gerhard L(2005).Visions of Victory: The Hopes of Eight World War II Leaders,p. 13.Cambridge University Press.
- ^Rich, Norman (1973).Hitler's War Aims: Ideology, the Nazi State, and the Course of Expansion,p. 235. W.W. Norton & Company Inc.