German occupation of Byelorussia during World War II

More than 100,000 people of different ethnic backgrounds, mostly Poles and Jews in West Belarus, were imprisoned, executed or transported to the eastern USSR by Soviet authorities before the German invasion.

In one of the most successful partisan sabotage actions of the entire Second World War, the so-called Asipovichy diversion of 30 July 1943, four German trains with supplies and Tiger tanks were destroyed.

On 22 June 1944, the huge Soviet Strategic Offensive Operation Bagration was launched, finally regaining all of Belarus by the end of August.

The German invasion and occupation resulted in heavy human casualties, with some 380,000 people deported for slave labour, and the mass murder of hundreds of thousands more civilians.

[6] Although some historians have argued that Soviet partisans deliberately provoked German reprisals, partly accounting for the high death toll, this conclusion has been disputed.

Almost the whole, previously numerous Jewish population of Belarus which did not evacuate east ahead of the German advance was killed during the Holocaust by bullet.

In total, Belarus lost a quarter of its pre-war population in the Second World War, including practically all its intellectual elite.

Mogilev Jews assembled for forced labour, July 1941
A column of Soviet POWs captured near Minsk is marched west
Belarusian Central Rada , Minsk, June 1943.
On the way to the railway station in Minsk young people from Belarus march past the chairman of the Belarusian Central Council , Professor Radasłaŭ Astroŭski . They are going to be trained in Germany for military action, Minsk , June 1944.
Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski and Ordnungspolizei , Minsk, ca. 1943
A hanged Belarusian resistance member, Minsk , 1942/1943.
Belarusian Auxiliary Police , Mohylew , March 1943.
Mass murder of Soviet civilians near Minsk , 1943
Battle group Walter Schimana , summer, 1943