Nachtigall in the battle for Lviv Ledge. Structure, tasks, actions

Thea article discusses the Nachtigall unit, its command structure, and functional characteristics in the advancing Wehrmacht. It also covers Nachtigall’s purpose and tasks during the battles for Lviv. The unit is studied in the context of the German military structure as of 1941.

GERMANY’S FAR-RIGHT TERRORISM AND THE TIMID NSU CASE VERDICT

As we have explained in detail in our analysis of last year, the Nationalist Socialist Underground (NSU) far-right terror group, between 2000 and 2007, murdered ten people in Germany . Eight of the victims belonged to Germany's more than three million Turkish community. The last victim was a German policewoman who was gunned down in 2007. This terror cell carried out also several robberies and bombings in this period. Between 1998 and 2011, they robbed 11 banks in Saxony towns of Chemnitz, Zwickau, one bank in Stralsund, Mecklenburg-West Pomerania, and two banks in Arnstadt and Eisenach in Thuringia . As it was given the details in our mentioned last year's analysis Beate Zschäpe, Uwe Mundlos and Uwe Böhnhardt were the nucleus of the National Socialist Underground. Only a couple of hours later, the third member of the group, Beate Zschäpe, set fire to the group's flat in Zwickau, left the scene, and mailed about twelve prepared envelopes containing copies of DVDs claiming responsibility for their acts to newspapers, mosques, parties and one right-wing extremist mail order company, and stayed hidden for several days before turning herself in to the police, accompanied by her lawyer. Searching the debris of the flat, investigators found more weapons, among others the pistol of the first nine murders, and a laptop containing copies of the video claiming responsibility. As a result, the last surviving member of the NSU Beate Zschäpe was charged with co-founding a terrorist organization and the complicity in ten murders, two bombings and fourteen bank robberies .The NSU trial began on 6 May 2013 in the 6th Criminal Division of Munich's Higher Regional Court and Beate Zschäpe together with the four suspected accomplices deemed to be in the "close periphery" of the NSU trio, including Ralf Wohlleben and André Eminger, were tried. Zschäpe is accused of 10 murders, arson, forming a terrorist organization and membership of a terrorist organization. After nearly a five-year trial, the Munich Higher Regional Court has issued the verdict on 11 June 2018. Beate Zschäpe was found guilty of being complicit in 10 murders, 43 attempted murders, 2 severe bombing attacks and 15 bank and other robberies, and sentenced to life in prison . Carsten Schultze, a juvenile at the time, was found guilty of handing the pistol and silencer to the NSU, and was sentenced to three years. Last but not least, André Eminger was given only two years and six months for helping a terrorist group and was released, having already served his prison time during the trial . Meanwhile, many held a minute of silence for NSU's victims before the verdict was read out . The verdict of the Munich Court has been widely criticized, especially for the light sentences given to the already very limited number of accomplices of these serious crimes. The Munich court, almost after two years of its verdict, published the reasoning of its judgement on 21 April 2020. According to the report of Deutsche Welle, the lawyer of one of the plaintiffs whose father was killed by the NSU suggests that the main purpose of the case was not only to convict the only surviving core member of the NSU. Per the report, the BfV identified 32,080 right-wing extremists in Germany in 2019, up from 24,100 the year before. The BfV classified 13,000 of these cases as prepared to use violence, 300 more than in 2018. The report underlines the increase in racism, right-wing extremism, anti-Semitism in Germany, and considers these areas as the biggest threat to security in Germany. There is no doubt that the German government and a large segments of the German society are fighting seriously against terrorist acts that started to emerge in parallel with the rise of the far-right. At this point, it is necessary to add the serious rise in Islamophobia to the list of threats to security in Germany mentioned by the German authorities. In this context, it is also possible to name Islamophobia as anti-Muslim racism. A video titled "Anti-Muslim racism on the rise in Germany" prepared and broadcasted by DW News on 17 September 2020 is a useful start in studying this issue.In the light of the foregoing, as a concluding remark, the following question comes to mind: Did the timid verdict of the Munich Court on the NSU case play a role in the recent increase of number of right-wing extremists and rise in far-right terrorist acts in Germany? It is considered that investigating an answer to this question through an academic research can contribute to elucidating the reasons for the recent rise of the far right in Germany. On the other hand, recent revelations of confirmed infiltration of right wing extremists into the police force as well as the military structure and intelligence units is a most worrisome development that necessitate an even more scrutinizing follow up to this article.

Understanding Workplace Interpersonal Mistreatment in the NZ Military: Structure, Antecedents and Consquences

<p>This thesis describes the development and testing of a theoretically plausible model of antecedents and consequences of workplace interpersonal mistreatment using archival data (n = 10697) of civilian and military employees. The sample was split into calibration and validation samples. Principle component and confirmatory factor analysis revealed a complex structure for the workplace interpersonal mistreatment construct across three types of behaviour, and across observed and experienced mistreatment. Furthermore, a total of 17 robust factors were identified in the survey, of which a subset of eight factors was used for developing the model of antecedents and consequences of WIM. The model was tested and refined using regression and structural equation modelling in two samples and validated in a third sample. Individual (seniority), workplace (directive leadership, equity and diversity climate, and health and safety climate) and organisational features (aligned-cohesive culture, service culture) all predict mistreatment. Outcomes of mistreatment include stress, organisational commitment, job satisfaction and leaving intentions. The model showed good fit in the validation sample and is therefore likely to generalise to the population. Implications for organisations and recommendations for future research are discussed.</p>

Understanding Workplace Interpersonal Mistreatment in the NZ Military: Structure, Antecedents and Consquences

<p>This thesis describes the development and testing of a theoretically plausible model of antecedents and consequences of workplace interpersonal mistreatment using archival data (n = 10697) of civilian and military employees. The sample was split into calibration and validation samples. Principle component and confirmatory factor analysis revealed a complex structure for the workplace interpersonal mistreatment construct across three types of behaviour, and across observed and experienced mistreatment. Furthermore, a total of 17 robust factors were identified in the survey, of which a subset of eight factors was used for developing the model of antecedents and consequences of WIM. The model was tested and refined using regression and structural equation modelling in two samples and validated in a third sample. Individual (seniority), workplace (directive leadership, equity and diversity climate, and health and safety climate) and organisational features (aligned-cohesive culture, service culture) all predict mistreatment. Outcomes of mistreatment include stress, organisational commitment, job satisfaction and leaving intentions. The model showed good fit in the validation sample and is therefore likely to generalise to the population. Implications for organisations and recommendations for future research are discussed.</p>

Qarakhanids on the Edge of the Bukhara Oasis: Archaeobotany of Medieval Paykend

The urban center of Paykend was an exchange node just off the main corridor of the Silk Road in the Bukhara Oasis on the edge of the hyperarid Kyzyl–Kum Desert. The city was occupied from the end of 4 century B.C.E. to the mid–12 century C.E.; our study focuses on the Qarakhanid period (C.E. 999 – 1211), the last imperial phase of urban occupation at Paykend before its abandonment. In this study, we present the results of an analysis of archaeobotanical remains recovered from a multifunction rabat, which appears to have comprised a domicile, military structure, center of commerce, and/or a caravanserai, a roadside inn for travelers. We shed light on how people adapted a productive economy to the local ecological constraints. By adding these data to the limited Qarakhanid archaeobotany from across Central Asia, we provide the first glimpses into cultivation, commerce, and consumption at a Silk Road trading town along the King’s Road, the central artery of ancient Eurasia.

COMMON VALUES OF THE MILITARY ORGANIZATION AND OF THE FIELD OF PHYSICAL EDUCATION AND SPORT

The military organization, due to its fundamental role in defending and maintaining the sovereignty and security of any state in the world, has undergone a natural evolutionary process. In this process man plays the main role. Thus, the continuous transformation to which the military organization was and is still subjected to, being permanently conditioned by the constantly changing threats and challenges, was achieved simultaneously with human evolution, under the impact of all discoveries and technologies developed and implemented by it. In this article, we will analyze two important areas of human activity, military organization and sports, focusing on finding common values for the two areas and generating relevant answers to the question: Is a sports team equivalent to a military structure? Keywords: military organization; physical education and sports; common values; connections.

The Venetian Empire

Between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries, Venice built an empire embracing a wide territory from the Adriatic coast to islands in the eastern Mediterranean. This huge area had to be safeguarded for both military and economic purposes. A naval and military structure was established in order to support the commercial interests of the Republic. Until the sixteenth century, the economic fortunes of Venice were maintained thanks to her military and financial power; as new powerful and aggressive European competitors emerged, the Venetian merchants coped with increasing difficulties in overseas markets. The scale and scope of new Great Powers (England, Holland, and France) proved to be unattainable to the old republic, which saw its dominion gradually shrink over the last two centuries of her history.

Union Freedoms in the Armed Forces: Still a Taboo?

This article addresses unionisation in the armed forces, an issue which has recently attracted the attention of the courts, most prominently in Europe. First, the article focuses on the organisational profiles of military structure, discussing the relationships between the exercise of union freedoms and the necessity of preserving the chain of command, the readiness of troops and their political neutrality. It concludes that some recent evolutions in military organisation have contributed to the pressure to unionise the military. Therefore, this article focuses on the legal perspective to clarify the role of international law in this issue. To this end, international treaties and courts’ or authoritative bodies’ interpretations of them are collected, analysed and compared. The article then confirms that several arguments developed in the European judicial context can be reasonably applied outside Europe, in accordance with similar or identical clauses enshrined in all international treaties addressing the issue of military unionisation. International law thus leaves room for interpretations whereby restrictions on military unionisation should not go so far as to ban union freedoms altogether. Finally, this article considers the risks inherent in military unionisation and suggests possible approaches that will facilitate a homogeneous balance between union rights and the general interests at stake.

BELARUSIANS AND UKRAINIANS IN ANTI-SOVIET LOCAL ARMED CONFLICTS ON THE TERRITORY OF SOVIET BELARUS (1920–1930S)

The article is devoted to the study of anti-Soviet resistance in Belarus in the 1920s and 1930s. For the last twenty years this topic has been silenced in the official scientific publications of the Republic of Belarus. Most documents on armed anti-Soviet resistance are kept in the KGB archives, to which a researcher in the Republic of Belarus has limited access. The author analyzes the participation of the Belarusian population in anti-Soviet local armed conflicts. The vast majority of actions of the Bolshevik government brutally violated the traditional way of life, which caused outrage among the Belarusian population, which grew into armed forms of protection of property and dignity. On the basis of archival materials the activity of insurgent detachments is revealed. In the period 1919–1923, 1925–26, 1930–1931. the actions of armed peasants and intellectuals in Soviet Belarus had a clear political context. For the purposes of the insurgent detachments, anti-Soviet units, which fought for the elimination of Soviet power, and Belarusian national units, which sought to create an independent Belarusian state, are nominated - these are the organizations “Biloruske bratstvo”, “Za Batkivshchynu”, “Zelenyy Dub”. They had a military structure, interacted with each other, enjoyed the broad support of the population. They were attended not only by Belarusians but also by Ukrainians, both of local origin and those who found themselves in Belarus. The article shows the fighting destiny of the insurgent leaders Mefodiy Karatkevich, Vasil Shevchenko, Mikhail Bakun, Fyodor Shatsko. On the part of the Soviet authorities, the main method of combating the insurgent movement was to use force. The author concludes that a fairly large part of the population of Belarus did not perceive the Soviet state as their own and interpreted the Bolshevik government as aggressive and not legitimate. The massive anti-Soviet armed resistance ended both under the influence of the transition to a new economic policy and the forced destruction of the most conscious and hardworking part of the Belarusian population.