Ukrainian Urban Recovery (part 4): Ukraine and the unwavering character of Russian occupation

 (A continuation of discussions drawing on Brutal Catalyst: What Ukrainian Cities Tell Us about Recovery from War to be released by KeyPoint Press in autumn 2024; sign up for release notification at www.ukrainecities.com)

Defenders in 2022 Mariupol would hold out until mid-May, this despite the city having for weeks been surrounded as other Russian troops continued their advance further into Ukraine. Some 130,000 of the city’s original 430,000 population remained as the last days of armed struggle continued. Estimates of noncombatants killed ranged as high as 21,000. Mines and other unexploded ordnance in and around Mariupol continued to kill combatant and innocent alike while in addition denying farmers in the surrounding area use of their land. As they had and would elsewhere, the occupiers ordered replacement of the Ukrainian hryvnia with the ruble. Internet traffic was rerouted through Russia. Soldiers plundered homes, stores, and factories; seized control of power plants; exorcised Ukrainian symbols from public places; and imposed revised curriculums on schools.

The adjective was Russian rather than Soviet, but residents of 1945 Berlin would readily recognize the depredations. The closing days of World War II did not bring an end to war’s horrors. True, Allied bombing had ceased, but respite was short. Soviet soldiers swept onto Berlin’s streets and, too often and too intimately, what remained of homes. In the words of the US Army’s The City Becomes a Symbol, “it would not be until 1947, when Soviet commanders confined soldiers to strictly guarded posts and restricted almost all contact with the civilian population, that the rampage against German civilians subsided.” This rampaging in the personal world had close company in ravaging that material. Boundaries with the American, British, and French occupation sectors were no protection against Soviet incursions. (See figure denoting occupation sectors.) Berlin’s power was put at risk by Soviet occupiers seeking to remove equipment from the city’s only modern generation plant, that in the British sector. On April 20, 1946, Lucius D. Clay—at first US Deputy Military Governor and later commanding general of the Office of Military Government for Germany—wrote to the Soviet Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Soviet Zone of Occupation in Germany informing him that US soldiers had been instructed to prevent further removal of railway tracks from the American sector. Soviet documents would later confirm the dismantling of 605 plants in West Berlin. Again from The City Becomes a Symbol, such pillaging “severely compounded the difficulties of restarting Berlin’s economic life and permanently darkened the mood against the Soviet Union.”

Berliners had something of their revenge with the coming of elections for city mayor in October 1946. Though citizens in the Soviet sector benefited from better food ration amounts in comparison to those overseen by American, British, and French occupiers, the clumsy sleight of hand could not wipe clean memories of Russian soldiers behavior in those immediate post-surrender months. Confirming the insincerity of the sudden benevolence, secret police wasted no time in visiting Berliners with desired technical skills. On October 21, 1946, the evening following elections, secret police knocked on the doors of Germans living in the Soviet sector who possessed technical skills Moscow coveted. The only choice was whether to depart eastward alone or take their families with them. Berliners were also not impressed when they heard senior German officials serving the Soviet sector dined on fine meals and wine while those lesser had to settle for stew, hardly a reinforcement of the supposed commitment to a socialist ideal.

Allied occupation sectors in Berlin post-World War II (adapted from William Stivers and Donald A. Carter, The City Becomes a Symbol: The US Army in the Occupation of Berlin 1945-1948 [Washington, D.C.: Center for Military History, 2017), 25. Original map is in the public domain.]

Kidnapping, theft, personal violence, and hypocrisy were not Russia’s only legacies. There had been improvements in restoration of public order and services in the two months immediately following Soviet seizure before other Allied force representatives arrived. Massive housing construction projects would follow, though their quality would prove less than what Germans considered acceptable. These efforts, like those seeking to win votes in 1946, were recognized for the political facades they largely were. Ukrainians are experiencing similar notional improvements and gaps between promise and performance. Flashy rows of new apartment complexes in Mariupol cannot expel city resident understanding that rubble clearing and rebuilding are only necessary because of the occupiers’ invasion of Ukraine. Nor, if reports are true, has the quality of building improved much since the mid-20th century. The new structures are reportedly already showing signs of faulty construction. As was the case in 1945 Berlin, it is unlikely Ukrainians—other than those firmly predisposed to viewing Moscow favorably—will forgive Russian despoliation despite efforts to sway hearts and minds.

Answer to last blog’s trivia question and another to contemplate:

Question 7: The five landing beaches at Normandy were named (from west to east), Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno, and Sword. Juno was not the initial name for a beach. Why was it changed?

Answer: Originally the three British Commonwealth beaches were all named after fish (Goldfish, Jellyfish, Swordfish). Allegedly, when Winston Churchill heard that one would be "Jellyfish," his response was along the lines of "I'm not going to have to tell some soldier's next of kin that his death occurred on Jelly Beach. He directed it be renamed "Juno" after the Roman goddess of that name. [See Peter Caddick-Adams, Sand & Steel: The D-Day Invasion and the Liberation of France (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019), 139.]

Change of pace trivia question:

Fighting stopped in the Third Punic War (Carthage v. Rome) in 146 BC. Within a half century, when did it formally end?