Ukrainian-German collaboration during World War II

During World War II Ukraine was a battleground. While it is clear that Ukrainians played an important role in the victory over Nazism, during the military occupation of Ukriane by Nazi Germany some Ukrainians chose to collaborate with the Nazis for various reasons, including the hopes for self-rule and dissatisfaction with Soviet control. However, the lack of Ukrainian autonomy under the Nazis, mistreatment by the occupiers, and the deportation of hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians as slave laborers, soon led to a rapid change in the attitude among Ukrainians. By the time the Red Army returned to Ukraine, most of the population welcomed the soldiers as liberators. Furthermore, more than 4.5 million Ukrainians fought Germany in the Red Army and more than 250,000 as part of the Soviet partisans. Ukraine also produced noted commanders such as Marshal Rodion Malinovsky and partisan leader Sydir Kovpak.

Attitudes towards German invasion
The Nazi Germany invasion of the Soviet Union (Operation Barbarossa) began on June 22, 1941, and by September the occupied had set up the first administration including the Reichskommissariat Ukraine. The Germans had their own plans for Ukraine: it was to become Lebensraum, allowing for "Aryan" colonisation, and the local population - the Slavs were viewed as sub-humans by the Nazi idealology. Many Ukrainians chose to resist, fighting German occupantion forces with Red Army or Soviet Partisans. However, particularly in the Western Ukraine, loyalty to the Soviet State was low. Although the Ukrainian SSR did give the population the national and cultural autonomy that neither the Second Polish Republic nor the interwar Romania did, it came at a price. In 1933 millions of Ukrainians starved to death in an infamous famine, the Holodomor and in 1937 several thousand intelligentsia were exiled, sentenced to Gulag labor camps or executed. The negative impact of Soviet policies helped the Germans win popular support in some regions and some initially viewed the Germans as allies in the struggle to free Ukraine from oppression and achieve independence. In some areas, Ukrainians publicly celebrated the invasion of their homeland by Nazi Germany; the German soldiers were kissed and greeted warmly by Ukrainians in streets.

Under Occupation
Many Ukrainians collaborated with the German occupiers, participating in the local administration, in German-supervised auxiliary police, Schutzmannschaft, in the German military, and serving as concentration camp guards. Nationalists in the west of Ukraine were among the most enthusiastic collaborators early on, hoping that their efforts would enable them to establish independent state later on. For example, on the eve of Barbarossa as many as four thousand Ukrainians, operating under Wehrmacht orders, sought to cause disruption behind Soviet lines. After the capture of Lviv, in important Ukrainian city, OUN leaders proclaimed a new Ukrainian State on June 30, 1941 and were simultaneously encouraging loyalty to the new regime, in hope that they would be supported by the Germans. Already in 1939, during the German-Polish war, the OUN had been “a faithful German auxiliary”, according to

However, despite initially acting warmly to the idea of an independent Ukraine, the Nazi administration had other ideas, in particular the Lebensraum programme and the total 'Aryanisation' of the population. They preferred to play Slavic nations out one against the other. OUN initially carried out attacks on Polish villages, trying to destroy or expel Polish enclaves from what the OUN fighters perceived as Ukrainian territory. When OUN help was no longer needed, its leaders were imprisoned.

Auxiliary police
109, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 201-st Ukrainian Schutzmannschaftant-battalions participated in anti-partisan operations in Ukraine and Belarus. In February — March 1943 50-th Ukrainian Schutzmannschaftant-battalion participated in the large antiguerrilla action «Winterzauber» (Winter magic) in Belarus, cooperating with several Latvian and 2nd Lithuanian battalion. Schuma-battalions burned down villages suspected in supporting Soviet partisans. (Gerlach, C. «Kalkulierte Morde» Hamburger Edition, Hamburg, 1999).

All inhabitants of the village Khatyn in Belarus were burnt alive by the Nazis with participation of Ukrainian collaborators from 118th Schutzmannschaft battalion on 22 March 1943.

SS Division "Galizien"
By April 28, 1943 the German Command had created the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS Galizien (1st Ukrainian) manned by 14,000 Ukrainians. The history, composition, and function of the SS Galizien are the topic of contentious debate among scholars still today. Some have held that these men volunteered eagerly for war against the Soviets allied to Germany while others claim that at least some of them were victims of compulsory conscription as Germany suffered defeats and lost manpower on the eastern front. Sol Litman, a Jewish historian of the Simon Wiesenthal Center claims that there are many proven and documented incidents of atrocities and massacres committed by the SS Galizien against minorities, particularly Jews during the course of WWII, however other authors, including Michael Melnyk, whose father fought in the Division, and Michael O. Logusz maintain that members of the division fought almost entirely at the front against the Soviet Red Army and defend the unit against the accusations made by Litman and others since the war. Neither the division nor any of its members was never formally charged with any war crime.

Holocaust
The atrocities against the Jewish population during the Holocaust took place within a few days of the German occupation. The Ukrainian auxiliary police participated in the Babi Yar massacre. and in other Ukrainian cities and towns, such as Lviv, Lutsk, and Zhitomir. On September 1, 1941, Nazi-controlled Ukrainian newspaper Volhyn wrote "The element that settled our cities (Jews)... must disappear completely from our cities. The Jewish problem is already in the process of being solved."

In May 2006, a Ukrainian newspaper Ukraine Christian News commented: "Carrying out the massacre was the Einsatzgruppe C, supported by members of a Waffen-SS battalion and units of the Ukrainian auxiliary police, under the general command of Friedrich Jeckeln. The participation of Ukrainian collaborators in these events, now documented and proven, is a matter of painful public debate in Ukraine." . Among others, about 621 members of OUN (Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists) were executed in Babi Yar, including the Ukrainian poet Olena Teliha.

Righteous Among the Nations in Ukraine
According to Yad Vashem, 2185 righteous Ukrainians had been identified by the year 2007. These are the people, who risked their lives to save the Jews.

During his visit to Ukraine Pope John Paul II raised one of the righteous - Father Emilian Kovtch to the honours of the Altar for his sacrifice while saving innocent people from death. In 1942 father Kovtch began to baptize Jews in large numbers in attempt to save their lives. In doing so, he broke the Nazi prohibitions and so he was arrested in December 1942. In August of 1943, for helping Jews he was deported to the Majdanek concentration camp where he was killed and burned in the camp's ovens for his courageous attempt to save lives.

The most famous instances of the saving of hundreds of Jews during WWII features the Metropolitan Archbishop of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, Andrey Sheptytsky. He harbored hundreds of Jews in his residence and in Greek Catholic monasteries. He also issued the pastoral letter, "Thou Shalt Not Kill," to protest Nazi atrocities.