"EAST FAILURES"

By the time the Germans had acquired large areas of territory in the Soviet Union, they had run out of competent and experienced individuals to administer the occupied areas. Most of their better personnel had already been assigned to occupation posts in other parts of Europe. Furthermore, occupation duty in the East was very undesirable. Therefore, the occupation officials had a scrape the bottom of the barrel to find administrators for the newly-acquired territories. As part of their quest, troublemakers, alcoholics and other unreliable individuals were "dumped" into those post. Back in Germany, those who knew what was happening had a name for these people: "Ostniete" (East failures).

Source: "German Rule in Russia" by Alexander Dallin

World War Trivia and Cartoons - Riebel-Roque Publishing Company

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