Planning before the attack on the Soviet Union operations, 19 August to 31 December 1944 Originally the
Reichsminister for the Occupied Eastern Territories (),
Alfred Rosenberg envisioned usage of the term
Baltenland ("Baltic Land") before the summer of 1941 for the area that would eventually be known as
Ostland.
Otto Bräutigam, a major colleague of Rosenberg at the time, opposed this idea. In a later declaration he alleged that Rosenberg (himself a
Baltic German), was influenced by his "Baltic friends" in forwarding this initiative, in which a "Baltic
Reichskommissariat" with the addition of Belarus would be formed, "and with this the White Ruthenians would also be regarded as Balts". A more important additional colleague of Rosenberg,
Georg Leibbrandt, spoke out against this. He argued that the sympathy of the
Baltic peoples, who would naturally want the use of their own terminology, could be lost entirely. They would therefore not be won over either as supporters of the German war effort, nor as racially valuable settlers for the region.
After Operation Barbarossa After the
German invasion of the Soviet Union, vast areas were conquered to Germany's east. At first these areas would remain under military occupation by
Wehrmacht authorities (
Army Group Rear Areas), but as soon as the military situation allowed it, a more permanent form of administration under German rule for these territories would be instituted.
Führer Decree of 17 July 1941 provided for this move. It established "Reichskommissariats" in the east, as administrative units of the
Greater German Reich. The structure of each
Reichskommissariat was defined by the same decree. Each of these territories would be led by a German civil governor known as a
Reichskommissar appointed by Hitler and answerable only to him. The official appointed for Ostland was
Hinrich Lohse, the
Oberpräsident and
Gauleiter of
Schleswig-Holstein. Local government in the
Reichskommissariat was to be organized under a "National Director" (
Reichskomissar) in Estonia, a "General Director" in Latvia, and a "General Adviser" in Lithuania. Rosenberg's ministerial authority was, in practice, severely limited. The first reason was that many of the practicalities were determined elsewhere: the
Wehrmacht and the
Schutzstaffel managed the military and security aspects,
Fritz Sauckel as Reich Director of Labour had control over manpower and working areas,
Hermann Göring and
Albert Speer had total management of economic aspects in the territories and the
Reich Postal Service administered the Eastern territories' postal services. These German central government interventions in the affairs of Ostland overriding the appropriate ministries were known as "special administrations" (
Sonderverwaltungen). Later, from September 1941, the civil administration that had been decreed in the previous July was actually set up. Lohse and
Erich Koch objected to these breaches of their supposed responsibilities, seeking to administer their territories with the independence and authority of
Gauleiters. On 1 April 1942, an
arbeitsbereich (, a name for the party cadre organization outside the Reich proper) was established in the civilian-administered parts of the occupied Soviet territories, whereupon Koch and Lohse gradually ceased communication with Rosenberg, preferring to deal directly with
Adolf Hitler through
Martin Bormann and the
Party Chancellery. In the process they also displaced all other actors including notably the SS, except in Central Belarus where
HSSPF Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski had a special command encompassing both military and civil administration territories and engaged in
Nazi security warfare. In July 1941, the civil administration was declared in much of the occupied Soviet territories before one had materialized in the field. A power vacuum emerged which the SS filled with its
SS and Police Leadership Structure, exercising unlimited power over security and policing which it gave up only grudgingly in the autumn when civil administration came into being; indeed
Heinrich Himmler would use various tactics until as late as 1943 in unsuccessful efforts to regain this power. This partly explains the strained relations between the SS and the civil administration. In Ostland, matters were further complicated by the personality of the local superior SS officer
Friedrich Jeckeln, attacked by the SS's opponents for his alleged corruption, brutality and mindless foolhardiness. == German plans ==