ABSTRACT
Within the first few months of World War II, the German armies attacking on the Soviet front had achieved a number of quite remarkable victories. By the end of the first year of the war, German troops occupied nearly 500,000 square miles of Soviet territory and had taken more than 3 million prisoners. Soviet multinational society at the time of the German invasion lacked any effective political consensus. The Baltic states had only recently been brought back into the Russian sphere of influence through force of arms and Soviet-German connivance after nearly two decades of independence and freedom. Administrative authority for occupation policy ultimately fell to Rosenberg, but he was severely constrained from the outset by the number of competing entities. German policy in the Caucasus was influenced by two factors. First was the need to cultivate Turkey, which was seen as the protector of the Turkic peoples of the Caucasian region.
