German Soldiers in the Period of the Nazi Occupation in the Memories of the Belarusian Villagers

Abstract

The evaluation of German soldiers by the Belarusian population during World War II has practically not been studied in Belarusian historiography. This led to the need for further study of this problem. The aim of the study is to identify the real picture of the attitude of the Belarusians to German soldiers. The principles of oral history are used as the most important methodological apparatus. The author of the article examines the attitude of the rural population of Northern Belarus to the Nazi occupiers in 1941–1944. Additional research has shown that the estimates of the autochthons are characterised by opposite values from ‘the inhuman enemy” to ‘the good stranger’. This depended on the specific circumstances of the contacts of the Wehrmacht soldiers with the local population. The collective perception of the occupiers was characterised by uncertainty, anxiety and fear. Against the background of mass terror, the attitude of individual Wehrmacht soldiers to the local population was distinguished by humanism. However, such cases were considered by the Belarusians as an exception to the rule