ABSTRACT
This chapter examines particular rumours which circulated among natives concerning Russian scorched earth policy and, afterwards, the plans of the German military government: expected devastation, population transfers, and brutalities against civilians, including murder. Germany's eastern frontiers had deliberately been left lightly defended to shift as many troops as possible to the west, as a calculated risk. After war broke out in summer of 1914 and Imperial German armies invaded Belgium and France to implement the Schlieffen Plan for a knockout blow in the west, Germany in turn faced incursions from the East. A basic history of Germany in the 1970s formulated it thus: "Cossack regiments stood in East Prussian cities, almost completely anticipating the horrors of 1945. The suggestion of this juxtaposition is plainly that German reconstruction has begun following Russian destruction. In East Prussia, apocalypse reinforced official claims that Germany was fighting a defensive war, cemented the social truce, and mobilized society against the violation of German lands.
