THE EVERYDAY LIFE OF GERMAN RESETTLERS FROM THE USSR ON IMPERIAL DISTRICTOF WARTHEGAU IN 1944–1945

The study purpose is to reveal the key aspects of the daily life of German immigrants from the USSR on the territory of the imperial region of Warthegau at the final stage of the Second World War. The methodological basis of the study are the principles of historicism, objectivity, system, complexity, and a set of special and general scientific methods. Scientific novelty. Based on the involvement of an extensive array of archival documents, for the first time in historiography, an attempt to comprehensively study of the daily life of German immigrants from the USSR in the territory of the Third Reich was made. Conclusions. During the 1943 fall and the 1944 spring, about 350,000 ethnic Germans were evacuated from Nazi Germany by the Ukrainian authorities. The bulk of the refugees were to be resettled in the imperial region of Warthegau, which included most of the annexed western Polish lands. Due to the lack of free land resources, the role of mercenaries was prepared for most of the settlers in the local agricultural sector. The level of Soviet Germans' wages was usually insufficient to cover the necessities of life, which soon became one of the critical factors in the growing dissatisfaction among them. As a result, most settlers, contrary to their expectations, were doomed to an almost beggarly existence. The strong demoralizing influence was exerted by frequent cases of upper-class treatment by local landowners, industrial leaders, and lower-level officials. Hostility, and sometimes outright enmity to the new settlers, was more often expressed by the Polish population, in whose eyes almost every German looked like an enemy. In January 1945, most of the Soviet Germans were suddenly captured by a rapid offensive by the Red Army and, after some time, taken to a special settlements in the eastern regions of the USSR.