External Resources and Indiscriminate Violence: Evidence from German-occupied Belarus

Yuri M. Zhukov

Working Paper from Harvard University OpenScholar

Abstract: Within a single conflict, the scale of government violence against civil- ians can vary greatly ? from mass atrocities in one village, to eerie restraint in the next. This article argues that the scale of anti-civilian violence depends on a combatant?s relative dependence on local and external sources of support. External resources make combatants less dependent on the local population, but also create perverse incentives for how the population is to be treated. Efforts by the opposition to interdict the government?s external resources can reverse this effect. This article tests this relationship with disaggregated archival data on German-occupied Belarus during World War Two. It finds that Soviet partisan attacks against German personnel provoked reprisals against civilians, but attacks against railroads had the opposite effect. Where partisans focused on disrupting German supply lines rather than killing Germans, occupying forces conducted fewer reprisals, burned fewer houses, and killed fewer people.

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