This thesis examines the formation, personnel and activities of the Ukrainian auxiliary police of Kyiv city during 1941–1945.
German occupation policy during the Second World War was largely characterized by conflicts of ideological ideas and pragmatic calculations. The involvement of the local population of the Soviet Union in the military-police units is the most revealing example of such a conflict. Due to a lack of human resources, the Nazis were forced to recruit «subhuman» (from the racial and political point of view of the Nazis) people into the police service.
The stated problems of the thesis have long since gone beyond purely academic interests. Considerable public attention is focused around issues related to the Nazi occupation - first of all, the complicity of the local population of the Ukrainian SSR (as well as the Soviet Union in general) in mass violence against Jews and other categories of the population persecuted by the German occupation authorities. However, coverage of these events is often accompanied by excessive subjectivization (silence or instrumentalization).
The presented thesis is a comprehensive study of the history of a separate community of collaborators – the Ukrainian auxiliary police of the city of Kyiv. A number of questions came to the focus of the work. this is the question of the prerequisites for the creation of the Ukrainian police, which includes an analysis of the situation in Nazi-occupied Europe and the interwar USSR. The dissertation highlights the direct organization of the Ukrainian police as part of the SS and police apparatus. The later reorganization auxiliary police in Kyiv led to its division into a number of units, among which the study mentions the three most involved in the repressive and punitive activities of the occupation authorities: the Ukrainian security police, Ukrainian security police and «closed units» (paramilitary units) of the police.
The policemen of these three units had a specific service direction: from guarding objects to interrogating Jews or going on anti-partisan operations. Therefore, the study is not only about city employees but also fighters of paramilitary units that operated far outside Kyiv. Focusing on the community (rather than the city), a significant part of the research is dedicated to highlighting the fate of policemen after the mass evacuation from Kyiv, which took place on October 15, 1943. The chronological boundaries of the thesis are limited to the surrender of Germany on May 8, 1945, but further circumstances from the life of former policemen were investigated. It contains Soviet trials over one part of collaborators, and the emigration and hiding of those who managed to escape from justice.
Work with the sources had taken into account general historical, interdisciplinary, and special historical methods, which are primarily based on the methodological foundations of Holocaust studies, which investigate the perpetrators of mass crimes. Prosopographic analysis is also key to the thesis.
Using prosopographic analysis made it possible to record not only the obvious differences between the previous biographies of policemen but also to demonstrate the points of intersection between them. It is about marks of belonging to a professional community with its rules, duties, and a certain place in the social hierarchy of the times of the German occupation. Moreover, using a diverse spectrum of motives (ideological, pragmatic, survival), having a heterogeneous socio-economic and ethnic origin, different political views (nationalist, communists), and occupying different positions in the work hierarchy (ordinary, officer and commandant staff), policemen often demonstrated identical levels of integration into the occupation SS and police apparatus. Each of them was part of a single «professional» body based on violent practices against the political enemies of the Third Reich. By following orders, or taking the initiative, local policemen joined in the violence that became a key feature of their community.
The results of the thesis can be used during the preparation of research on the history of the Second World War, mass violence, the history of genocides (in particular, the Holocaust), and comprehensive research on the phenomenon of collaboration. They can also be used in educational (during the preparation of educational manuals) and government (during the preparation of public history events, analytical notes) work.
Keywords: World War II, Europe, USSR, Ukraine, General District of Kyiv, Nazi occupation, collaboration, Holocaust, local Jewish population, crime against national minorities, Hitler, Stalin, Soviet history, court cases, Ukrainian Revolution 1917–1921.
