Reichskommissariat Turkestan

2015-05-21T22:46:54Z

Moahmed858585:

{{Infobox Former Country
| conventional_long_name = Reichskommissariat Turkestan
| common_name = Turkestan
| continent = Europe
| region = Eastern Europe
| country =
| era = World War II
| status = Client
| status_text = Projected [[Reichskommissariat]] of [[Nazi Germany|Germany]]
| empire = Nazi Germany
| government_type = Civil administration
| year_start = 1939
| year_end = 1945
| event_start =
| life_span = N/A
| date_start =
| event_end =
| date_end =
| event1 =
| date_event1 =
| p1 =
| flag_p1 =
| s1 =
| flag_s1 =
| image_flag = Flag of German Reich (1935–1945).svg
| flag = List of German flags
| image_coat = Reichsadler.svg
| symbol_type = Emblem
| symbol = Coat of arms of Germany
| image_map = ReichskommissariatTurkestan.png
| image_map_caption = The proposed Reichskommisariat Turkestan in green, with the possible inclusions in blue (Mari El and Udmurtia)
| capital = ''Not designated''
| common_languages =
| currency =
| leader1 = ''Not designated''
| year_leader1 =
| year_leader2 =
| title_leader = [[Reichskommissar]]
| stat_pop1 =
| stat_area1 =
}}

'''Reichskommissariat Turkestan''' (also spelled as '''Turkistan''', abbreviated as '''RKT'''), was a projected [[Reichskommissariat]] that [[Nazi Germany|Germany]] proposed to create in the [[Soviet Central Asia|Central Asian Republics]] of the [[Soviet Union]] in [[Eastern Front (World War II)|its military conflict]] with that country during [[World War II]].<ref name="Dallin">Dallin, Alexander (1958). ''German rule in Russia 1941–1945: A Study of Occupation Policies'', [http://books.google.nl/books?ei=4mkYTe--MszrOem_hKkJ&ct=result&id=LLDLmJq4JiYC&dq=reichskommissariat+turkestan&q=turkestan+RKT p. 65] (see note 1). Westview press.</ref> Soviet historian Lev Bezymenski claimed that names '''Panturkestan''', '''Großturkestan''' ("Greater Turkestan") and '''Mohammed-Reich''' ("[[Mohammedan]] Empire") were also considered for the territory.<ref name="bezymensky">{{cite book|title=Sonderakte "Barbarossa".|last=Bezymenskiĭ| first=Lev|year=1968|publisher=[[Deutsche Verlag-Anstalt]]|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=1OB0AAAAIAAJ&q=turkestan&dq=turkestan&hl=en&ei=YJY2TcWvBtW64gaKlcn_Ag&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCYQ6AEwAA|page=225}}</ref>

The proposal for a Reichskomissariat in this region was made by Nazi ideologist [[Alfred Rosenberg]], however it was rejected by [[Adolf Hitler]] who told Rosenberg that the aims should be restricted to Europe for the time being.<ref>Alexander Dallin. German rule in Russia, 1941-1945: a study of occupation policies. Westview Press, 1981. P. 53.</ref>

==Background==
Prior to the start of [[Operation Barbarossa]], Rosenberg included the ethnically mainly [[Turkic peoples|Turkic]] and [[Islam|Muslim]] areas 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 their historical antagonism to the extension of Russian control over the area, in spite of his doubts that German conquests would reach that far east.<ref name="Berkhoff">Berkhoff, Karel Cornelis (2004). ''Harvest of despair: life and death in Ukraine under Nazi rule'', [http://books.google.nl/books?id=nd9WzIkTJrAC&pg=PA47&dq=alfred+rosenberg+turkistan&hl=nl&ei=BGsYTazsA8idOvX9oIQJ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CDUQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q&f=false p. 47.] Copyright by the President and Fellows of Harvard College.</ref> His original proposal entailed the creation of a string of "[[de-Russification|de-Russified]]" and German-friendly [[suzerainty|suzerainties]] around the Russian "core area" of [[Muscovy]], which was to be deprived of its access to the [[Baltic Sea|Baltic]] and [[Black Sea]]s. These entities were [[Greater Finland]], the [[Baltic region]], [[White Ruthenia]] ([[Belarus]]), [[Greater Ukraine]], [[Caucasus|Greater Caucasia]], Turkestan, [[Idel-Ural]], and [[Siberia]], 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.<ref name="Berkhoff"/>

This suggestion was rejected by [[Adolf Hitler]] due to not meeting his stated objective of acquiring sufficient ''[[Lebensraum]]'' in 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.<ref name="Dallin"/>

Rosenberg received advisories on the Turkestan question from Uzbek emigrant [[Veli Kayyun Han]],<ref name="bezymensky"/> who from August 1942 headed the Berlin-based collaborating [[:pl:Turkiestański Komitet Narodowy|Turkestan National Committee]] under the auspices of the [[Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories]].

==Territorial extent==
{{further|Turkestan}}
[[File:SovietCentralAsia1922.svg|thumbnail|[[Soviet Central Asia]] in 1922]]
{{See also|Axis power negotiations on the division of Asia during World War II}}
Rosenberg's plan projected the inclusion of the five Central Asian [[Republics of the Soviet Union|Soviet Republics]] into the Reichskommissariat: [[Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic|Kazak SSR]], [[Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic|Uzbek SSR]], [[Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic|Turkmen SSR]], [[Tajik Soviet Socialist Republic|Tajik SSR]] and [[Kirghiz Soviet Socialist Republic|Kyrgyz SSR]].<ref name="bezymensky">Безыменский А. А. Генеральный план «Ост»: замыслы, цели, реальность // Вопросы истории. – 1978. – № 5. – С. 78 (in Russian)</ref> The population of these republics was not homogeneously of Turkic ethnicity (particularly [[Tajikistan]] which is in fact predominantly [[Iranian peoples|Iranian]] origin, and [[Tajik people|whose inhabitants]] speak the [[Persian language]]), but overall shared the Muslim religion. The German plans also included the territories of [[Gorno-Altai Autonomous Oblast|Altai]], [[Tatar Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic|Tatarstan]] and [[Bashkir Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic|Bashkortostan]] to the Reichskommissariat on the basis of common religion and ethnicity.<ref name="bezymensky"/><ref name="sovrab">[http://www.sovrab.ru/content/view/535/36/ План раздела мира между странами Оси] (in Russian)</ref> Some sources even mention the possible inclusion of the [[Mari Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic|Mari El]] and [[Udmurt Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic|Udmurtia]], regardless of the [[Uralic]] origin of the indigenous peoples of these lands.<ref name="sovrab"/>

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, a [[Partition (politics)|delimitation]] of the region along the [[70th meridian east|70° east longitude]] line was proposed by the [[Empire of Japan]] in late 1941, which would have marked the western limit of its own holdings in the [[Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere]].<ref>[[Gerhard Weinberg|Weinberg, Gerhard L]] (2005). ''Visions of Victory: The Hopes of Eight World War II Leaders'', [http://assets.cambridge.org/97805218/52548/frontmatter/9780521852548_frontmatter.pdf p. 13]. [[Cambridge University Press]].</ref> An amended version of this suggestion moved the frontier further eastwards, to the eastern border of the Central Asian republics with [[China]], and along the [[Yenisei river]] in [[Siberia]].<ref name="Rich">Rich, Norman (1973). ''Hitler's War Aims: Ideology, the Nazi State, and the Course of Expansion'', p. 235. W.W. Norton & Company Inc.</ref>

==See also==
* [[Turkic, Caucasian, Cossack, and Crimean collaborationism with the Axis powers]]

==References==
{{reflist}}

{{Reichskommissariats}}

[[Category:Military history of Germany during World War II]]
[[Category:Military history of the Soviet Union during World War II]]
[[Category:Politics of World War II]]
[[Category:Eastern Front (World War II)]]
[[Category:Subdivisions of Nazi Germany]]

Wikipedia - Benutzerbeiträge [de]

Reichskommissariat Turkestan