Reichskommissariat Ukraine

The Reichskommissariat Ukraine (RKU; lit. 'Reich Commissariat of Ukraine') was an administrative entity of the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories of Nazi Germany from 1941 to 1944. It served as the German civilian occupation regime in the Ukrainian SSR, and parts of the Byelorussian SSR, Russian SFSR, and eastern Poland during the Eastern Front of World War II.

Ukraine was established after the early success of the Wehrmacht's Operation Barbarossa from territory under the military administration of Army Group South Rear Area. The German civil administration was based in Rovno (Rivne) with Erich Koch serving as the only Reichskommissar during its existence. Ukraine was part of the Generalplan Ost which included the genocide of the Jewish population, 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, with active participation of the Order Police battalions and Ukrainian collaborators. It is estimated 900,000 to 1.6 million Jews and 3 to 4 million non-Jewish Ukrainians were killed during the occupation; other sources estimate that 5.2 million Ukrainian civilians (of all ethnic groups) perished due to crimes against humanity, war-related disease, and famine amounting to more than 12% of Ukraine's population at the time.

In the course of 1943 and 1944, the Red Army recaptured most of Ukraine in their advance westwards. Koch was appointed Reichskommissar of Reichskommissariat Ostland in August 1944 and it was formally dissolved on 10 November 1944.