Johannes Due Enstad's well-researched monograph draws on German and Soviet archival sources to analyze the responses of the local populations of Northwest Russia to the German occupation during World War II. Unlike the multiethnic western borderlands of the Soviet Union, this region, consisting of the former Soviet districts of Leningrad and Kalinin, was ethnically homogenous (95% ethnic Russian, with smaller population of Jews, Finns, Latvians, Estonians, and ethnic Germans) and remained under military rule for the duration of the occupation. Enstad's main contribution is to challenge the assumption that the Russian population, unlike non-Russian nationalities, remained loyal to the Soviet state. Enstad argues that the Russians in this region were “virtually primed for cooperation with an invading power seeking to defeat the Bolsheviks and bring about a new regime” (38).
Enstad develops this argument in eight chapters. The first two chapters demonstrate the ways in which Stalinist policies of the collectivization of agriculture and the campaign against “kulaks” (prosperous peasants) disrupted the institutions of rural life and fostered deep-rooted resentments against the Soviet state. After the German invasion, the Soviets evacuated those who had benefitted most from Stalinism (party members, engineers, industrial workers), mobilized young men to serve in the Red Army, and destroyed crops and villages in a scorched-earth strategy. Thus, as the Germans advanced deeper into Soviet territory, the rural population that remained was unlikely to include many who were loyal to the Soviet state.
The German occupation replaced one form of state violence with another that possessed a different underlying logic. Chapter 3 focuses on the murder of populations targeted by the German occupiers: Jews, Roma, the disabled, and Soviet prisoners of war (POWs). Locals witnessed the murder of Jews and Roma by shooting, usually just outside of their hometowns. Anti-Slavic racism also informed German occupation policies—most apparent in the brutal starvation of Soviet POWs and the plans to feed the army at the expense of the local population, which contributed (along with Soviet scorched-earth policies) to famine in the winter of 1941-1942. The treatment of Soviet POWs alienated locals with relatives serving in the Red Army. Nevertheless, Enstad maintains that “Nazi atrocities do not appear to have had a decisive impact on the overall political attitudes of the population at the time” (87).
In Chapters 5 and 6, Enstad explains why by turning to German practices which the locals supported. The most successful policy in Northwest Russia was the de facto and later official abolition of collective farms that addressed a key grievance against the Soviet state. Because German requisitions were not as harsh as those of the Soviets, many farmers considered themselves to be better off than they had been under Soviet rule. German officials encouraged the activities of the Pskov Orthodox mission, a network of priests who led a religious revival, held pro-German sermons, and fostered an anti-Bolshevik Russian nationalism. These policies helped build support for the Germans, though other policies such as the recruitment of forced laborers had the opposite effect. Chapters 7 and 8 delve deeper into the motivations that explain locals’ responses. Enstad considers the concepts “collaboration” and “resistance” to be politically loaded. Rather, he prefers to analyze “how people related to power” (163) focusing in particular on two essential groups of local participants in the occupation: village elders and auxiliary police forces. Enstad shows how these local actors could enforce German orders while at the same time using their positions of authority to further their own interests. Enstad argues that locals demonstrated a “calculated pragmatism” in which they were “inclined to heed the stronger power” (226). He employs this concept to explain why there was little support for the Soviet partisan movement in the region until late 1943. Once it became apparent that the Germans would lose the war, locals rapidly turned against the occupiers in anticipation of the return of Soviet power.
Enstad's main contribution addresses debates in Soviet historiography—by demonstrating that Stalinism had failed to instill political loyalty among the peasant population, Enstad challenges arguments that Soviet officials were successful at merging Russian and Soviet patriotism in the 1930s. This focus, however, obscures other issues. Despite the fact that the occupied population was predominantly female (by a ratio of 2:1), gender is largely absent from the analysis. There is no mention of the German army engaging in sexual violence. The question of why Soviet violence provoked such a strong response from locals, whereas German violence apparently did not, is not satisfactorily answered. Enstad suggests that targeted violence against Jews, Roma, and Soviet POWs had little impact on local attitudes: “The atrocities remained unknown, or a matter of hearsay, to most people” (223). This seems debatable, given his estimate that witnesses of these killings “numbered in the tens of thousands” (83). Also, there is surprisingly little discussion of local participation in these killing actions. It is mentioned early on but is absent from the later chapter on local auxiliaries. The attitudes of collaborationist Orthodox priests on German violence also deserves attention. Their silence on the murder of Jews and Roma stands in sharp contrast to their willingness to disobey German orders to collect food and clothing for Soviet POWs.
These criticisms should not detract from the value of this important study that will be of interest to historians of everyday life and of World War II. The text is well-written and suitable for advanced undergraduate or graduate courses in German and Soviet history. Enstad makes a strong case for local acquiescence under German rule that complicates myths surrounding the Great Patriotic War. Although some will quibble with aspects of his interpretation, the evidence he garners provides deep insights into the ways that locals navigated a perilous path from Stalinist to Nazi rule and back again.
