Two days before the 123rd ID completed its withdrawal from the Demiansk position behind the Lovat river, Army Group North issued twenty-five pages of occupation guidelines for its area of operations. This major policy initiative proves noteworthy in two ways. First, while the directive attempted to lay the foundation for a more conciliatory occupation policy, the fact that it was issued before elements of Sixteenth Army had finished with their destruction of the Demiansk position suggests that the rampant contradictions within German military policy remained irreconcilable. Second, the simple notion that the command felt the need to issue such a directive during the third year of war highlights the relative confusion that plagued German military occupation authorities in the Soviet Union. The conflicts inherent in their competing versions of military necessity ensured that this occupation policy would prove no more successful than previous ones in harnessing the civilian population to the German war effort.

Army Group North stated that it had the “task of re-establishing and maintaining public life and public order in the area, as this served the interests of the German Wehrmacht.” The division of labor between the army, SS-Police forces, and the Economic Staff East received further confirmation as the Wehrmacht was “not responsible” for economic matters or propaganda; it nonetheless “worked closely together” with Economic Staff East and the higher SS and police leader (HSSPF) for northwest Russia.