Geography of the USSR. Kiev under the german occupation

[TabsTabs1964]

Under the Germans, order and security reigned in the city (which was also full of refugees from Moscow and St. Petersburg) the supply of agricultural products was restored and shops and restaurants again offered merchandise and food to the entire population.





Two scenes of German officers ( and also Ukrainians) in Sofia Square, with the well-known bell tower of the Cathedral of Saint Sophia



Another image of a military parade of German troops

The interest of Imperial Germany in the occupation of the Ukrainian territory came from the great need for cereals and other foods from the Reich population after almost four years of war. The German military governor von Eichhorn issued a decree forcing the land to be sown so that if the peasants refused to do so, the former landowners will be responsible for it.
Peasants' revolts throughout Ukraine provoked murders of landowners and their administrators and even of rich peasants or Kulak, so the German occupiers created special military courts to suppress these violent acts and disorders.
At the same time they supported a Ukrainian government known as the Hetmanate or Ukranian State, strongly conservative and clearly pro-German and willing to fulfill the food supply commitments that was the real reason for the German occupation of Ukraine in 1918, in exchange for the backing of the occupiers in the repression of peasant revolts and the maintenance of the order of an independent Ukraine





Hetman Pavló Skoropadsky With Kaiser Wilhelm in the second photo in may 1918)

On July 30, a bomb killed von Eichhorn and his assistant on Nikolayevskaya Street. The terrorist was captured and executed by the Germans.



After the murder of Field Marshal Eichhorn. Verification of documents in Khreshchatyk.
The nightly funeral procession of the German Marshal was impressive with a torch parade on the way to Kiev Central Station, from where von Eichhorn's coffins and his assistant departed for Germany.
The population of Kiev took refuge in their homes, scared to death in fear of a harsh reprisal from the German occupiers. Finally part of many arrests of agitators and habitual suspects, nothing happened and order continued to prevail in the streets of the capital of Ukraine
As regards the treatment of Jews, we must say that the Ukrainians were violently anti-Semitic and brutal progromes were too frequent, curiously during the German occupation, the Jews of Kiev enjoyed relative tranquility and did not suffer too violent attacks, however in small towns and villages with peasant revolts against the hetmanate, the Jews were brutally murdered everywhere
After the German capitulation of November 11, it was clear that the occupation would soon end and with it the independent Ukrainian government. The Germans left Kiev in December.

[TabsTabs1964]

Some young officers will return 23 years later, commanding regiments or divisions of the Wehrmacht.
Perhaps some of them tried to find a love of youth, one of the Ukrainian ladies or the German minority of the good society of Kiev, with whom they spent those months of 1918, before returning to a defeated Germany.



Below are some of the postcards of the time that German soldiers sent home



Opera Theatre





St. vladimir Cathedral



The bell tower of the Sofia Cathedral



The Bohdan Khmelnytsky monument



St. Andrew



Lavra



Lavra Monastery. The central door





To be continue.

[TabsTabs1964]

PART TEN - THE MONUMENTS BEFORE AND NOW
Images only.











St. Andrew









St. Vladimir's Cathedral







The bell tower of the Sofia Cathedral

[TabsTabs1964]

The Monument to Bogdan Khmelnitsky











Pechersk Lavra Monastery and its Trinity gate church





The Opera Haus

[TabsTabs1964]

It should not be easy to survive the October Revolution of 1917, the hunger criminals of the thirties; to a great battle in 1941 and to the years of the terrible German occupation; to the Soviet reconquest of 1943 and another fifty years of Soviet rule. Even survive a low intensity war with the giant that was your owner and does not want to stop being
But there are still standing Kiev, its wonders and its inhabitants.

[TabsTabs1964]

To finish this thread I would like to say a few words about a German photographer and some of the photographs he took in Kiev during the months of June and July 1943.



The famous German photographer Herbert List (1903-1975) worked for magazines as Life, Harper's Bazaar and Vogue. And was associated to Magnum Photos.

At the end of the thirties he had settled in London, from where he traveled frequently to France. After the outbreak of World War II, he was forced to return to Germany from Greece, where he was after escaping from France after the Wehrmacht invasion.
Then, he must to made several work trips to the Eastern Front where he made reports on daily life in the occupied territories.
his double status as a Jew and homosexual meants that he was finally recruited at the Wehrmacht in 1944, spending the rest of the war in Norway in the cartography service



Herbert List in german uniform.

[TabsTabs1964]

Herbert visited Kiev. These are some of the photos he took.
The viewpoint of Dnieper outside the city.

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And the market of Yevbaz (Victory Square). Summer 1943.





















Well this has been everything. I hope you enjoyed this story and the images that accompanied it.
Maybe I uploaded some other photograph of my collection that has been forgotten.
Best regards and thanks for following.

Santi

[wpheaton]

Thank you Santi. Having made almost 40 trips to Kiev & Brovary (20 km NE), Ukraine in the past 23 years I found your photos very enjoyable. It was amazing to see many of the buildings & sights I know so well today from 60 years ago. The buildings look the same but the surrounding areas have changed greatly. Thank you for all of your very hard work and time invested in this project. It is truly appreciated.

The street vendors have not changed one bit.

Thanks,

William

[TabsTabs1964]

This week I added a new photo to my collection of Kiev images during the German occupation.
I immediately recognized that the image captured by the photographer is going through the bridge over the Dnieper of pic 4 of # 9 of this thread.





Four German soldiers look at the riverbed, supported by the solid wooden railing, which even allows them to sit on it, like the soldier with the white jacket, who looks towards the camera to be portrayed in the image.
In the background the bell tower of Lavra, somewhat closer now, that is, the photo is taken not in front of the bridge like the previous one, but inside the bridge, towards its middle, since as we approach, the hill gradually hides tower.
A truck moves along the road and a Ukrainian woman in the foreground and another, farther from the camera, they walk along the wooden sidewalk loaded with a sack behind them.