Is Germany really exported Ukrainian chernozem during the Great Patriotic War?

In the spring of 2023, Russian media and officials began to say that Western countries allegedly export chernozem from Ukraine to the EU. At the same time, officials and television channels reminded that the Germans were the same during the Great Patriotic War. We decided to check if it was true.

Newspaper articles and stories on television on the export of Chernozem from Ukraine began to appear after 2015. For example, I wrote about it "Russian newspaper". Then almost every publication of the official Russian press on this subject was accompanied by comparison with the behavior of Nazi Germany - in particular, on the site Vesti.ru And on the TV channel "Star". March 9, 2023 About this She said And the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova. Moreover, the reason for this was fake video, supposedly testifying to the export of Ukrainian chernozem to Poland.

The story of the export by the German military of Chernozem existed in Soviet oral history. In authoritative sources, it is not possible to find evidence of such a practice. In articles on this issue, two references are most often found. One is given with reference to the Hero of the Soviet Union Benjamin Gridin: “In Ukraine, German troops stubbornly restrained our troops on a large railway junction and drove the train after the echelon towards Germany, thought, with bread, since the station had a huge elevator. When, nevertheless, the last echelon was seized with difficulty and opened the wagons, they were amazed: the Germans did not take bread to the starving Germany, but the famous Ukrainian chernozem! ”

But upon closer examination, it turns out that this memory is not first -hand. Gridin did not leave Memoirov, and the story about chernozem is known in interpretation His son -in -law, agronomist Egor Lukyanova.

The second famous story, which is often referred on the Internet - article Anatoly Evich, author of books about rocket science. By the beginning of the war, he was five years old, and he recalls the story of his grandfather: “Grandfather Pantelei explained that there was a overload of the Blacksome to the pulmans to send to Germany at the railway station. “They are pushing everything, cows, pigs, even manure is sent to their fluorescent. He knew earlier: they are greedy, hefty greedy. But that such rakors did not suspect.” This story also can hardly be considered deserving trusting, given the age of the witness, and what did not learn about this himself.

Ukrainian historians called Stories about the export of Chernozem by the Germans by myth. Sergey GroMenko from Ukrainian Institute of National Memory He wrote that "the digging, loading and transportation of land is an extremely time -consuming process, and the earth itself, even the most fertile, does not give an instant economic effect."

There is a more good argument. In 1971, a historian from the GDR Norbert Müller released a monograph "Wehrmacht and occupation (1941-1944)". In it, he talks about the looting of the eastern territories, including Ukraine. At the end of the book, archival documents are given. Among them there is a table of explored and evacuated raw materials supplies as of July 31, 1943.

The table shows that many natural wealth, as well as gold, silver and iron, the Germans exported hundreds of thousands, or even millions of tons. But there is no chernozem on this list. Similar data leads in its book "Germany and Ukraine in World War II" Ukrainian historian Vladimir Kosyk.

In addition, Nazi Germany has been developing since 1940 "General Plan Ost". For this program A significant part of the indigenous population of Poland, Ukraine and Belarus was subject to eviction further to the east, and German colonists should have taken their place on fertile lands. There was no practical meaning to systematically export chernosis from the occupied territories intended for colonization.

Thus, the story of the systematic export of Chernozem from Ukraine during the Great Patriotic War does not find confirmation.

Photo on the cover: Bundesarchiv

Not true

What do our verdicts mean?

Read on the topic:

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3. Is it true that Ukrainian nationalists were convicted of the Nuremberg process?