Theodor Oberländer

Theodor Oberländer (1 May 1905 – 4 May 1998) was a Ostforschung scientist, Nazi officer, and German politician. From 1953 to 1960 he was a Minister for Displaced Persons, Refugees and Victims of War for the Federal Republic of Germany. He is considered by some historians to be among the academics who laid the intellectual foundation for Final Solution^[1].

Biography, membership in Nazi party and Ostforschung studies

Oberländer was born in Meiningen, Saxe-Meiningen, part of the German Empire in 1905. At the age of eighteen he participated in Adolf Hitler's Beer Hall Putsch in Munich, Bavaria, in 1923 during the existence of Weimar Republic. After joining Nazis in 1933 he became a senior SA commander and leader of NSDAP district^[2]. Oberländer obtained a doctorate in Agricultural Sciences and wrote several books about the need for German intervention in the agricultural systems of Poland and the Soviet Union, which he considered "un-economic". Like other Ostforschung researchers; Meinhold, Peter-Heinz Seraphim, Oberländer's use the forms of economic utilitarinism was to cover up stereotypes about Jews and Poles^[3]. Those views were being rationalised with terms of health and „security threats” This supposed economic science was in fact, in the words of historian Michael Burleigh „a denatured hybrid throughoutly saturated by Nazi race ideology”^[3]

Oberländer became a National Socialist in 1933. He became a professor at the University of Greifswald, where he took the forefront in making the university and the Province of Pomerania "judenfrei" (free of Jews). On 4 August 1935, he became an assistant to Gauleiter Erich Koch, under whose authority he started to gather information about non-German minorities in East Prussia. A significant role in this process was played by the "Bund Deutscher Osten" (BDO - "League for a German East"), which advocated radical Germanization of the eastern provinces and the elimination of the Polish language in Masuria. The language's traditional usage in the Protestant churches of the Masurians was outlawed in November 1939, with the Lutheran church leadership acquiescing in December.

In March 1935 he attended a meeting of professors, scholars and NSDAP training specialists dedicated to study of the „East” where he dedicated his esseys at what he described as „border struggle” with Poland^[4]. The meeting was divided into two groups:”base” and „front”^[4]. The „base” included 58 professors, lecturers and research assistants, the „front” was made up of political functionaries, seven training specialists of the NSDAP, Hitler Youth, three heads of Reichsarbeitsdiensts(forced labour service), two teachers and two civil servants^[4]. It was Oberländer who introduced the 72 patricipants on the first day and set for them the task to study „border struggle” against Poland^[4].

Attacking Poland, he advocated battle against Polish minority in Nazi Germany, and demanded that social relationships between Germans and Polish immigrants be prohibited^[4]. Oberländer implied that Poland was not capable of sociopolitical and agrarian reforms due that fact that it was not „racially homogenous” nation state^[4]. The population of Polish cities has been named by him as „transplanted rubes”^[4]. Sharing Hitler's view Oberländer believed that the treaties regarding the East, like the German–Polish Non-Aggression Pact, were only conditional, and Ostforschung studies should go on as usual „so that after ten years we have everything ready that we could need in any given circumstances”^[5]. Continuing his studies on rural population of Poland he noted in his works that „Poland has eight million inhabitants too many”^[5].

Reflecting on the temporary lack of possibility of open war in the East ,Oberländer wrote the following: The struggle for ethnicity is nothing other than the continuation of war by other means under the cover of peace. Not a fight with gas, granades, and machine-guns, but a fight about homes, farms, schools and the soulrs of children, a struggle whose end, unlike in war, is not foreseeable as long as the insane principle of the nationalism of the state dominates the Eastern region, a struggle which goes on with one aim:extermination! ^[5] Other features of Oberländer's thoughts concentrated on depicting Jews as carriers of communism, and the benefits of peasant antisemitism to German goals in Central and Eastern Europe^[5]. His preparatory work in BDO involved monitioring over 1,200,000 Poles living in Germany, with card-name index of untrustworthy Poles and Germans living in the borderlands, and proposals to Germanise Polish place, street, and family names^[5].

In the summer of 1937 Oberländer formulated a „divide and conquer” strategy for Poland^[4]. Within Poland, ethnic groups were to be directed into fighting with each other, in order to prepare ground for German rule^[4]. The Poles were to be steered away from opposing Germans and guided into confrontation with Russians and Jews^[4]. Oberländer additionally called for elimination of „assimiliated Jewry” which in his view carried „communist ideas”^[4]. Polish peasants were to be „taught” that they benefit from German „law”^[4]. In order to win over Poles for the side of German hegemony in Europe, Oberländer proposed that they share in theft of Jewish property^[4]. Around 3,5 million Polish Jews and 1,5 million people who were considered „assimilated Jews” were to be deprived of all of their rights^[4]. By 1937 Oberländer however started to lose influence in Nazi party, as his views on the treatment of Polish population(but not Jewish question) were losing to more hardline positions^[4] and personal conflict with Erich Koch ^[6]. As a result he lost his position in East Prussia and within BDO by 1938^[4]. From 1.4.1938 he worked as Professor of History at University of Greifswald^[5] In 1939 Oberländer moved to work in Abwehrstelle Breslau; one of the main centers of sabotage and diversion organised by Nazis which conducted operations against Poland. At the same time his work concerned issues connected to Ukraine and Sudetes region and he had contacts with Osteuropa Institut located in Breslau (Wrocław)^[7]

Second World War

In 1940 Oberländer endorsed ethnic cleansing of Polish population[1], and in 1941 wrote in the German magazine Deutsche Monatshefte: „We have the best soldier in the world who re-conquered German soil in the East. There is no bigger responsibility than educating this colonist to be the best on earth and to secure the living space for all times to come” Oberländer's words echoed views of Heinrich Himmler, who envisioned settling former soldiers, armed with weapons and plows in the East, not just pure peasants ^[8] During 1940 he moved to University of Prague, after which he became active in Ukraine, where he was used by Nazi Germany's military as expert on „ethnic psychology”^[5].

When Hitler invaded the Soviet Union in 1941 Oberländer became an adv ising officer of the Nachtigall Battalion (a Ukrainian battalion of Wehrmacht) which occupied Lviv in Ukraine; his position was similar to that of Soviet political commissars. The patricipation of the Battalion in The Lviv Civilian Massacre of 1941 has since been subject to controversy, and Oberländer himself has been accused after the war in patricipating in the events.

In January 1942 he sent a report on situation in Ukraine in which he wrote that success lay in „winning over the masses and pitilessly exterminating partisants as deleterious to the people”^[5]. He later became the leader of the mixed German and Caucasian Sonderverband Bergmann, which was active in anti-partisan warfare. Both army groups were later claimed to have participated in war crimes. Oberländer's involvement in Eastern front would led to the Oberländer case at the end of the 1950s^[2]. In 1943 he was dismissed from Wehrmacht due to political conflict with his superiors and returned to Prague. In 1944 he joined the staff of the Andrey Vlasov's collaborationist Russian Liberation Army^[2]. He was taken prisoner by the United States Army in 1945.

Political career after Second World War

During his imprisonment the U.S military secret service appreciated Oberländer's expertise in eastern European matters, and he went through the denazification process with relative ease^[1]. After the war Oberländer claimed that he criticised Nazi policies and personally only wanted German hegemony over Slavic peoples in which they would have „some respect” and were „treated reasonably humanly”^[2].

Oberländer again became active in German politics, first in the liberal Free Democratic Party, then in the Bloc of Refugees and Expellees (GB/BHE)(despite the himself was not expelled), where he would become a major leader alongside Waldemar Kraft also a former Nazi, interned for two years for his wartime activities in occupied Poland^[9]. Many threads connected BHE to the Nazis, as it openly tried to win over former Nazis angry at denazification, calling their crimes to be only „uncritical belief in Germany's future”^[9]. The party classified those Nazis on pair with war-damaged as fellow victims^[9]. The fact that the party selected as its leaders two former Nazis, who took part in expulsion and expropation of non-Germans severely undermined German complaints about their situation^[10].

Oberländer joined the Adenauer government of West Germany in 1953 as Minister for Refugees and Expelles^[1]. His appointment prompted negative press coverage and made details of his Nazi past known^[1]. But despite the fact that he nominated several former Nazis as co-workers, the criticism soon died down^[1]. Adenauer in particular was keen on getting BHE on board, as with its support he controlled two-thirds majority in the parliament^[1].Adenauer knew very well that Oberländer was a Nationalist Socialists and admitted he has a „very brown past”^[2] When Oberländer tried to visit his former Nazi co-workes in 1956 who still served time in Landsberg prison, the foreign minister of Germany vetoed the trip, fearing for international consequences, nevertheless despite hindrances Oberländer still tried to support far right groups.^[11] Oberländer left the GB/BHE for the centre Christian Democratic Union in 1956 when it broke with Adenauer. Adenauer himself continued to support him, as a matter of principle^[1].

KGB document on action against Oberländer and Ukrainian Nachtigall (1959).

In the fall of 1959 the Eastern Bloc unleashed a coordinated campaign against existence of Nazi's in West German government, which included Oberländer. He was accused of participating in Lviv Massacre^[1]. Previously he was able to remain in politics despite the accusations, but the situation this time became more unfavourable, and some of his fellow CDU colleagues pushed for him to resign for the good of government and country ^[1]. While many in West Germany did not believe the accusations of war crimes, it was clear that Oberländer had been an enthusiastic Nazi^[1], and due to fact that West German community had reinvented its immage as community of innocent bystanders during Second World War, Oberländer past was considered liability^[1]. A court in the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) in 1960 sentenced Oberländer, in absentia, to life imprisonment for his involvement in the Lviv massacre in 1941. In January 1960 during discussion with 3,000 students of University of Cologne Adenauer was faced with protests against continued presence of Oberländer in German government^[2]. In response Adenauer stated that Oberländer was a Nazi but „never did anything dishonourable”^[2]. Despite Adenauer's protection however Oberländer became a heavy burden on the German government in May 1960^[2] and finally removed from government, but not because of his past, but due to fact that he politically represented no value that was worth trouble<^[1].

Oberländer nevertheless continued efforts to influence German public, and in 1962 he published an article in Der Stahlhelm, an organ of former Frontsoldaten ^[5]. In it he repeated claims about an „revolutionary war” in which he accused the „dictatorship in the East” of conducting an offensive revolution against the West, in which there was „no beginning”, and no movement of troops, but which was led by „inflitration and publicism” as well as „espionage” ^[5]. He denounced any possibility of „coexistance” between East and West and blamed such ideas on „rootless intelligentsia” ^[5], „to appease the enemy” Oberlaner wrote was to „further world revolution” ^[5]. As historian Michael Burleigh notes, the idea that the „unfree” perhaps didn't wanted to be „liberated” by the likes of Oberländer and his „Bund der Frontsoldaten”(who passed that way twenty years ago)-did not occur to him ^[5].

In 1986, Oberländer received Bavarian Order of Merit from the state of Bavaria^[12].

His conviction was squashed by a new German court in 1993, which contended that the Soviet evidence had been fabricated by the KGB^{[verification needed][citation needed]}. At the end of his life, Oberländer became explicitly involved in far right and anti-immigration politics.

A new case was opened against Oberländer in 1996 in which he was charged with the unlawful killing of a civilian in Kislovodsk in 1942 during his Bergmann leadership^[13]. This time it involved an interrogation of female teacher, who was whipped and after refusing to talk about suspected partisant activity shot in the breast by Oberländer, who left her to die. Oberländer called those allegations „Soviet lies”. Theodor Oberländer died in Bonn in 1998.

In fiction

• Professor Theodor Oberländer appears in Jonathan Littell's docudrama "Les Bienveillantes".

References

• Theodor Oberländer in the German National Library catalogue (German) (German)
• Article about the events in Lviv/Lemberg (German)
• Fate of the Jews in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Oberländer's involvement (German)
• Extracts from "Grenzlandpolitik" und Ostforschung an der Peripherie des Reiches. Das ostpreussische Masuren 1919-1945 by Andreas Kossert (German)

1. ^ ^{a b c d e f g h i j k l} "In pursuit of German memory: history, television, and politics after Auschwitz", Wulf Kansteiner Ohio University Press; 2006 page 222-224
2. ^ ^{a b c d e f g h} "Konrad Adenauer: A German Politician and Statesman in a Period of War, Revolution and Reconstruction : The Statesman : 1952-1967", Hans Peter-Schwarz pages 91, 432, Berghahn Books 1997
3. ^ ^{a b} "Ethics and extermination-Reflections on Nazi Genocide", Michael Burleigh page 177, Cambridge University Press 1997
4. ^ ^{a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p} German scholars and ethnic cleansing 1919-1945" Ingo Haar, Michael Fahlbusch Berghahn Books 2006 page 10, 12
5. ^ ^{a b c d e f g h i j k l m} "Germany turns eastwards: a study of Ostforschung in the Third Reich", Michael Burleigh Cambridge University Press, 1988, pages 76 ,144-146, 222, 317-318
6. ^ "Himmler's Auxiliaries: The Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle and the German National Minorities of Europe, 1933-1945"Valdis O. Lumens page 63
7. ^ "Przeglad Zachodni", volume 16 Instytut Zachodni 1960 page 115
8. ^ ”SCHWERTE MUSS DER PFLUG FOLGEN: Űber-peasents and National Socialists Settlements in the Occupied Eastern Territories during World War Two”Simone C. De Santiago Ramos, M.S. Thesis Prepared for the Degree of Master of Arts University of Texas page 68
9. ^ ^{a b c} "Shouldering the Burdens of Defeat: West Germany and the Reconstruction of Social Justice” Michael L. Hughes, The University of North Carolina Press 1999
10. ^ ”A World at Arms: A Global History of World War II” Gerhard L. Weinberg Cambridge University Press 1995 page 792
11. ^ "Legacies of Dachau: the uses and abuses of a concentration camp 1933-2001”„ Harold Marcuse Cambridge University Press 2001 page 118
12. ^ ”Problems of Political Reeducation in West Germany, 1945-1960” Michael H. Kater Simon Wiesenthal Center Annual Volume 4
13. ^ Der Spiegel 18 / 1996 Kriegsverbrehen. Die Mühlen mahlen langsam