Of deporting the Soviet Germans to Kazakhstan during the Great Patriotic War: the practice of Soviet power

Abstract

The article considers deportation of the Soviet Germans to the territory of Kazakhstan during the years of the Great Patriotic War. Authors emphasize that forced deportation of the German population had political importance at that time. The main places of resettlement of German population, their localities where special settlers lived and the industrial enterprises where they worked as a part of NKVD labor columns are shown in this article. The elimination of the Autonomous Republic of the Volga Germans, the destruction of German villages on the Volga, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Leningrad region and other places, the expulsion and physical destruction of thousands of innocent people are considered by the authors as one of the acts of Stalin's repressions, which often victimized entire peoples, having neither legal nor moral justification. The article concludes that the study of the problems of deportation requires, first of all, professional reading and interpretation of sources, many of which, despite the removal of the «top secret», are contradictory.