Reichskommissariat Ostland

The Reichskommissariat Ostland (RKO; lit. 'Reich Commissariat of Eastland') was an administrative entity of the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories of Nazi Germany from 1941 to 1945. It served as the German civilian occupation regime in Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and the western part of the Byelorussian SSR during the Eastern Front of World War II.

Ostland was established after the success of the Wehrmacht's Baltic operation and an initial period of military administration by Army Group North Rear Area based on the equivalent Reichskommissariat Baltenland in German planning documents. It was divided into Generalbezirk Estland (Estonia), Generalbezirk Lettland (Latvia), Generalbezirk Litauen (Lithuania), and Generalbezirk Weißruthenien (Belarus) each with its own Nazi collaborationist government and Auxiliary Police under the control of a German Generalkommissar. Hinrich Lohse served as the Reichskommissar from 1941 to 1944 and Erich Koch from 1944 to 1945.

Ostland was part of the Generalplan Ost which included the genocide of the Jewish population, the deportation and murder of Jews from Central Europe, the expulsion and murder of some of the native non-Jewish population, the settlement of Germanic peoples, and the Germanization of the rest. The SS and their Einsatzgruppen A and B, with active participation of the Order Police battalions and local Auxiliary Police forces, killed over a million Jews and others in the territory.

In the course of 1943 and 1944, the Red Army recaptured most of Ostland in their advance westwards, and many of its institutions were dissolved in late 1944 and early 1945. German forces including the rump administration of Ostland held out in the Courland Pocket until 10 May 1945, two days after the German surrender.