Ostarbeiters: the dynamics of perceptions and images in the USSR and modern Russia

The history of “Eastern workers” (Ostarbeiters) is one of the most tragic problems of the Great Patriotic War. Ostarbeiters were citizens of the USSR forced to work in Germany during the Great Patriotic War. The aim of the article is to investigate the transformation of the scientific, popular, and artistic images of “Eastern workers” in the USSR and in modern Russia. The sources of the study were occupation and Soviet newspapers, posters, fiction, historical research, Internet archives, and other projects. The authors used a systematic approach, a situational analysis and a source study of historical sources. Occupation newspapers and German posters created ideas about the benefits of working in Germany for Soviet citizens. These propaganda images were little in line with reality. On the contrary, the Soviet press emphasized the cruelty of the German masters, the slave fate of the Ostarbeiters. These ideas were supposed to create a sense of hatred towards the enemy among Soviet soldiers. In August 1944, the Soviet government decided to return (repatriate) all Soviet citizens from abroad. The Council of People’s Commissars of the USSR created the Department of the Commissioner of the USSR Council of People’s Commissars for the Repatriation of Soviet citizens. The staff of the Department urged the “Eastern workers” to return home. Soviet authors accused the British and American military administration of disrupting the repatriation of Soviet citizens. In their homeland, however, many migrant workers experienced discrimination and concealed their work in Germany. Publications about “Eastern workers” in the USSR almost stopped in the post-war period. The history of the Ostarbeiters was forgotten for many years. It was only in 1976 when the memory-based novel by the Rostov writer Vitaly Semin The OST Chest Badge was published. The novel was the first deep experience of comprehending the dramatic fates of “Eastern workers” in an artistic form. In the years of the Perestroika, other artistic works about the Ostarbeiters appeared. Professional historical research on the Ostarbeiters began in the 1990s after the declassification of archives. Contemporary historians study various aspects of the subject based on official documents, memories, and other sources. German compensation to the Ostarbeiters helped to increase public interest in the history of the “Eastern workers”. Former Ostarbeiters started to actively talk about their fate and publish memoirs. The first Internet archive of interviews with the Ostarbeiters appeared. However, with the demise of the “Eastern workers”, interest in their history gradually decreases.