SS Division Halychyna

While the quest for recognition of UPA insurgents as Second World War veterans continues to elicit disputes in Ukraine, the position of the former members of the SS Division Halychyna is considerably more difficult.

In the Soviet period, nothing of a positive nature appeared in official propaganda about the Division. Even at the end of the Soviet period, reports were uniformly hostile. One writer, for example, expressed fury at the erection of a monument to casualties of the Division in the village Yaseniv, Brody re­gion, L’viv oblast. The author maintains that the Germans used the Division as a terrorist instrument against those who were defying German rule, and provides an excerpt from a chronicle of the Division’s activities that tells of driving Poles in the region of the city of Ternopil' into a church and massa­cring them. The author writes that the archives objectively tell the story of a special commando unit from the Division that killed 1,500 civilians in L’viv, shooting Soviet POWs in Zolochiv, and of its members burning the settlement of Oles’ko, causing the deaths of 300 inhabitants. Its members are even ac­cused of rounding up people for slave labor work in Germany. All the com­manding positions in the Division, this same article reports, were held by Germans, and SS chief Heinrich Himmler had expressly forbidden the use of the term “Ukraine” and its derivatives when creating the unit.³⁶

Ostensibly, the raison d’etre of the Division was to create a national army that would be used to defend native territory against the Soviets. Its members have been identified by historians with the Mel'nyk branch of the OUN, which was prepared to cooperate with the German occupiers long after the Bandera wing turned hostile.³⁷ Its members have not been found guilty of war crimes. Indeed the Deschenes Commission in Canada, investigating such as­sertions in 1985, found no evidence to suggest that Division members had taken part in atrocities, guarded camps, etc.

As the interview continues, Oleksyn is asked what the “SS” denotes in SS Division Halychyna. He responds that it did not have this name, but was the First Ukrainian Division of the Ukrainian National Army (in fact, it took that name only in 1945) and Ukrainian troops did not have the SS insignia on their uniforms. Its goal, in contrast to those depicted in Communist propa­ganda, was the struggle for Ukraine, to free it from the “Bolshevik yoke.” Each member considered himself an inheritor of the mantle of the Sich Sharp­shooters of the First World War, and had no wish to assist the Germans.

Another article by Vasyl’ (Wasyl) Veryha in the same newspaper continues the theme, stating that the insurgency of the “sharpshooters division ‘Haly- chyna’” in the summer of 1943, when all of Ukraine was occupied by the Germans and “Red Moscow imperialism,” should be interpreted as a con­tinuation of the struggle of the Ukrainian people for independent state life.

Veryha's response, in defense of the Division, is as follows. In the first sce­nario, the Division would stand as a Ukrainian people's army to restore and strengthen the independent state, similar to the way the Sich Sharpshooters operated after the First World War. In the second case, it was evident that Ukrainians required an armed formation in order to protect people and prop­erty from the Germans before the possible chaos of a revolution.

Yurii Pryhornyts'kyi took up the same cause some six months later. Until recently, he comments, we knew very little about the Division. The equation with the Germans was enough to frighten some people, eliciting feelings of righteous anger. But “sooner or later reality will become more ambivalent.” The Division was never part of the German army, but the question remains whether Ukrainians took up the arms of an alien occupier that wished to en­slave their country. That question can be answered in the negative based on materials published in the West, he concludes. He cites a 1990 brochure pub­lished in Toronto and New York, which comments that locals could recall vividly the Soviet occupiers’ brutal massacre of prisoners before they retreated in the wake of the German invasion in the summer of 1941. They recognized the ruinous nature of Russian Communism and the harm it could inflict on Ukraine. They also realized that German rule had brought few benefits, but did not want to miss an opportunity to create a strong, modern, and well- trained Ukrainian military unit within the German armed forces that could constitute the core of a future Ukrainian army. The author cites, with refer­ence to the book by Wolf-Dietrich Heike,⁴² that the training also brought benefits for the UPA, which used division soldiers as military instructors. Vari­ous commissions subsequently investigated the Division for potential war crimes, but none were uncovered. They included the Porter Commission of 1947 in the UK, which resolved that in spirit Ukrainians were “anti-Fascists.” In Toronto, a Congress of the Brotherhood of the former First Ukrainian Di­vision of the Ukrainian National Army assembled, and its chairman noted that it was celebrating the 40th anniversary of its formation. While aware that there are people in Ukraine who are hostile to the Division veterans, writes Pryhornyts’kyi, a majority would understand the quiet, restrained celebration of the anniversary.⁴³

Other narratives have been more forthright. In one article, the author in­sists that the Division was not a collaboration force but fought for Ukrainian independence. Unlike German SS units, the Division did not commit crimes. Bolshevik propaganda, to the contrary, represents nothing more than the fab­rications of a hostile power trying to discredit any force that challenged its authority. Why did they join the Germans? This author replies that they had no choice. The clash of two imperial powers demanded armed resistance, and “UPA could not take everyone.” Therefore an opportunity was taken to train cadres. The Division received the blessing of the respected Metropolitan An- drii Sheptyts’kyi and the author tells of one Division soldier who saved thirty peasants from German reprisals.⁴⁴ Another author demands that the SS Divi­sion must be rehabilitated. It was a combat unit, its SS affiliation was a for­mality, and it did not carry out war crimes. Many people joined for patriotic reasons.⁴5 Not everyone agreed with this assessment. In Kyiv in 1993, there was a campaign to ban celebrations of the 50th anniversary of the 1st Ukrain­ian Division of the Ukrainian National Army.⁴⁶ One author deliberately dis­tinguished this army from the earlier one that had “compromised itself” as a tool in the hands of the Germans. The later formation, in his view, was more worthy of Ukrainian national aspirations. As for the SS Division, it had been organized by the “collaborationist” Ukrainian Central Committee in Krakow. German attempts to recruit members, in this author's view, fell flat and young people had to be drafted by force. There was a high rate of desertion and a lack of commitment to serve under the German banner. This comment hardly explains why there were so many volunteers, however, so the author adds that a majority of recruits did believe that they were fighting for the national inter­ests of Ukraine.⁴⁷

What should these young people have done? In the opinion of this same author, the only true example of patriotism would have been to join the UPA and fight both the Bolsheviks and the Germans. In this context he denounces both the members of the Ukrainian Central Committee and the members of the OUN-M, which collaborated with the Germans, and allegedly provided impetus for Soviet propaganda and the unfortunate phrase “Ukrainian- German nationalists.” The diverse examples of collaboration by the OUN-B are conveniently omitted from this onslaught, and the author quotes some insurgents who criticized the formation of the Division. However, he opines, it is now time for reconciliation between the remaining former SS men and the Ukrainians who advanced from the east but failed to bring democracy, statehood, and well-being.⁴⁸ One might describe the attitude of this author as one of reluctant acceptance of people who went astray. It is a far cry from other authors who insist that the heroism of Division fighters be recognized. Ihor Fedyk, for example, gives a full account of the battle of Brody, a time when morale of Division members was high because they were about to de­fend their motherland from a Bolshevik onslaught (no doubt including Ukrainians who also thought they were freeing their motherland!). For the first hours of its deployment at the front, the Division was subject to constant air strikes. On 13 July 1944, the Red Army began its offensive. Between 15 and 18 July, despite heroic resistance, the Division was encircled, together with the 13th German army corps, in the area of several villages. In each vil­lage the conflict continued, and many of the soldiers who fell into Soviet cap­tivity were executed. About 7,000 Division soldiers died, and almost 3,000 of those who could not break out of encirclement joined the UPA. A further 3,000 did break out and retreated with the Germans, forming the 2nd Ukrain­ian Division on Austrian territory. Fifty years ago, writes Fedyk, Ukrainian soldiers died fighting for the freedom of Ukraine and their sacrifice was not wasted. “The echo of their valor, enshrined in our memory for 50 years” can now be heard in an independent Ukraine.⁴⁹

In like fashion, another author retorts that patriotism is not measured by the kind of uniform a soldier is wearing. The volunteers for the Division, he argues,joined their military unit under German auspices because they were conscious of the need to fight for Ukraine. He is resentful at the way the UPA is being constantly glorified at the expense of the soldiers of the Division. Politicians and professors who seem to have allergies toward the German army, he claims, should remember that it was in German-sponsored units that the careers of Generals Myron Tarnavs'kyi and Roman Shukhevych began. Yet the UPA evaluates the Division negatively and derides its commemora­tion of its martyrs. It should be kept in mind, this author believes, that the battle of Brody cost 7,000 lives, but it saved the lives of thousands of Ukraini­ans who managed to flee to the West. It compares favorably with the millions of losses caused by the actions of UPA, including members of families that were deported to Siberia. In the 1940s, older and more experienced people had doubts about the creation of UPA, regarding this as tantamount to na­tional suicide. Time has shown that they were accurate.⁵⁰ This angry diatribe, which takes the form of a review of a book by American professor Taras Hunczak about the SS Division, thus takes matters a step further. Hunczak is requesting not recognition of Division members, alongside UPA, as genuine Ukrainian heroes, but rather the replacement of the UPA with the Division as more deserving recipients of such an accolade. These comments are echoed in an anonymous article that appeared in August 1993, which explains the diffi­culties in organizing Ukrainian military formations in the General Govern­ment territory of Galicia. The key figure was Volodymyr Kubiiovych, head of the Ukrainian Central Committee. When approached by Governor Waechter, Kubiiovych claims that the Ukrainian side issued a list of demands: that the Division must be used only against the Bolsheviks; that officers must be Ukrainian; that the name and insignia should be Ukrainian; the Division had to be subordinate to the German army; and it must constitute the first step toward the creation of a Ukrainian national army. However, the Germans broke this agreement and subordinated it to the SS. Though members were hostile to Nazi ideology, they faced the option of slave labor in Germany if they did not join.⁵¹

Another author describes Kubiiovych as a Ukrainian patriot who was con­scious of German goals and willing to promote the Ukrainian agenda. He was also aware of the expansion of the UPA insurgency in Volhynia and therefore at first was cautious about accepting Waechter's proposal to form the Ukrain­ian Division. He preferred to retain some control over the formation, accord­ing to this version, and therefore made the set of demands that the Germans largely ignored. The Germans needed the support of the Ukrainian Central Committee in order to recruit members. In this account, there is no question that the initiative came from the Germans and it was likely that they would have attempted the Division’s formation even without Ukrainian assistance.⁵² However, more recently there have been further attempts to shed more light on the Division and to explain the motives of its creators with more clarity and sympathy. One such article is authored by Ivan Haivanovych, who decries the lack of objectivity in contemporary Ukraine, which has acknowledged its inheritance from the 1918 Ukrainian National Republic, and showed some understanding toward OUN-UPA. The Division, however, is mistakenly ac­cused of collaboration. He argues for proper historical context, stating that the key question is why Galicians volunteered en masse to join it. He main­tains that by 18 June 1943 there were 84,000 volunteers. In his view this re­sponse was a reaction to the repressive policies of the Soviet regime, including mass deportations and the NKVD murders of 1941. Nazi propaganda had some appeal for the population but there was disappointment over the Ger­man failure to recognize an independent Ukraine on 30 June 1941. So why did Ukrainians continue to turn to the Germans? The answer is that after the battle of Stalingrad, joining up with the Germans was the lesser evil. The arti­cle contains an interview with a former Division recruit, Roman Debryts’kyi, from 1993, in which the interviewee states that the only alternative was forced labor in Germany (an argument discussed earlier). Debryts’kyi describes the war as a tragic period when Ukrainians had to fight each other. He and his comrades fought with the weapons of the SS, but they remained patriots.⁵³

Ivan Krainii maintains that most allegations about the Division’s war crimes derive from Polish memoir-literature. He finds these sources uncon­vincing and demands an unemotional examination of the Division’s legacy. He believes that its soldiers should be rehabilitated, as was the case in the Bal­tic countries, where four similar divisions were organized by the Waffen SS. In the Soviet period, as a result of official propaganda, the public perceived the SS men as traitors and collaborators. Only in 1990 did some emigre memoirs about the Division arrive in Ukraine. The most ominous problem is that of the two letters “SS.” However, he writes, the Division belonged to the Waffen SS and was intended to be a battle unit, and members of the Ukrainian Central Committee had insisted that it be a Ukrainian formation. Krainii interviewed a former member, Volodymyr Malkosh, who reveals that he joined the Divi­sion because of his strong anti-Soviet sentiments and nationalism. He had two roads open to him—UPA or the Division. He chose the latter because he felt it would be the basis of the future Ukrainian national army. He was fearful that “warlike neighbors” would lay claim to Ukraine's territory. After he joined up, there was a period of training and Ukrainian language instruction. After the Division's defeat at Brody, he remained in the area of Soviet occupa­tion. He entered L'viv Polytechnic University in 1946, but was arrested when the authorities noticed a tattoo characteristic of the Waffen SS on his arm. He was then sent to the Gulag for fifteen years.⁵⁴ Krainii's account differs from the others in the issue of choice. Whereas fellow authors suggest that the al­ternative to joining the Division was forced labor in Germany, he maintains that the choice was between the SS unit and the UPA. Other authors have declared that joining the Division enhanced opportunities for ending up in the ranks of the insurgents. Evident here is a political division rather than diverse options for the average nationalist whose long-term goal was an independent Ukrainian state. In other words, those who joined the Division were influ­enced by political leaders with very different views from those of the chief determinants of how Western Ukrainians acted i.e., the OUN-B.

The latter statement is corroborated by Kost' Bondarenko, who explains the formation of the SS Division as follows. It was organized to take part in military operations rather than punitive actions, and the Ukrainian Central Committee was responsible for the recruitment of its servicemen. Whereas the Bandera faction of the OUN resented the idea of its creation, the OUN-M regarded it as a good opportunity for the future national army to gain skills and experience. Its top commanders were German, while the troops wore German uniforms with a blue and yellow insignia and the Halychyna lion in their buttonholes. The troops took an oath of allegiance to Ukraine, which later saved the Division's soldiers and officers from retribution—they were found not guilty of war crimes after the war. In 1944 it was almost completely destroyed, and its remnants were transferred to the south of Poland, and sub­sequently to Slovakia and Yugoslavia where it was merged with the 34th SD Battalion (the “Volyn' Legion”) in the spring of 1945. By April 1945 it had surrendered to the Western allies and its troops were not subject to repatria­tion because in Allied eyes they had remained Polish subjects. Bondarenko maintains that when the German leaders made the decision to create the Di­vision, they were of the opinion that residents of Galicia and Ukrainians were representatives of different nations. They felt that the former were close to the Aryans, and this myth was the basis on which the Division was formed. This author asserts that Hitler was well aware of the Division—some reports sug­gest that he was ignorant of its existence—and even used to discuss it during his dinner conversations. Its origins dated from 1941, when the Germans an­nounced the goal of establishing an SS Division Sumy from Ukrainian POWs, with further efforts in 1944 in the Carpathians.⁵⁵ Presumably, however, if the Germans intended to establish a division from Ukrainian POWs, then the Ar­yan issue might have been a secondary factor.

At the time of writing, no consensus had been reached in Ukraine on the question of the SS Division Halychyna. It remains the most controversial of all the national formations of the interwar and war years, not least because members of the OUN and UPA insist that the recruits had an alternative. The Division was undoubtedly part of the German war effort, whether or not members joined with other motives. The SS appellation would already have had dark connotations among the population. It seems fair to say that the situation for the young recruits was extremely problematic with none of the possible options offering any prospect of an easy existence. Before long, a new option—joining the Soviet Army—would also be a possibility. On the other hand, the severe criticism emanating from some members of UPA also seems unjustified, in that the insurgents were also prepared eventually to reach a new modus vivendi with the retreating Germans as they awaited the advancing Red Army. However, it could be argued that the UPA did not operate as a military formation on the German side and always maintained its independence. Thus the SS Division represented more of a last hope of cooperation with the Ger­mans on the part of the UCC and OUN-M, both organs that had favored col­laboration and continued to work with the Germans even after the nature of the occupation regime had become evident. Undoubtedly, life under the Pol­ish General-Government was much more tolerable and easygoing than in the Reichskommissariat Ukraine. The question, though, is whether such relative moderation could justify the establishment of a Ukrainian military formation on the German side and on the Germans' initiative, particularly at such a late stage of the war when it appeared to most observers that a German defeat was simply a question of time. It represented poor judgment and naivety on the part of Kubiiovych and others, and after more than sixty years, the motives of the UCC in particular seem just as inexplicable as they did at the time. No doubt the debates will continue.

The Moderation of the OUN Program

At its Third Congress in August 1943, the OUN moderated its official pro­gram, and according to its defenders, adopted a more tolerant and liberal out­look, divesting itself of some of the more unpleasant facets of what has been termed “integral nationalism.” Following this meeting, a new all-Ukrainian assembly was formed, entitled the Ukrainian Supreme Liberation Council (UHVR) in July 1944, made up predominantly of members of the OUN-B, with a General Secretariat that was led by the military leader of the UPA, Roman Shukhevych. The new organization came after the establishment of a similar organization by the OUN-M, which had also recognized that policies of extreme nationalism were unlikely to win followers on a national basis in an independent Ukraine. The motives behind this change of policy are open to debate and they form the basis for the discussions that are to be found in narratives in Ukraine from the late Gorbachev period onward. The change of direction forms part of another history, that of the OUN in exile and the pro­tracted and fractious disputes that have occurred among its members living in North America, Western Europe, and elsewhere. According to Myroslav Yurkevych, “The OUN factions have had a decisive impact on the Ukrainian emigre community. The community’s identity and public image have been shaped largely by the nationalist commitment to Ukraine’s liberation.”⁵⁶ In turn, with the transfer of these discussions to an independent Ukraine after 1991, along with the physical presence of the OUN in Ukraine, the outlook of the nationalists—and the unbending hard-line integral nationalism that was retained by Bandera in exile—has become part of a wide-ranging discussion and many of the disputes in the Diaspora have been transferred to Ukraine (and sometimes back again).

The Communist view, even in the latter years of the Soviet state, was that the change of policy was a matter of expediency. Maslovs’kyi, in his authorita­tive article in Komunist Ukrainy, writes that the social doctrine of the OUN was purely “bourgeois.” Only at its Third Extraordinary Congress did the na­tionalists make their program worker-friendly, but this occurred precisely be­cause the Red Army was approaching the Dnipro River and was about to be­gin the liberation of Western Ukraine.⁵⁷ The nationalists themselves argue that the decision was more rational and based on careful rethinking of priorities. Petro Duzhyi, for example, writes that Ukrainian nationalists always proclaim the primacy of the idea over matter. Unlike pragmatists and adherents of real­politik, they never lose faith. Enemies may beat them physically but the na­tional idea remains intact. The Nazis and the Communists cultivated the prin­ciple of a supreme leader, and worshipped their Hitlers, Lenins, and Stalins, as well as lower-level leaders, but the Ukrainian nationalists, having recog­nized the negative repercussions of a leadership cult, categorically relin­quished the fuehrerprinzip and at the Third Congress substituted a three-man leadership for the single leader, with all three leaders carrying the same weight. Duzhyi appeals for the democratization of society and says that the OUN should not simply try to replace the CPSU in Ukraine, with its tradition of authoritarianism.⁵⁸ Likewise, Viktor Koval' notes that the Third Congress raised the question “What is UPA fighting for?” It concluded that the UPA was opposed to Russian Bolshevism and German occupation, and supported the reconstruction of the USSR without landowners, capitalists, and Bolshe­vik commissars. In this program, he writes, alongside the appeal for a democ­ratic reconstruction of society, for the first time in the history of the peoples of the Soviet Union all the principles of the protection of people's rights were formed. The decision of the Congress was in solidarity with all those political moods prevailing in Ukraine after the resurrection of independence.⁵⁹ There could hardly be a clearer claim for the prevalence of the 1943 edition of the OUN in contemporary Ukraine.

Other writers are less convinced by the change of direction. M. V. Koval' comments that the Third Congress of the OUN decided that OUN-UPA would now fight against Nazi Germany, the collapse of which appeared im­minent, as well as against a new Bolshevik occupation. However, the real course upon which the Congress embarked was one of truce with Germany, and the coordination of the armed struggle against Soviet forces. At the same time, losses suffered by the Germans on the Eastern Front had failed to change the outlook of the Mel'nyk wing of the OUN, and Mel'nyk, Kubiio- vych and Kost' Pankivs'kyi supported a political line of loyalty to the German occupiers. He also cites as an example of this collaboration the initiative to establish the SS Division Halychyna. With the same goal of opposing the So­viet Union, the OUN attempted the political maneuver in the summer of 1944 of forming the Supreme Liberation Council, in which other nationalist movements from Western Ukraine were represented.⁶⁰ Kul'chyts'kyi has de­scribed the ideological change as remarkable. In August 1943, the OUN-B began to recognize the rights of minorities, and revoked the unlimited powers of the head of the SB, Mykola Lebed', and set up a leading council under the chairmanship of Shukhevych. In July 1944 the Supreme Liberation Council was formed, which controlled the UPA. However, he continues, this attempt at democratization eventually failed, leading to more ideologically motivated divisions among the leadership of the OUN-B.⁶¹ Il'yushyn maintains that the Red Army had remained “the sole enemy” of the Ukrainian insurgents and that during the occupation of the Germans, the OUN-B leaders tried to re­strict anti-German actions of the UPA. Similarly, during the period of retreat from Ukraine, some German officers and intelligence leaders began to regard the UPA as a tactical ally, and following a meeting of 19 April 1944, they de­cided to hold talks with the OUN to see if the UPA would halt its acts of sabotage. The formation of the UHVR, in Il’yushyn’s view, did not denote a profound change of direction, and he cites the view of Taras Borovets' that the Banderites' attempt to consolidate all Ukrainian groups under one plat­form was a “falsification” similar to the aborted declaration of independence in June 1941.⁶²

Finally, mention should be made of the convocation of a conference of peoples “suffering under the Soviet yoke” in Rivne region in November 1943, which allegedly led to the subsequent formation of the Anti-Bolshevik bloc of nations, established in the West and headed by OUN-B leader Yaroslav Stets'ko, and later by his wife and parliamentary deputy in Ukraine, Yaroslava Stets'ko. A laudatory account of this conference appeared in the newspaper Den', which described it as a highly significant endeavor because for the first time the concept of uniting peoples in opposition to the Soviet Union was expressed. It noted that the highly secretive assembly was led by OUN mem­ber Rostyslav Voloshyn, and included UPA's first commander Dmytro Kly- achkivs'kyi (Klym Savur), as well as Shukhevych. Among those represented were Ukrainians, Georgians, Azeris, Tatars, Ossetians, Poles, Czechs, Belaru­sians, Russians, Jews, Kazakhs, and Circassians, all with one thing in com­mon: a hatred for the Stalin and Hitler regimes.⁶³ The conference is part of the nationalist conception of Ukrainian history and linked closely to the broaden­ing of the OUN-B appeal and change of political direction.