OUN and UPA: enemies of Ukraine or freedom fighters?
It is for quite a long time that The Day has published various viewpoints on the problem of recognizing OUN and UPA as a combatant in the fight against Hitler’s Germany during World War II. For many reasons, this issue causes indignation in the people who are unable to break free from the Soviet communist doctrine. In our opinion, the issue is far simpler than it is considered to be. Still, it is impossible to understand it without an unbiased analysis of the historical facts.
We hope that The Day will allow its readers to acquaint themselves with the basic elements of the problems. Let us try to expound theses in an acceptable scholarly shape. We take the claims of the OUN and UPA opponents as our point of departure. This problem can only be discussed from the viewpoint of authentic and trustworthy documents, not from the angle of Soviet propaganda and ideological struggle. In our case the documents come from the enemy, the German Nazis.
WHAT IS THE ORGANIZATION OF UKRAINIAN NATIONALISTS (OUN)?
Established in 1929, OUN always pursued the goal of liberating Ukraine from all occupiers. This is confirmed by the 1929 OUN Congress documents which emphasize, incidentally, that “the nationalists consider it a privilege to serve the Ukrainian Nation and strengthen the Ukrainian state.” Their marching song said, “We need neither glory nor rewards, for the joy of fighting is our reward, we would rather live and die in battle than live in fetters like dumb slaves...” This meant, of course, both literal and spiritual fetters.
It is important to underline that there existed two OUNs since 1940, one being led by Stepan Bandera and the other by Andriy Melnyk. Although the two OUNs shared the same goal of struggling for a Ukrainian independent state, they employed different strategies and tactics. Under the common human foundations and the laws of justice, each of these organizations is responsible for its own activities, i.e., OUN(B) cannot be held responsible for OUN(M) activities and vice versa. Nor can these organizations be blamed for the collaboration and other misdeeds of people who belonged to neither of the two OUNs. It is common knowledge, however, that Soviet communist propaganda used to ascribe all misdeeds of any persons to OUN. Imperial Berlin and Moscow never differentiated, for political reasons, between the two OUNs: they would speak about “factions” and “groups” of the same organization. This approach, which quite suited the anti-Ukrainian circles, was false and imprecise. Mixing up the two OUNs only dims the main aspects of their activities.
DID THE GERMANS SUPPORT OUN?
To answer the question, let us look at two periods:
1. 1929-1939: Soviet communist and Polish propagandas claimed that Germany was backed and financed OUN. In reality, this was just malicious propaganda. In 1933 Polish police got hold of an OUN secret archive hidden in Prague. The documents testified that only Lithuania had rendered small financial assistance to OUN. This was also confirmed by Wladyslaw Zelenski, the prosecution attorney who used the OUN archive materials at the Warsaw trial of OUN members (Wladyslaw Zelenski, Zabojstwo ministra Pierckiego, Paris, 1973, p. 36).
What was the attitude of Hitler’s party toward OUN? Oddly enough, the Nazi Party took a hostile attitude toward OUN. This follows from the memorandum of Arno Schikendanz, a high functionary at the Nazi party’s foreign policy department, who constantly cautioned German governmental institutions against cooperation with this organization, for it “carries out anti-German activities” and “some close associates of Yevhen Konovalets have Jewish wives” (see translation of the memo dated February 1. 1938, in our study Ukraine and Germany in World War Two, Lviv, 1993, p. 467). By assassinating OUN leader Yevhen Konovalets on May 25, 1938, Moscow showed its serious fear of this organization, which was trying to penetrate the Ukrainian SSR territory and whose ideology set the goal of fighting for an independent Ukraine, i.e., for Ukraine seceding from the Soviet Russian empire, from Moscow.
2. The years of the Stalin-Hitler pact (1939-1941). On August 23, 1939, Berlin and Moscow signed the German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact and a secret protocol attached thereto on the so-called “sphere of interests” of Germany and the USSR, which pointed out that “in case of territorial and political changes in the Polish state, the spheres of interests of Germany and the USSR will be delimited along the rivers Narva, Vistula, and San...” In this way Moscow and Berlin agreed to partition the Polish state a week before Germany attacked Poland. A German announcement said, “On the night of August 23-24, 1939, during a reception, Mr. Stalin spontaneously proposed a toast to the Fuehrer with the following words, ‘I know to what extent the German people love their Fuehrer, so I would like to drink to his health’” (see the protocol text and the report on the toast in the above- quoted study, pp. 482, 483). At that time, Stepan Bandera languished in a Polish prison in Brest. Germany attacked Poland on September 1, 1939. About two weeks later, Bandera was released from the prison being bombed by the Germans. He went to Ukraine occupied by the Red Army. Bandera never raised a toast to Hitler’s health.
Pressed by the OUN leadership under Soviet occupation, Bandera illegally moved to Krakow in mid- October 1939. Meanwhile, the Reich’s general security directorate issued an instruction whereby all ex- USSR emigrants were “banned from expressing, orally or in writing, any hostile attitude toward the Soviet Union.” This also applied to OUN. The Reich’s general security directorate confiscated and banned an OUN brochure about Soviet-occupied Western Ukraine (see the above-quoted study, pp. 486, 487).
In February 1940, the young OUN leaders set up the Revolutionary Provid (Directorate) which controlled the whole OUN network in Ukraine and the greater part of the network west of the German-Soviet border (the General Government (Nazi-occupied Poland –Ed.), Germany, Austria, and the Bohemia- Moravia Protectorate). The establishment of the Revolutionary Provid split the organization into Bandera’s and Melnyk’s OUNs.
Taking advantage of the new situation and the informational struggle between the OUN leaderships, the Nazi party’s foreign policy department sent a message to security police chief Reinhard Heydrich on September 18, 1940, drawing his attention to the fact that “after the Soviet Union had occupied Galicia, this grouping (OUN) lost all remnants of political significance and, as it is clear now, its (OUN) activities present a danger to state security.” The letter to Heydrich further said that “liquidating this grouping as a political organization would be the only correct solution” (for the full text of the letter see the collected documents The Split of OUN, Lviv, 1999, pp. 125, 126). Perhaps considering that the OUN case had no prospects, the German authorities refrained from announcing the liquidation of OUN. The more so that this was the time when Hitler secretly ordered beginning preparations for attacking the Soviet Union.
OUN(B) DURING THE OCCUPATION
Nobody knew Hitler’s true intentions. Yet, everyone had the presentiment of a war against the Soviet Union. Both OUNs intended to use the war to restore and build a Ukrainian state, but they had different plans and tactical choices, which follows from the two organizations’ memorandums sent to the Reich’s government offices.
Let us consider a short memorandum OUN(B) drew up before Germany’s attack on the USSR and handed to the Germans on June 23, 1941, after the attack. The memo stressed that the solution of the Ukrainian question should meet Ukrainian interests. Even if Ukraine welcomes German troops as liberators, “This situation could soon change if Germany comes to Ukraine with slogans that are not aimed at restoring the Ukrainian state.” In Ukraine, “German coercion will lead to completely undesirable consequences... A long-time military occupation is unacceptable to Western Europe” (German Bundesarchiv Koblenz, BA, 43/II 1500f. 64-67).
On June 30, 1941, when the first German units burst into Lviv, a group of OUN(B) members led by Yaroslav Stetsko arrived in the city and, having convened an assembly of public representatives, proclaimed the restoration of an independent Ukrainian state. The Germans construed this as an attempt “to present the German authorities with a fait accompli.” Testifying to a German investigative commission in Krakow, Stepan Bandera said he had ordered making public the proclamation and all other statements “without seeking the approval of any German government offices, only relying on the mandate I received from the Ukrainians” (for the verbatim account see Ukraine in World War II, vol. I, Lviv, 1997, pp. 105-113). The Germans arrested Stepan Bandera and Yaroslav Stetsko on July 5 and July 9, 1941 respectively. Both were taken to Berlin. They were urged there to call off or repeal the Proclamation Act of June 30, 1941. In reply, OUN(B) released a statement saying that the proclamation of renewed Ukrainian statehood on June 30, 1941, in Lviv has already become a historic fact which would be one of the glorious traditions of Ukrainian people, “a symbol of the contemporary liberation struggle of the Ukrainian nation” (p. 213).
Retreating, the Soviet NKVD ruthlessly killed its political prisoners, mostly members of OUN: about 1000 prisoners in Lutsk, 3-4,000 in Lviv, over 1000 in Drohobych, 1500 in Stanislav, 500 in Dubno, hundreds in other cities, including Vinnytsia and Uman.
On September 15, 1941, the Germans made their first mass arrests of Ukrainians in Ukraine and the Reich. They were all OUN(B) members. Most of them were deported to death camps. Since then, the arrests of OUN(B) activists became a common occurrence. The OUN(B) Provid resolved to train young people for armed struggle and an uprising. Learning this, the German security service (SD) issued an order throughout Ukraine in Kyiv on November 25, 1941, “It has been indisputably established that the Bandera movement is inciting an uprising in the Reichskommissariat (Ukraine) aimed at creating an independent Ukraine. All members of the Bandera movement are subject to immediate arrest and secret execution, following thorough interrogation, as bandits.”
This order, among other material evidence of the mass annihilation of the Ukrainian population, was presented to the war crimes trial at Nuremberg on behalf of the USSR (document No. 014-USSR) and published in the 39th volume of Nuremberg trial proceedings, pages 268-269. Moscow never published the document. On the contrary, it began spreading vicious propaganda against the Bandera movement. As we see, the Nuremberg trial dealt with OUN, to be more exact, the OUN of Bandera, but not in the interpretation of communist propaganda. Claiming that OUN was paid by the SS and SD criminal organizations, as Ivan Khmil wrote, is nothing but the fevered imagination of Soviet communist agencies.
The reports of the German security police and SD Einsatzgruppen (death squads — Ed.) of December 1941 say that, according to an arrested OUN(B) militant, members of this organization were assigned to search everywhere for Russian weapons and ammunition, and “hide them from the German Wehrmacht. When the OUN leadership chooses an appropriate moment and forms the required guerrilla groups, a blow will be struck on the German occupation troops” (Ukraine in World War II: Documents, vol. II, document 15, p. 76). Another report in January 1942 also mentions weapons “meant for the uprising” and being stockpiled by the Bandera OUN (ibid., vol. 2, document 19). An SD report on anti-German activities in Ukraine says, “In this respect, the propaganda of Bolsheviks and extreme nationalists coincides” (German War Archives, Freiburg. BA-MA RW 41, Bericht, S. 15).
Apart from mentioning numerous arrests of OUN(B) members in all regions of Ukraine (Zhytomyr, Kyiv, Kharkiv, Poltava, Donbas, the Crimea, etc.), the April 10 SD report on various hostile groups claims that, of all Ukrainian groups, “the most active and conspicuous Bandera movement has turned into an underground organization predominantly hostile to Germany” (Ukraine in World War II: Documents, vol. 2, document 30, p. 161). The SD report of July 31, 1942, quotes the Bulletin (No. 4) of “the Bandera group” as saying that the year 1941 brought about no changes in Eastern Europe, “with one totalitarianism giving way to another.” And further, “In terms of their fundamental principles, they are similar. What differs them is tactics” (Ukraine in World War II, vol. 2, document 34, pp. 215-216).
An SD communication of September 18, 1942, to Berlin reads: “Bandera’s group always seems to be the most radical Ukrainian movement seeking independence. While in the previous months propaganda was spread primarily in Western and Central Ukraine, now this work has gradually embraced the rest of the Ukrainian regions. Especially pronounced in the Bandera movement is hostility toward Germans. They have repeatedly called for ousting the Germans from this country” (Ukraine in World War II, vol. 2, document 42, p. 272). The Germans executed many OUN(B) leaders. For example, Ovruch district cell leader Yury Tortsiuk and the Chernihiv district cell leader were executed by firing squad in early July 1942. Dmytro Myron (Orlyk), leader of the Central and Western Ukraine branches, was shot dead on a Kyiv street on July 24. New people replaced them, with the struggle continuing throughout Ukraine.
Further security police and SD reports say that, since April 1942, “the Bandera movement” had been organizing armed “bandit groups,” while the Wehrmacht High Command announced on October 16, 1942, that “the Ukrainian nationalists have formed for the first time a large gang in the vicinity of Sarn and are constantly receiving reinforcements” (ibid., document 47, p. 341, and vol. 2, document 2, p. 27).
THE UKRAINIAN INSURGENT ARMY (UPA)
The quoted German report confirms that the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) began to be organized in mid-October 1942 by Bandera’s OUN in order to fight against the Germans and other forces opposed to the idea of Ukrainian independence.
While “the Bandera movement” was arising in Volyn, Polissia and the Zhytomyr region and UPA was in the making, Moscow ordered Soviet partisan groups to move to those territories and combat the nationalist groups. An address of the Ukrainian resistance movement (Bandera’s OUN) to Soviet partisans (November 1942) says that the Soviet and German regimes are similar dictatorships aimed against the Ukrainian people. “The Hitler and Russian imperialisms are in conflict today, but both of them are fighting for the destruction and enslavement of peoples... What we must fight for is a new epoch, i.e., an independent state, a free nation, and free work... Down with Hitler and Stalin! Long live the independent nation states of the captive peoples!” (ibid., vol. III, document 3, p. 30).
The Germans made new mass arrests of OUN(B) members in various cities of Germany, capturing more than 500 people, and in Lviv and other cities of Ukraine. It is at that time that Stepan Bandera’s two brothers, Oleksa and Vasyl, died in Auschwitz. In December 1942 the Germans killed in Lviv OUN(B) Provid member Ivan Klymov (Legend). In February 1943 UPA units began broad military operations in order to seize territories, thwart German punitive actions against Ukrainian villages, and push northward the Soviet partisans who often provoked punitive expeditions and the burning of villages. On February 7 an UPA company captured Volodymyrets and freed prisoners; in March a POW camp was attacked in Lutsk and prisoners released; hundreds of inmates were freed from the prisons of Kremenets, Dubno, Kovel, Lutsk, Horokhiv, and Liubachivka. UPA seized Liudvypil and repelled the attacks of the German SS, inflicting heavy casualties. Many districts of Volyn were liberated in April. It is at that time that Hitler’s friend, SA chief Victor Lutze was killed. The UPA attacked trains carrying slave laborers to Germany and free them.
German reports give a close account of the situation. In early April 1943 they announced that “in many areas (e.g. Volyn) the German administration no longer exists... We must say that there is insurgent movement in the districts of Horokhiv, Liuboml, Dubno, Kremenets, and partially Lutsk.” “The Ukrainian resistance movement has radically activated its struggle in almost a whole region (Volyn and Podillia). It is now going on even in such hitherto calm areas as Proskuriv, Letychiv, and Yarmolyntsi.”
A June 1943 communication reported, “The Ukrainian nationalists are creating more difficulties than the Bolshevistic bands” (statement by General Commissar Schoene). “The recruitment of workers is of little success, those who wish to go are being killed, while the freshly picked workers are liberated by bands... Railways are being sabotaged, which forces us to go by train only with an escort. Our forces are unable to suppress the bands. This is why the populace no longer cooperates with us...” (ibid., vol. 3, document 22, 25, 26, 31; pp. 146, 165, 169, 221, 223).
There were eight to ten thousand fighters in UPA as of April 1943. Their number doubled in June and continued to grow. Combat units, organized on regular-army principles, were subject to strict discipline. The OUN(B) northwestern regional military headquarters was converted into a regional UPA headquarters and the OUN(B) Central Provid military headquarters into the UPA Chief Headquarters. In August 1943 OUN(B) elected Roman Shukhevych as its leader, who became commander-in-chief of all UPA troops in November. In the summer of 1943 the Germans deployed police and army units to launch a broad offensive against the UPA. The offensive was abortive: moreover, the Germans were forced in August to divert some SS troops to the front line. Higher SS and Police Chief Obergruppenfuehrer Pruetzmann angrily cabled to Berlin, “I have to make do with the remnants of these units to quell the Ukrainian uprising in Volyn” (ibid., vol. III, document 42, p. 275). Ukrainian sources cite the following losses inflicted in a three-month period (July-September 1943): 1237 UPA officers and men killed or wounded, at least 5,000 civilians killed, and over 3,000 Germans killed (Ukraine and Germany in World War II, p. 377).
SOVIET COMMUNIST POWER AND OUN-UPA
The documents quoted highlight the main stages of OUN-UPA struggle against the German occupiers. Although this struggle went on until the end of 1944, it was clear as early as 1943 that UPA and OUN would continue the war against Soviet Communism and Russian imperialism.
In May 1943 OUN took the following stand, “The war in the East is the struggle of Russian and German imperialism for the domination over and exploitation of European, including Ukrainian, peoples. However, conducting this war, they are well aware that Ukrainians do not wish to be somebody’s colonial slaves and, instead, are striving for freedom and national independence... We, nationalists, do not intend to surrender to either, for we do not want to place our necks in the noose... So our future political tactics will remain the same: an uncompromising struggle against German and Russian imperialism...” (ibid., vol. 3, document 29, pp. 199-203).
The summer offensive against UPA was accompanied with an unprecedented propaganda effort. German warplanes would drop leaflets over Volyn, which called OUN(B) “an organization in the pay of the Bolsheviks and at the mercy of Moscow. The Kremlin Jews are in touch with OUN which is allegedly fighting bolshevism. The OUN Provid is full of Moscow’s agents.” Bandera “is an instrument of the Bolshevik Jews” (see Ukraine and Germany, op. cit., p. 376).
And what did Moscow propaganda say? According to Moscow, “Bandera arrived in Ukraine on a German jeep... The OUN leaders live in Berlin, and the Germans feed and fund them.” The OUN upper crust “is selling out its people for thirty pieces of silver... They do so in order to divert the people from armed struggle against the Germans, to alienate the masses from Soviet partisans” (ibid., p. 377).
The Germans received the following information in September 1943, “Messages from communist circles say that Moscow will never agree to any kind of compromise with the UPA” (Ukraine., vol. III, document 45, p. 285).
This is the essence of the problem. How can an intelligent and honest person possibly claim (as Ukrainian communists do) that “OUN and its armed formations were at the mercy of and carried out armed struggle for fascist Germany against the anti-Hitler coalition, branding themselves as fascist collaborationists?”
Incidentally, Hitler’s Germany was not “fascist” but “national socialist.” But Ivan Khmil, who wrote the article published by Den on September 26, 2001, must have got used to twisting the truth, which the very basis of Soviet communist power. He pretends to be unaware that Soviet communist lies have been picked up by a lot of Moscow–and communist-leaning authors, including C. Simpson.
As to a certain “Adler,” a former SS-man who allegedly served in the UPA, let us say that among those fighting in the UPA was also Russian General P. V. Sysoyev, professor at the Moscow War College and commanding officer of the Soviet 36th Army Corps. After escaping from a POW camp, he chose to join the UPA as Ukrainian soldier Petro Skyrda. He thus managed to survive (Ukraine and Germany..., op. cit., p. 388).
Propaganda and history are two different things. It follows from the documents that OUN-UPA fought against national socialist Germany and suffered tremendous losses. Its soldiers fought for an independent Ukrainian state, for a better fate of the Ukrainian people. They battled under the sign of the trident and blue and yellow flag, now symbols of the independent Ukrainian state. This is why they hold a worthy place in this state.
