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The Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, and the Nazi Genocide in Ukraine
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This paper analyzes the involvement of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) in Nazi genocide during World War II in Ukraine. The issue of the political rehabilitation of these organizations became one of the central political issues in this post-Soviet state. The research question is whether leaders and members of the Bandera faction of the OUN (OUN-B) and the UPA were involved in the Nazi-led genocide. This article devotes particular attention to Volhynia where the UPA was established by the OUN-B in 1943. The study analyzes the biographies of 329 OUN-B and UPA leaders and documents concerning the OUN-B and the UPA, local police, and Nazi mass executions of Jews, Ukrainians, and Poles from the State Archive of the Volyn Region, the State Archive of the Rivne Region, the Archive of the State Security Service of Ukraine in the Volyn Region, the Archive of the State Security Service of Ukraine, the National Archives in the US, and other archives. This paper shows that large proportions of leaders and members of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army served in various police and militia formations, collaborated with security and intelligence agencies of Nazi Germany, and took part in the Nazi genocide, primarily in assisting roles during mass executions of Jews in the first two years of the Nazi occupation of Ukraine.
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... Ukrainian nationalists actively joined the ranks of police units under the Nazi administration (Drobyazko 2005:257-260;Drobyazko, Romanko and Semenov 2011:548-555;Rossoliński-Liebe 2014;Rossoliński-Liebe 2015:40), and in this new status actively participated both in military operations and in exclusively punitive operations against the civilian population (Dean 2000;Drobyazko 2005:261;Himka 2012;Hrytsak 2004:162;Katchanovski 2013;Snyder 2004:159-160). In this regard, it is necessary to note the direct participation of the police battalions Schutzmannschaft Battalion 201 3 and 118, which were composed of OUN members, in the most atrocious crimes against humanity in the territory of Belarus in 1942-1943 (Rossoliński-Liebe 2014:262; Rudling 2011a; Rudling 2012a). ...
... In any case, it should be noted that the intensity of armed clashes between the OUN and UPA and German forces was much weaker compared with the armed struggle of the nationalists against the Red Army and Soviet partisans. For example, according to a study by Katchanovski (2013), the degree of intensity of the OUN-UPA struggle against the Germans, against the Soviet Army and the armies of the allies can be understood through the analysis of the number of victims in nationalist groups. Thus, only 6% of the OUN-UPA principal leaders and 9% of the intermediate-level leaders died in clashes with the Germans, while 54% and 41% of OUN-UPA top-level and intermediate-level leaders, respectively, perished as a result of military actions against the Red Army and the Polish, Romanian, and Czechoslovak military units. ...
... In general, we can talk about the existence of relatively close collaboration between Ukrainian nationalists and the Nazi regime. According to Katchanovski (2013), at least 63% of the OUN-UPA top leaders and 49% of middle-level activists were in close collaboration with the German occupation authorities by means of their integration into police battalions or SS units and through the cooperative efforts with the German intelligence agency. ...
The present study provides analysis of the institutionalization of historical revisionism in Ukraine and examines the impact of this revisionism on the formation of modern Ukrainian criminal policy. The characteristics of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and its armed wing, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, will be determined, and their role during World War II will be analyzed, with special emphasis placed on their involvement in crimes against humanity. The study focuses on the fact that the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army have all the features of profascist organizations, and in this regard, the institutionalization of their heroization not only creates the prerequisites for modern glorification of Nazism, but also constitutes a legal basis for the decriminalization of glorification of Nazism, as well as for the criminalization of behavior disputing this glorification.
... Previous studies of the OUN and the UPA often embrace differing views of these organizations. However, a rapidly growing body of academic research exists in the West on the OUN and the UPA and their involvement in the mass murder of Jews, Poles, and, to a lesser extent, Ukrainians and Russians (Berkhoff and Carynnyk, 1999;Himka, 2011aHimka, , 2011bHimka, , 2009Katchanovski, 2013;Kudelia, 2013;Marples, 2010Marples, , 2007Marples, , 2006Rudling, 2011Rudling, , 2006Rossolinski-Liebe, 2011Shevel, 2011). However, these studies mostly focus on historical issues or historical memory issues concerning these organizations, and they do not specifically examine public attitudes toward the OUN and the UPA. ...
... The former policemen, who joined the UPA, along with former members of auxiliary police units whom the OUN-M and Taras Borovets controlled and who were incorporated into the UPA, constituted the majority of the UPA members until at least the beginning of 1944. At least half of the top commanders of the UPA were former police commanders in Nazi-occupied Ukraine (Katchanovski, 2013). ...
... Local Ukrainian police commanders and members assisted Nazi executioners in implementing the Nazi genocidal policy by rounding Jews and guarding them during mass executions, catching escapees, and guarding Jewish ghettos. Similarly, the local police was used in guarding and capturing Soviet POWs, most of whom were ethnic Russians and Ukrainians, and in mass killings of Ukrainians and other civiliansdfor example, about 3000 residents of the village of Kortelisy in September 1942 (Berkhoff, 2004;Brandon and Lower, 2008;Katchanovski, 2013). ...
This study analyzes controversies and public attitudes concerning the Bandera faction of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN-B), the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) and Stepan Bandera in Ukraine. The research question is: Which factors affect attitudes toward the OUN-B, the UPA and Bandera in contemporary Ukraine? This article employs comparative and regression analyses of surveys commissioned by the author and conducted by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) in 2009 and 2013 to determine the effects of regional and other factors on attitudes toward these organizations and the OUN-B leader. The study shows that regional factors and perceptions of these organizations' involvement in mass murder were the strongest predictors of the views concerning the OUN-B, the UPA and Bandera. Their public support is strongest in Galicia and weakest in the East and the South, in particular, in Donbas and Crimea, two major conflict areas since the “Euromaidan.”
... In parallel, the German armies also supported these organizations and Ukrainian nationalists took part both under German uniforms and as militia forces in preparation for Operation Barbarossa (Picture 3) (Struve, 2015). Most of the Ukrainian nationalists in the German army and the members of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) took part in various police and militia formations, cooperated with the security and intelligence agencies of Nazi Germany, and indeed there is a large literature study revealing that they took part in the Nazi genocide, especially in aid (Katchanovski, 2013;Khromeychuk, 2015). Source. ...
... Stepan Bandera, the leader of the main faction of the OUN (OUN-B) were awarded the title of national hero respectively in 2007 and 2010, (Katchanovski, 2013) The Azov battalion has turned into a military structure that includes members from national movements, including football hooligans, and members of ultra-nationalist and rightwing organizations. Later in 2014, the organization, which took part in the operations against the pro-Russian separatist regions and was successful, was affiliated with the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine (Golubov, 2014). ...
The claims of other states to the authority of the states in the geographies that determine the limits of their absolute and eternal power are perceived as threats to the concept of sovereignty. While the claims of states are sometimes for the protection of cultural heritage; sometimes this claim can turn into a geopolitical obsession. Russia's invasion attempt against Ukraine emerged as a military result of both the preservation of its historical heritage and a geopolitical obsession. This study aims to explain Russia's invasion attempt in Ukraine with the discourse of "denazification" through the lens of Ukrainian nationalism. The study concluded that the territory of Ukraine, which became a conflict area between European culture and Soviet heritage, was used by the "West" to keep Russia out of the political borders of Europe with artificial nationalism walls.
... This concerns, for example, the involvement of the OUN and the UPA in the mass killing of Poles in Volhynia and the Nazi-led mass murder of Jews during World War II. (Katchanovski, 2013Rudling, 2011). For example, more than 2,000 primarily Jewish victims of Nazi-led executions whose remains were uncovered in the town of Volodymyr-Volynskyi in 2011-2014 were misrepresented by many Ukrainian politicians and the media as Poles executed by the Soviet NKVD, in spite of historical studies, eyewitness testimonies and German bullets being found and various evidence of the involvement of the OUN-controlled police in these massacres (Katchanovski, 2013). ...
... (Katchanovski, 2013Rudling, 2011). For example, more than 2,000 primarily Jewish victims of Nazi-led executions whose remains were uncovered in the town of Volodymyr-Volynskyi in 2011-2014 were misrepresented by many Ukrainian politicians and the media as Poles executed by the Soviet NKVD, in spite of historical studies, eyewitness testimonies and German bullets being found and various evidence of the involvement of the OUN-controlled police in these massacres (Katchanovski, 2013). ...
The massacre of almost 50 Maidan protesters on February 20, 2014 was a turning point in Ukrainian politics and a tipping point in the conflict between the West and Russia over Ukraine. This mass killing of the protesters and the mass shooting of the police that preceded it led to the overthrow of the pro-Russian government of Viktor Yanukovych and gave a start to a civil war in Donbas in Eastern Ukraine, Russian military intervention in Crimea and Donbas, and an international conflict between the West and Russia over Ukraine. A conclusion promoted by the post-Yanukovych governments and the media in Ukraine that the massacre was perpetrated by government snipers and special police units on a Yanukovych order has been nearly universally accepted by the Western governments, the media, and many scholars. The Ukrainian government investigation identified members of the special company of Berkut as responsible for killings of the absolute majority of the protesters, but did not release any evidence in support, with the exception of videos of the massacre. The question is which side organized the “snipers’ massacre.” This paper is the first academic study of this crucial case of the mass killing. It uses a theory of rational choice and a Weberian theory of instrumental rationality to examine actions of major actors both from the Yanukovych government, specifically various police and security forces, and the Maidan opposition, specifically its far right and oligarchic elements, during the massacre.
The paper analyzes a large amount of evidence from different publicly available sources concerning this massacre and killings of specifics protestors. Qualitative content analysis includes the following data: about 1,500 videos and recordings of live internet and TV broadcasts from mass media and social media in different countries (some 150 Gigabytes) , news reports and social media posts by more than 100 journalists covering the massacre from Kyiv, some 5,000 photos, and nearly 30 gigabytes of publicly available radio intercepts of snipers and commanders from the special Alfa unit of the Security Service of Ukraine and Internal Troops, and Maidan massacre trial recordings. This study also employs field research on site of the massacre, eyewitness reports by both Maidan protesters and government special units commanders, statements by both former and current government officials, estimates of approximate ballistic trajectories, bullets and weapons used, and types of wounds among both protesters and the police. This study establishes a precise timeline for various events of the massacre, the locations of both the shooters and the government snipers, and the specific timeline and locations of nearly 50 protesters’ deaths. It also briefly analyzes other major cases of violence during and after the “Euromaidan.” This study includes two video appendixes.
This academic investigation concludes that the massacre was a false flag operation, which was rationally planned and carried out with a goal of the overthrow of the government and seizure of power. It found various evidence of the involvement of an alliance of the far right organizations, specifically the Right Sector and Svoboda, and oligarchic parties, such as Fatherland. Concealed shooters and spotters were located in at least 20 Maidan-controlled buildings or areas. The various evidence that the protesters were killed from these locations include some 70 testimonies, primarily by Maidan protesters, several videos of “snipers” targeting protesters from these buildings, comparisons of positions of the specific protesters at the time of their killing and their entry wounds, and bullet impact signs. The study uncovered various videos and photos of armed Maidan “snipers” and spotters in many of these buildings. The paper presents implications of these findings for understanding the nature of the change of the government in Ukraine, the civil war in Donbas, Russian military intervention in Crimea and Donbas, and an international conflict between the West and Russia over Ukraine.
This paper analyzes the role of far right in the Ukrainian politics during the “Euromaidan” and the war in Donbas. The issue of the involvement of Ukrainian far right organizations in the “Euromaidan” and the war in Donbas have been politicized and polarized. Russian and separatist politicians and the media often presented the “Euromaidan” as a “fascist coup” and the Maidan government as a “fascist junta.” In contrast, the governments and the mainstream media in Western countries tended to present the role of the far right in the “Euromaidan” and in post-Maidan Ukraine, specifically in the conflict in Donbas, as marginal. Previous academic studies generally reached similar conclusions. They focused on numerical strength and electoral support for the far right parties and ignored other aspects of influence of the radical nationalist and neo-Nazi parties, specifically their role in the political violence, such as the Maidan and Odesa massacres and the war in Donbas. However, the number of academic studies of the contemporary far right in Ukraine is generally limited.
The research question is as follows: What is the role of the far right in the Ukrainian politics during and after the “Euromaidan”? This study analyzes the involvement of specific Ukrainian radical nationalist and neo-Nazi organizations in the “Euromaidan,” the Odesa massacre, and the war in Donbas, their performance in the presidential and parliamentary elections in 2014 and the 2015 local elections in Ukraine. The analysis focuses on major Ukrainian far right organizations, such as Svoboda (Freedom), the Right Sector, the Social-National Assembly, the White Hammer, the UNA-UNSO, Bratstvo, and C14, and paramilitary formations or special police and National Guard units organized and controlled to various extent by them, such as the Azov regiment, Dnipro, Donbas, Aidar, Sich, and St. Mary’s battalions, and the Volunteer Ukrainian Corps. It uses various sources of data, such as online recordings of live broadcasts and videos of the Maidan and Odesa massacres and the war in Donbas, official database of court decisions in Ukraine concerning investigations of the involvement of the far right in major cases of political violence, video recordings of the Maidan massacre trial, information posted on websites and social media groups of far right organizations, and media reports in Ukrainian, Russian, and English languages.
The study shows that the far right organizations had significant but minority representation among the Maidan leadership and protesters, the post-Maidan governments, and in the presidential, parliamentary, and local elections. However, the analysis also shows that the far right organizations and football ultras played a key role during violent attacks, such as attempts to storm the presidential administration on December 1, 2013 and the parliament of Ukraine in January and on February 18, 2014. There is also various evidence of the Right Sector involvement in a violent attack of the Berkut police during its highly publicized dispersal of protesters on November 30, 2013. The Right Sector and Svoboda and smaller organizations had a crucial role in the violent overthrow of the Viktor Yanukovych government, in particular, in the Maidan massacre of the protesters and the police on February 18-20, 2014. The study demonstrates that the Right Sector, the Social-National Assembly/ Patriot of Ukraine, and groups of football ultras were involved in the Odesa massacre on May 2, 2014. This paper also shows that the far right organizations and their volunteer battalions and paramilitary units had a significant role in the civil war in Donbas but a comparably minor role in fighting with several regular Russian military units during direct military interventions by Russia in August 2014 and February 2015. Major implications of this study for the Ukrainian politics and the conflict between the West and Russia over Ukraine are discussed in the conclusion. This paper implies that the far right has significant but not dominant role in the Ukrainian politics during and after the “Euromaidan.” But far right organizations and their armed units had a key role in major cases of political violence during and after the “Euromaidan,” and they attained ability to overthrow by force the government of the one of the largest European countries.
This paper analyzes the mass-murder of Poles in Volhynia in Western Ukraine during World War II. The mass murder of Poles by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) and the Stepan Bandera faction of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN-B) during the Nazi occupation of Volhynia in 1943 became an important political issue in Poland and Ukraine after the collapse of communism. Previous studies by Polish, Ukrainian, and Western researchers offered different and often divergent theories of this historical event. It is often presented in Ukraine as a mutual Ukrainian-Polish conflict. In contrast, in Poland, the mass murder of Poles in Volhynia is often characterized as genocide. A research question is whether this was a Ukrainian-Polish conflict, ethnic cleansing or genocide. This study analyzes a variety of archival documents, historical studies, and eyewitness accounts. It offers an estimate of Polish casualties derived from analysis of OUN-UPA, Polish, and Soviet, and sources and demographic data. This study concludes that the mass murder of the Polish minority in Volhynia by the OUN-B, the UPA, and their security service (SB) represented not a mutual Ukrainian-Polish conflict or genocide of Poles but that it was a part of ethnic cleansing.
This study examines the role of political factors in attitudes toward World War II in contemporary Ukraine. The question under examination is which factors determine public views of the principal warring sides and their leaders in Ukraine. This paper uses a representative national survey specifically designed for this research project and conducted by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology in 2012. It analyzes the roles of regionalism, political party preferences, ethnicity, language, age, and sex in attitudes toward the Red Army, Soviet partisans, the German Army (Wehrmacht), and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) during the war, as well as toward the wartime leaders of the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, and the UPA. The analysis of the survey data shows that regional values, political party preferences, ethnicity, language, and age have significant effects on views of the Soviet Army and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army during the war and attitudes toward the wartime activities of Joseph Stalin and Roman Shukhevych. Public perceptions of the German Army and Adolf Hitler in Ukraine do not vary much across regions, political parties, and ethnic, language, age, and sex groups.
This study examines the role of political factors in attitudes toward World War II in contemporary Ukraine. The research question is which factors determine public views of the principal warring sides and their leaders in Ukraine. The analysis of the 2012 Kyiv International Institute of Sociology survey shows that regional values, political party preferences, ethnicity, language, and age have significant effects on views of the Red Army and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) during the war and attitudes toward the wartime activities of Joseph Stalin and Roman Shukhevych. Public perceptions of the German Army and Adolf Hitler in Ukraine do not vary much across regions, political parties, and ethnic, language, age, and sex groups.
At a time when intelligence successes and failures are at the center of public discussion, this book provides an unprecedented inside look at how intelligence agencies function during war and peacetime. As the direct result of the 1998 Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act, the volume draws upon many documents declassified under this law to reveal what U.S. intelligence agencies learned about Nazi crimes during World War II and about the nature of Nazi intelligence agencies' role in the Holocaust. It examines how some U.S. corporations found ways to profit from Nazi Germany's expropriation of the property of German Jews. The work also reveals startling new details on the Cold War connections between the U.S. government and Hitler's former officers. © Richard Breitman, Norman J. W. Goda, Timothy Naftali, Robert Wolfe 2005 and Cambridge University Press, 2010.
During the past decade, particularly under the presidency of the third Ukrainian president Viktor Yushchenko (2005–2010) there have been repeated attempts to turn the leading fi gures of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and its armed wing, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) into national heroes. As these fascist organizations collaborated with the Nazi Germany, carried out ethnic cleansing and mass murder on a massive scale, they are problematic symbols for an aspiring democracy with the stated ambition to join the European Union. Under Yushchenko, several institutes of memory management and myth making were organized, a key function of which was to deny or downplay OUN-UPA atrocities. Unlike many other former Soviet republics, the Ukrainian government did not need to develop new national myths from scratch, but imported ready concepts developed in the Ukrainian diaspora. Yushchenko’s legitimizing historians presented the OUN and UPA as pluralistic and inclusive organizations, which not only rescued Jews during the Holocaust, but invited them into their ranks to fight shoulder to shoulder against Hitler and Stalin. This mythical narrative relied partly on the OUN’s own post-war forgeries, aimed at cover up the organization’s problematic past. As employees of the Ukrainian security services, working out of the offices of the old KGB, the legitimizing historians ironically dismissed scholarly criticism as Soviet myths. The present study deals with the myth-making around the OUN, the UPA, and the Holocaust, tracing their diaspora roots and following their migration back and forth across the Atlantic.
In recent years there has been an increased interest in the legacy of the Fourteenth Grenadier Division of the Waffen-SS, known as the Waffen-SS Galizien, a Ukrainian volunteer formation formed in 1943. In Ukrainian ultra-nationalist mythology the unit is depicted as freedom fighters who fought for an independent Ukraine, its collaboration with Nazi Germany dismissed as “Soviet propaganda.” There is a widening gulf between the myth and the picture that emerges from the archival materials. This article revisits the history of the unit, with a particular focus on aspects of its history which the myth makers omit or deny: its ideological foundations, its allegiance to Adolf Hitler, and the involvement of units associated with the division in atrocities against civilians in 1944.
This study examines three actors in the Lviv pogrom of 1 July 1941: the Germans, Ukrainian nationalists, and the urban crowd. It argues that the Germans created the conditions for the outbreak of the pogrom and encouraged it in the first place. They also shot Jews en masse, both during and after the pogrom. The Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) set up a short-lived government in Lviv on 30 June headed by a vehement anti-Semite. It simultaneously plastered the city with leaflets encouraging ethnic cleansing. It formed a militia that assumed leadership in the pogrom, arresting Jews for pogrom activities. The militiamen were also present at the execution of Jews. The day after the pogrom they began to work directly for the Einsatzgruppen, again arresting Jews for execution. OUN co-operated in these anti-Jewish actions to curry favour with the Germans, hoping for recognition of a Ukrainian state. OUN's anti-Semitism facilitated assistance in anti-Jewish violence, but it was not an independent factor in the decision to stage a pogrom. The urban crowd, composed of both Poles and Ukrainians, took advantage of the particular conjuncture of high politics to act out an uninhibited script of robbery, sexual assault, beating, and murder.
