Today, instructions for the Ukrainian media for May 9 have leaked online - how to cover the events of the Second World War, and the recently finally rehabilitated OUN-UPA.

The main messages are that Ukraine was liberated from the Nazis not by the Soviet Army, but by the Ukrainian people, and much of the credit for this went to the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (Bandera). In addition, they recommend focusing on the number of Russians who fought in the ROA (Vlasovites), and on Russia’s deliberate underestimation of the role of the Ukrainian people in the victory in World War II (that’s right - World War II, WWII cannot be used).

Copies

I won’t publish everything, I think the essence is already clear... Plus, the Ukrainian authorities recommend proceeding from the fact that “May 9 is not a Victory Day, but first of all a lesson for Ukraine, Europe and the whole world,” and also call for equalizing Putin’s Russia and Hitler’s mode.

In principle, there is nothing new - Kyiv continues to impose a mutilated version of history on Ukrainians and promote Russophobia. Actually, this is why it was necessary to glorify the chronic Russophobes Bandera, who allegedly fought simultaneously against two totalitarian regimes (Soviet and Nazi) for an independent Ukraine. But it is very difficult to reconcile the incompatible, 6 million Ukrainians who fought against the Nazis in the ranks of the SA, and 300 thousand Galician nationalists who fought with the Germans against Soviet Union, i.e. AGAINST YOUR PEOPLE. That is why we have to lie so much and ignore historical facts.

Let me remind you that the crimes of Ukrainian nationalists have been proven trials, as well as their direct connection with the Nazis has been proven (there is a huge amount of photo and video evidence of this, see below). In contrast to this, the German archives do not record ANY FACT of serious clashes between Bandera’s followers and the Nazis, except for minor skirmishes, which the Germans themselves characterized as rare and not worthy of attention.

In 1941, Galicia greeted the Germans with flowers, bread and salt, and ceremonial parades; Ukrainian nationalists were promised an independent Ukraine, so they not only welcomed the Nazis, but also actively joined the police and regular military formations. On the very first day of the creation of the SS Galicia, more than 20 thousand Ukrainians voluntarily signed up for it; within a week, another 40 thousand had sold their applications.

Photo chronicle: Galicia meets the Nazis, and SS volunteers Galicia

A little about the ideology of Ukrainian nationalism and the slogans that are chanted today

Taken almost one after another from the Nazi...

And how these slogans were used by the “fighters against Nazism” of that time

In addition to the SS Galicia division, there were other formations of Ukrainian nationalists that, until 1943, clearly fought as part of or in direct interaction with the Germans:

Battalion Nachtigall(German: “Nachtigal” - “Nightingale”)

A unit formed primarily from members and supporters of the OUN(b) and trained by the authorities military intelligence and counterintelligence of Nazi Germany, the Abwehr, for operations on the territory of the Ukrainian SSR. Which was headed by . It was Nachtigal, together with German troops, who took part in the invasion of the territory of the Ukrainian SSR, acting as part of the Brandenburg regiment. On the night of June 29-30, 1941, the battalion was the first to enter Lviv.

Now Ukrainian propaganda is trying to portray Shukhevych like this

In the uniform of a UPA warrior and Ukrainian symbols. But in reality it was like this

Battalion Roland(German: "Roland")

Formed in 1941 with the sanction of the head of German military intelligence V. Canaris for training and use as part of the special reconnaissance and sabotage formation “Brandenburg-800” during the German attack on the USSR. Subordinate to the 2nd Department of the Abwehr Office (Amt Abwehr II) (special operations) under the Wehrmacht High Command.

Unlike Nachtigall, its personnel were largely represented by Ukrainian emigrants of the first wave. In addition, up to 15% were Ukrainian students from Vienna and Graz. A former officer of the Polish army, Major E. Pobiguschi, was appointed commander of the battalion. All other officers and even instructors were Ukrainians, while the German command was represented by a communications group consisting of 3 officers and 8 non-commissioned officers. The battalion's training took place at Zaubersdorf Castle, 9 km from Wiener Neustadt. In early June 1941, the battalion departed for Southern Bukovina, and then moved to the Iasi region, and from there through Chisinau and Dubossary to Odessa, operating as part of the 6th Wehrmacht Army in the territory of first Western and then Eastern Ukraine in June −July 1941.

In October 1941, "Nachtigall" and "Roland" were redeployed to Frankfurt an der Oder and sent for retraining for use as security police units.

But soon sobering up came - the Ukrainian state, which Bandera’s supporters proclaimed on June 30, 1941 in Lvov, lasted only 17 days, after which Bandera was arrested, and Hitler essentially declared Ukraine his colony, in which nationalists were assigned only police functions.
At the end of 1942 and the beginning of 43, some of the Galician nationalists (OUN b, followers of Bandera) “kicked up”. Refusing to follow orders from the Germans. Nominally, the reasons were the deception with independent Ukraine (a year and a half later), and the terror that the Germans inflicted on the civilian population, incl. and in the territory of Galicia. They drove them to Germany, took away food and livestock, without really understanding where the owner was fighting - in the Red Army or in the SS... But main reason, it became that the Germans were losing the war, there was no longer any hope left not only for an independent Ukraine, but even for some privileges in the Nazi era...
Having refused to carry out direct orders from the Reich, the OUN-UPA, from the point of view of the Germans, became gangs of Ukrainian nationalists (that’s what they were called in reports), but there was no reason to destroy them, just like the OUN-UPA, there was no reason to start a war against the Nazis , they would thereby take the side of the Union, which by that time was already winning. And in Soviet Ukraine, nothing awaited them except camps.

Actually, the UPA itself appeared only in February 1943. Help

February 17-23, 1943 in the village. Ternobezhye, on the initiative of Roman Shukhevych, held the III OUN conference, at which a decision was made to intensify activities and begin an armed uprising.

The majority of the conference members supported Shukhevych (although M. Lebed objected), according to whom the main struggle should not be directed against the Germans, and against Soviet partisans and Poles - in the direction already carried out by D. Klyachkivsky in Volyn.

At the end of March 1943, supporters and members of the OUN who served in German paramilitary and police forces were ordered to go into the forests along with their weapons. According to the order intercepted by Soviet partisans, the actual beginning of the “formation of the Ukrainian national army at the expense of the police, Cossacks and local Ukrainians of the Bandera and Bulbovsky direction” occurred in the second decade of March 1943.

The ranks of the future UPA in the period from March 15 to April 4, 1943 were replenished from 4 to 6 thousand members of the “Ukrainian” police, whose personnel in 1941-42 were actively involved in the extermination of Jews and Soviet citizens

From that moment on, the UPA nationalists allegedly ceased to submit to the Germans, and further fought against them and against the Soviet regime. Although, as I wrote above, there is no evidence of large-scale military operations of the UPA against the Germans, some minor skirmishes (the release of relatives of those driven away to work, the defense of their own homes, property, attacks on food warehouses/carts) cannot be considered such, this forced measures self-survival.
Even in the collections of documents “UPA in the world of German documents” (book 1, Toronto 1983, book 3, Toronto 1991), compiled by the descendants of nationalists who emigrated to Canada (and therefore hardly impartial), there are very few examples of clashes between the UPA and the Nazis, and most of them are like this

Negotiations with one of the nationalist gangs not far from Rivne brought the following results: the gang will continue to fight against Soviet bandits and regular units of the Red Army. She refuses to participate in battles on the side of the Wehrmacht, as well as to surrender her weapons... In recent weeks, the actions of Ukrainian gangs have been directed not so much against the Wehrmacht as against the German administration. Ukrainian gangs still oppose Polish, Soviet gangs and Polish settlements.

Actually, the UPA is against regular Soviet army didn't fight. By this point, they were living the dream of the mutual destruction of the Soviets and the Reich. Meanwhile, they themselves were concerned about their own survival and continued the work that they began under the leadership of the Nazis - the genocide of the civilian population, primarily supporters of the Soviet Power, and the ethnic cleansing of Poles and Jews, including jointly with the Nazis. Let me give you a few episodes:

The tragedy of Janova Dolina

On the night of April 22-23, 1943 (on the eve of Easter), detachments of the 1st UPA Group under the command of I. Litvinchuk (“Dubovoy”) entered the village. Yanovaya Dolina and began to set fire to all the buildings. Some of the residents died in the fire, those who tried to get out were killed.

The German garrison stationed in the village - a company of Lithuanian auxiliary police under German command - was in the village during the attack, but did not leave its location. The nationalists did not attack the garrison. The police did not try to oppose the nationalists, and opened fire only when the nationalists approached his location.

As a result of the action, between 500 and 800 people died, including women and children. Many were burned alive

The tragedy of Guta Penyatskaya

As of the beginning of 1944, the village of Guta Penyatskaya had about 1,000 inhabitants. The settlement of Guta Penyatskaya supported Polish and Soviet partisans in their actions to disorganize the German rear.
On February 28, 1944, the village was surrounded by the 2nd police battalion of the 4th regiment of the SS Volunteer Division "Galicia" with the support of the local UPA and was completely burned - only the skeletons of stone buildings remained - a church and a school. Of the more than a thousand residents of Guta Penyatskaya, no more than 50 people survived. More than 500 residents were burned alive in the church and their own homes.

The Tragedy of Podkamen

On March 12, 1944, a unit of the SS division “Galicia” entered the town of Podkamen under the pretext of searching for weapons and partisans. On the eve of the Polish self-defense of the town, an attack by a UPA detachment was repelled.
The SS Galicia soldiers who entered the territory of the monastery began to kill all the Poles who had taken refuge on its territory. Others, searching the place, demanded identification from the people they found. Whoever had it indicated in his “ausweiss” that he was a Pole was killed. Those who could prove the opposite were left alive... During the action, soldiers of the 4th regiment of the SS Volunteer Division "Galicia" with the participation of UPA units killed more than 250 people...

—————-

There are many such examples, and they all confirm the cooperation of the UPA with the Nazis, including with the SS Galicia, which continues to fight as part of the Wehrmacht.
And by the way, the SS Galichna, which Ukrainian propaganda very rarely mentions, was also largely staffed by Galician nationalists, incl. and members of the OUN. The division was created in March 1943, and as they say, at the urgent requests of the patriotic public, I quote:
At the beginning of March 1943, in the newspapers of the district of Galicia, the “Manifesto to the combat-ready youth of Galicia” was published by the governor of the district of Galicia, Otto Wächter, which noted the devoted service “for the good of the Reich” of the Galician Ukrainians and their repeated requests to the Fuhrer to participate in the armed struggle, - and The Fuhrer, taking into account all the merits of the Galician Ukrainians, authorized the formation of the SS Rifle Division "Galicia"»

I wrote above that in the first week after the publication of the manifesto, 60 thousand volunteers applied to the division, and in total - about 80 thousand. It should be added that the SS Galicia was involved in punitive operations not only on the territory of Ukraine, but also in Slovakia and Yugoslavia. More information about their “exploits”.

Separately, in the activities of the Galician nationalists, one can highlight the genocide they committed against the Poles. According to various sources, from 30 to 60 thousand people were killed, mostly women and children of the elderly (Poland insists on the figure of 100 thousand). Now Kyiv is trying to justify the “Volyn Massacre” by saying that the Poles also killed ethnic Ukrainians. This is true, but on their part it was a retaliatory measure, in the hope of thereby pacifying Bandera’s supporters and stopping the massacre on the territory of Galicia, and the number of victims is completely incomparable.

Volyn Tragedy (Massacre)

There are many similar facts of UPA crimes (), and it makes no sense to reject them. According to individual photos, modern followers of Bandera give refutations (they were not taken there, or did not die at the hands of Bandera’s followers), but only a few refute them, and there are thousands of documents.
Trying to write it all off as a lie Soviet propaganda, the same is not true - the facts are confirmed by Polish, German, Israeli historians.

And finally, a little video, for those who have the time and desire to understand the topic thoroughly.

Chronicle. SS Division Galicia. Colomia. Hutsuli

Followers of Bandera, OUN UPA, SS division Galicia (from 8.30 minutes photo and video chronicle)

OUN-UPA, Facts of History Today and the Past!

German State channel: Bandera collaborated with the Nazis and was involved in the extermination of Jews

VOLYN without a statute of limitations - a film about the crimes of the OUN-UPA

POLICEMAN (2014) BANDERISTS. UPA Army. Hard to watch, but useful. 16+

PS
Galician nationalists clearly fought on the side of Nazi Germany while they believed that Ukraine would be given to them for this, while they were used mainly to perform police functions and in punitive operations AGAINST THE CIVILIAN POPULATION, including AGAINST UKRAINIANS.
From the fact that they wanted to get Ukraine, it does not follow that they fought for freedom for the Ukrainian people; 2-3 years before these events they were citizens of Poland, and before that for hundreds of years they were part of Austria-Hungary, which suited many of them.
It’s scary to imagine what would have happened if Germany had won that war and kept its promise to give power over Ukraine to the Banderaites, and what fate would have awaited the families of those 6 million Ukrainians who went to fight in the Red Army, what would have awaited the Russians, Poles, and Jews living in Odessa , Kharkov, Donetsk... However, it is not difficult to imagine this, looking at the photos published above, and remembering Babi Yar in Kyiv, where active participation Nationalists shot from 70 to 200 thousand racially incorrect townspeople.

This terrible photo shows Kyiv, September 1941. Babi Yar. A mother, a second before death, hugs her child. The man in the SS uniform who will kill her and the child in a second or two is not German. He is Ukrainian, or more precisely, a native of Western Ukraine, from Zhitomir. He served in the Galicia division, and since 1943 he participated in the work of the Einsatz groups.
Where do such details come from? Almost from himself. This photograph was confiscated by the partisans along with documents and an army badge. They seized it when they searched his body.

Bandera's supporters hoped to get Ukraine for themselves from the hands of the Nazis, but when they were denied this, they still considered them their allies.
In addition, by mid-1944 the Nazis were ousted from Western Ukraine - Bandera’s supporters were no longer physically able to fight against them.
To be fair, it should be noted that Bandera’s hatred of the Poles and the Soviet regime did not appear out of nowhere - it was preceded by the Polish-Ukrainian War, the forced Polonization of Galician Ukrainians, then the deportation of 200-300 thousand nationalists and their families, accompanied by an orgy of the NKVD members. All this can, to some extent, explain why Galicians greeted the Nazis as liberators, but this cannot justify the inhumane reprisals against women, elderly people and children.
And of course, Ukrainian nationalists did not fight against Nazism, or even more stupidly, against totalitarian regimes. Some of them fought for their own, racially pure Ukrainian Reich, others for the German one...

To write the article, only sources were used that confirmed the information with documentary evidence: Wikipedia, materials from the book of the Polish historian Alexander Korman “Genocide of the UPA”, the Canadian collection “UPA in the world of German documents”.

5. Atrocities of the Fascist Occupiers in Ukraine

Mass extermination of civilians. The anger and confusion of the Nazis, caused by defeats at the front, resulted in merciless measures against the growing resistance of the Soviet people in the rear of the Wehrmacht. A new wave of massacres hit the population of the occupied territories, including Ukraine.

In order to pacify areas covered by the partisan movement, fascist punitive forces killed hundreds and thousands of civilians every day. Punitive authorities and occupying troops directed their attacks not only against direct participants in the anti-fascist struggle. Monstrous reprisals against residents of entire settlements. So, in December 1942, during a punitive operation, the Nazis drove 300 residents of the village into one room and burned them. Ilintsy in Vinnytsia. In the Novobasanovsky district of the Chernigov region, starting in the fall of 1942, the occupiers burned several villages, destroying their entire population. In the Rivne region, fascist monsters burned thousands of village residents in their houses and barns. Borshchovka, Malina and other settlements. In the Slovechansky district of the Zhitomir region, in December 1942 alone, eleven villages were burned, and the residents who did not have time to escape were killed. On March 3, 1943, Hitler's executioners killed 1,300 residents of the village. Khmilniki, Vinnytsia; April 2 - 2400 peasants. Ternovka.

In an effort to deprive the partisans of support among the population, the Nazis made large areas deserted. Only during a broad punitive operation against the partisan regions of the Zhitomir, Rivne and Kyiv regions of the Ukrainian SSR and the Polesie region of Belarus in the summer of 1943, over 80 villages and farmsteads were burned, and many thousands of civilians were killed. In total, fascist punitive forces burned over 250 settlements in Ukraine, destroying a mass of innocent people. The fascist killing machine was in full swing - shooting did not stop day and night in Babyn Yar, Darnitsa and Syrtsa in Kyiv; in a forest park near the village. Sokolniki and village Podvorki near Kharkov; in the tracts of Krivolesovshchina, Roevshchina, Berezovy Rog near Chernigov; on Belaya Street in Rovno and in other places of mass executions of Soviet citizens.

In Nuremberg, at the trial of the main Nazi criminals, the German engineer G. Grabe told how on October 5, 1942, massacres of local residents took place in Dubno: “...My foreman and I went straight to the pits. Nobody bothered us. Then I heard a discordant rifle salvo coming from behind one of the embankments.

The people who got off the trucks - men, women and children of all ages - had to undress under the orders of SS members who carried whips and whips. They had to put their clothes in certain places, so shoes, outerwear and linen were sorted accordingly.

I saw piles of shoes, approximately 800 to 1000 pairs, huge piles of linen and clothes. Without shouting or crying, these people, undressed, stood around their families, kissed each other, said goodbye and waited for a sign from another SS man, who stood near the embankment, also with a whip in his hand. During the 15 minutes I stood there, I heard not a single complaint, not a single plea for mercy. I observed a family of 8 people: a man and a woman, all about 50 years old, with children, about 8 and 10 years old, and two adult daughters, about 20 and 24 years old. An old woman with snow-white hair held a one-year-old child in her arms, sang to him and played with him. The child cooed with pleasure. His parents looked at him with tears in their eyes. The father held the hand of a boy about 10 years old and said something softly to him. The boy fought back tears. The father pointed to the sky, stroked his head with his hand and seemed to be explaining something to him. At that moment, the SS man at the embankment shouted something to his comrade. The latter counted out about 20 people and ordered them to go behind the embankment. Among them was the family I spoke about. I remembered a girl, slender, with black hair, who, walking close to me, pointed at herself and said: “23.” I walked around the mound and found myself in front of a huge grave. The people were closely packed together and lay on top of each other, so that only their heads were visible. Almost all of them had blood streaming down their shoulders from their heads. Some of those shot were still moving. Some raised their hands and turned their heads to show that they were still alive. The pit was already two-thirds full. By my count, there were already about a thousand people there. I looked around for the person who carried out the execution. It was an SS man sitting on the edge of the narrow end of the pit; his legs were hanging into the pit. There was a machine gun on his lap and he was smoking a cigarette. People, completely naked, went down several steps that had been cut into the clay wall of the pit, and climbed over the heads of the people lying there to the place that the SS man showed them. They lay down in front of dead or wounded people, some caressed those who were still alive and quietly said something to them. Then I heard machine gun fire. I looked into the pit and saw that people were in convulsions there; their heads lay motionless on the bodies laid before them. Blood flowed from the back of their heads...

The next group was already approaching. They went down into the pit, lay down in a line opposite the previous victims and were shot. As I turned around the embankment on my way back, I noticed another truck that had just arrived, loaded with people...”

In such actions carried out by the occupiers, local bourgeois nationalists were invariably executed. This was the case everywhere - in the Baltic states, Belarus, Ukraine. From this criminal environment, the occupiers formed auxiliary bodies. Thus, the protégé of the Germans, the burgomaster of the city of Piryatin, Poltava region, personally participated in the executions of more than 2.7 thousand Soviet citizens, and helped to deport Ukrainian youth to fascist hard labor in Germany. A bourgeois nationalist also took part in the execution of over 3 thousand Soviet people and the forced abduction of 2 thousand residents of the Vasilkovsky district of the Kyiv region. The chief of the Rzhishchev district government participated in the murder of 247 people and the deportation of 6.2 thousand Soviet people to fascist penal servitude.

The corpses of Soviet people tortured and shot by the occupiers. Kirovograd. 1944

After a radical change in the course of hostilities in favor of Soviet troops Regular units of the Nazi army were increasingly involved in carrying out punitive functions in the operational rear areas of army groups and in the deeper rear areas. On December 16, 1942, the head of the OKW, Field Marshal W. Keitel, gave the order: “Military units have the right and are obliged to use any means without restrictions in this fight, also against women and children.”

This is how this criminal order was carried out. After an unsuccessful operation against partisans in the Kozarsky forest of the Chernigov region, over a thousand Nazi soldiers and officers broke into the large village. The Kozars destroyed it with almost its entire population. “On September 11, 1943,” eyewitnesses said, “at about six o’clock in the morning... they (the Nazis - author) surrounded the village and began brutal massacres of women, old people, and children. Like animals, they burst into houses, shot residents with machine guns, set houses on fire... threw grenades into cellars. Inhuman screams rushed over the village... That day there was a service in the church... The Germans took 270 people praying out of the church, drove them into the village club and burned them. 150 people were also burned alive in a collective farm barn. Of the 4.7 thousand inhabitants of the village, only 432 people survived... There is an unbearable stench in the air from smoke and corpses. On the ashes are charred skulls, next to small children’s bones lie the bones of adults... The village has turned into a cemetery.” There are many such examples. The fascist military killed people, robbed livestock and peasant belongings. Murderers and marauders in military uniforms diligently followed the orders of their command.

The Nazis are burning the houses of civilians on the outskirts of Dnepropetrovsk. September 1943

The atrocities of the Nazi occupiers in the village. Mikhailo-Kotsyubynske in the Chernihiv region. 1943

During the days of mourning declared by Hitler for the 6th Army destroyed at Stalingrad, in Odessa a group of German officers burst into a prisoner of war camp and opened fire. 78 people were killed. In Mariupol, the Nazis filled 18 railway cars with wounded and sick Red Army soldiers, boarded up the doors tightly, drove the cars into a dead end and kept them there until all the prisoners died. It was as if the fascist monsters were competing, trying to outdo each other in cruelty. So, in the Yanovsky prisoner of war camp, located in Lvov, commandant Vilgauz entertained his wife by teaching her from the balcony to shoot from a machine gun at living targets - prisoners of war working nearby. In April 1943, this executioner celebrated the birthday of his Fuhrer by selecting 54 prisoners - according to the number of Hitler's years - and shooting them with his own hands.

Ukraine is covered with gallows. In Kharkov, Stalino and many other cities, the occupiers killed their victims in “gas chambers” - trucks with a sealed body into which exhaust gases were vented.

The Soviet government constantly exposed the criminal actions of the Nazi invaders to the international community. Official statements confirmed by captured documents and testimony of witnesses were published, painting nightmarish pictures of the bloody terror carried out by the invaders on Soviet soil.

The actions of the occupiers were a flagrant violation of the Hague Convention of 1907 and the Geneva Convention of 1929 concerning the Treatment of Prisoners of War and Civilians. In October 1943, the Moscow Conference of the USSR, USA and England adopted a Declaration on the responsibility of Nazi executioners for the crimes they committed. Signed by the heads of government of the three powers of the anti-Hitler coalition, the Declaration warned Nazi international criminals of the severe punishment that would befall them after their inevitable defeat. After the war, in pursuance of the Moscow Declaration, the main Nazi war criminals were punished by the verdict of the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg. But justice did not completely prevail. The reactionary forces of the Western powers prevented the consistent administration of justice, took many Nazi executioners under their protection and saved them from retribution.

Ukraine in " master plan Ost." Even before the attack on the Soviet Union, the Nazis were developing a general plan for the Germanization of the territories captured in the East. Its essence was the elimination of the indigenous Slavic population and its gradual replacement with settlers from Germany and those European countries, whose inhabitants the Nazis considered to belong to the Germanic race. The latter were to be subjected to linguistic and cultural Germanization. After Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union, its population and territory were also included in criminal planning. The result was the “General Plan Ost”, the first version of which was prepared by May 1942.

The plan provided for the physical extermination of tens of millions of the indigenous Slavic population of the European part of the Soviet Union - Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians. Those who could survive were divided into two categories. The first - the large one - was to be deported to Siberia, the second - the smaller one - was supposed to remain in place to perform the most difficult work and serve immigrants from Germany.

The first stage of the plan was designed for 25–30 post-war years. During this period, in the vast expanses of the European part of the USSR, it was planned to create a network of “marks” - territories with a German population. Next to them there should have been economic administrative and military strongholds, also inhabited by the Germans. In the subsequent period, the number of “brands” was supposed to increase, their network became denser and, finally, merge, covering the entire territory.

The local population was to be eliminated both through physical liquidation and through expulsion far to the East in order to free up the territory for new owners. The scale of the planned violent measures is indicated by the fact that it was planned to expel 65% of the population from the territory of Western Ukraine, 75% of the population from Belarus, etc. The Nazis were preparing a particularly cruel fate for the Russian people, trying to forever undermine their strength, their resistance and ability to fight. “Our task,” Himmler openly wrote in 1942 in the SS weekly Black Corps, “is not to Germanize the East in the old sense of the word, that is, to instill in the population German and German laws, but to ensure that only people of truly German blood live in the East.”

Ukraine occupied one of the central places in the fascist plans for the Germanization of Soviet lands. This is clearly evidenced by Hitler's instructions, which were transcribed and became directives for the entire Nazi leadership and its policies. “We will take the southern part of Ukraine, primarily Crimea, and make it an exclusively German colony,” said the fascist Fuhrer, meaning by colony a territory with a purely German population. “It will not be difficult to drive away the population that is here now.” These directives further say: “In a hundred years, millions of German peasants will live here... One hundred and thirty million people in the Reich, ninety in the Ukraine.”

In the next 20 years, Hitler insisted to his henchmen, Ukraine should be populated by twenty million Germans. The local population, which would have survived and remained in place after the physical destruction or expulsion of its main mass, was prepared to play the role of slaves of the conquerors. Gradually it had to be reduced to the lowest cultural level. “The population,” said Hitler, “should be given knowledge only to the extent sufficient to understand road signs.”

The authors of the “General Plan Ost” did not belong to the top of the Nazi hierarchy and did not know exactly the plans of their Fuhrer. They proposed different rates of implementation of the plan and even allowed lower four-grade education for the local population. Therefore, having approved the basic principles laid down in the plan for the policy of genocide on occupied Soviet territory, Himmler in the summer of 1942 ordered it to be finalized in accordance with Hitler’s guidelines. The racist planners continued their criminal work.

However, the Nazis began to Germanize the Ukrainian land without waiting for the completion of the development of the “General Plan Ost”. Its first form was the creation of agricultural estates for SS men in Ukraine and other occupied areas. The fate prepared for the local population is eloquently illustrated by the fact that in July 1942, O. Pohl, the head of the entire system of Nazi concentration camps, which was one of the links in the extensive SS organization, was appointed chief manager of these estates. In general, the entire matter of Germanization from beginning to end should have been under the jurisdiction of the SS organs, which were best suited to carry out mass murders. It was no coincidence that the SS men became the first owners of new estates, the total territory of which, from Ukraine to the Baltic states, reached 600 thousand hectares. Occupying a privileged position in the state structure and military machine of Nazism, they were in a hurry to skim off the cream of the spoils.

Describing the future enrichment of German soldiers and officers at the expense of captured Soviet lands was a constant motif of fascist propaganda. “This is a war - not for the throne and not for the altar,” J. Goebbels cynically explained. “This is a war for grain and bread, for a rich dinner table, for rich breakfasts and dinners... a war for raw materials, for rubber, for iron and ore.”

All participants in the war against the Soviet Union were officially promised that they would become the owners of the land conquered in the East - and not only land: “The East, and above all Ukraine, should become the base for supplying Germany with food and raw materials,” explained the engineer who built airfields in the Rivne region. - All the land here will be distributed among the Germans, primarily among the participants in the war. Each German will own at least 50 hectares of land and 10 able-bodied slaves from the local population; The East must also become the Reich's supply base for free labor. The rest of the local population, as redundant, must be physically exterminated." “The German soldier,” Koch gushed, “conquered Ukraine... so that he could settle here.”

SS officers wasted no time acquiring estates in the occupied territory, trying to grab more. It got to the point that on October 26, 1942, Himmler was forced to issue a circular stating that some SS officers had lost their “sense of proportion.” It established the size of land holdings in the East. They should not exceed 160 hectares. The creation of large estates did not correspond to the Nazi policy of colonization and Germanization of captured Soviet land. The goal was to transfer plots of several tens of hectares in size to millions of German colonists, primarily soldiers, and to create numerous kulaks on the conquered land as an inexhaustible reservoir of human contingents for future wars.

The unheard-of terror of the occupiers, the massacres of Soviet people fully corresponded to the main idea of ​​the “General Plan Ost” - to destroy a significant part of the local population in the East, to clear space for German settlers. The Nazi invaders began implementing this part of their cannibalistic plan as soon as they found themselves on Soviet soil. In 1942, the first steps were taken in Ukraine towards the implementation of the next part of the plan - replacing the indigenous population with Germans.

In the summer of 1942, due to the shift in the center of gravity of operations to the southern wing of the Soviet-German front, Hitler's headquarters was moved from Rastembork ( East Prussia) in the vicinity of Vinnitsa. Himmler ordered the first 10 thousand Germans to be resettled in this region of Ukraine after the harvest. In November 1942, the indigenous inhabitants of seven Ukrainian villages near the town of Kalinovka in the north of the Vinnitsa region were expelled to make way for representatives of the “superior race”.

By order of the Reichskommissariat "Ukraine" the eviction zone extended to the southern part of the adjacent Zhitomir region. It included about 60 settlements. The entire area was named Hegewald. On December 12, when the resettlement was largely completed, Koch issued an order to create a “German resettlement district of Hegewald” measuring 500 km 2 with a population of about 9 thousand people. In accordance with the “General Plan Ost”, the district ceased to be subject to the authority of the Reichskommissariat authorities and was transferred to the management of the SS authorities.

The Nazis kept their criminal plans concerning the future of Ukraine, as well as other Soviet territories, in the strictest confidence. A very limited circle of people who directly led Nazi policy in the East were familiar with them. Even the Reichskommissars were not allowed to have the text of the top-secret plan. He was not mentioned in secret documents, all orders for this plan were given only orally.

Initially, taking measures to increase emigration to the East, the Nazi leaders attracted German minorities in Banat, Bessarabia, “Transnistria”, as well as the population neighboring Germany and more or less close in ethnic composition countries Western Europe- Denmark, Holland, Norway. It was planned to assimilate them as quickly as possible and in this way accelerate the formation of a German territorial-ethnic monolith from the Atlantic to the Volga. “The question should be considered,” Rosenberg wrote in 1942, “of the resettlement of the Danes, Norwegians, Dutch and - after the victorious conclusion of the war - the British, so that within the life of one or two generations this territory could be annexed, as Germanized, to the indigenous Germanic territory."

Not knowing about the existence of the top-secret “General Plan Ost,” the population of the occupied Soviet territories clearly saw the true essence of Nazi policy. “Although the practical resettlement experiments were small in scale and limited to a few villages in the regions of Zhitomir and Kalinovka, rumors about them penetrated to the most remote corners of Ukraine,” one of those who implemented fascist agrarian policy in Ukraine later admitted. “In the area of ​​​​the city of Zhitomir and ... in other areas, German fascists evict Ukrainian peasants, and Germans are settled on their estates, to whom all the farms and property of the evicted peasants are transferred. The Germans either lock up the unfortunate Ukrainian peasants in concentration camps, or take them into slavery in Germany, or shoot them,” the newspaper wrote. "Partisan truth".

The turning point in the course of the war, which came as a result of the Stalingrad victory of the Red Army, buried all the far-reaching plans of the Nazi invaders, including plans for Ukraine. After Stalingrad, they no longer remembered the “General Plan Ost”. But their claims to Ukraine and its enormous resources have not diminished. On the contrary, they increased even more, already in connection with the immediate needs of the war.

Hitler's total mobilization in Ukraine. The disaster of Hitler's army at Stalingrad caused panic among the fascist leadership. “It is clear that we incorrectly assessed the military potential of the Soviet Union!” - Goebbels shouted hysterically at a rally in the Berlin Sports Palace on February 18, 1943. “Now for the first time he has revealed himself to us in all his terrible magnitude.”

Huge losses in Battle of Stalingrad, the winter campaign of 1942/43 undermined the strength of the fascist army. To avoid defeat, Nazi leaders tried to replace losses and expand the Wehrmacht as much as possible. On January 27 and 29, 1943, Hitler issued decrees on the total mobilization of labor to replace men conscripted into the army in industry. All able-bodied men and women who had previously worked less than 48 hours a week were subject to mobilization in Germany. Small industrial and commercial establishments were closed, their labor was transferred to large military enterprises.

The Nazi leadership shifted the main burden of total mobilization onto the occupied countries. Back in March 1942, Hitler appointed the Gauleiter of Thuringia, the ardent Nazi F. Sauckel, as General Commissioner for the use of labor. He was given an urgent task - to replace 2 million German workers who were called up for military service. Sauckel did not have his own apparatus - he executive bodies became Nazi party, state and economic organizations associated with the mobilization and distribution of labor resources, including the Reichskommissariats of the occupied Soviet territories. Informing Rosenberg about their common task, Sauckel wrote that Germany needed "an enormous number of new foreign slaves - men and women."

The lion's share of “foreign slaves” was to come from the occupied territory of the Soviet Union, primarily Ukraine, where 110 “recruitment” points were organized, and in reality, recording and organizing the forced deportation of the working-age population to Germany. The Nazi Reich's demands for free labor were increasing. On September 3, 1942, Sauckel informed his subordinates: “The Fuhrer ordered the immediate recruitment of 400–500 thousand Ukrainian women aged 15 to 35 years for use in the household.”

Hitler demanded that this new task of driving girls and young women into slavery be completed within 3 months, giving Sauckel dictatorial rights for this purpose. Earlier, Sauckel set the Rosenberg Ministry the task of “extracting the necessary additional labor as much as possible from the territory of the newly occupied eastern regions, from the Reichskommissariat “Ukraine.” Therefore, the Reichskommissariat “Ukraine” must provide 225 thousand workers until December 31, 1942 and an additional 225 thousand workers until May 1, 1943.”

Sauckel and his henchmen had the “right” to take any measures and use any means to drive away the working population from the occupied territory. The Wehrmacht command received instructions that all military department institutions should assist in every possible way the representatives of the Plenipotentiary General in recruiting labor. Hitler's army had already shown itself capable of committing the most heinous crimes against civilians and was ready for new violence against defenseless people.

With the beginning of total mobilization, the atrocities of the invaders in the occupied Soviet territory acquired a new, unprecedented scale. The fascist war economy required millions of new slaves. “German agriculture, as well as the implementation of the most important armament program, by order of the Fuhrer, require the urgent export of labor,” Sauckel wrote to Rosenberg on March 17, 1943. “We need approximately 1 million workers - men and women, and we need them in the next 4 month. Starting from March 15, 5 thousand men and women must be taken out every day; starting from April this number should be increased to 10 thousand. This is the most urgent program requirement... I have provided control figures for individual territories, and in accordance with what the experts have reported, these figures are as follows: starting from March 15, 1943 from the General Commissariat Belarus - 500 workers, from the Central Economic Inspectorate - 500 workers, from the Reichskommissariat "Ukraine" - 3 thousand, from the Southern Economic Inspectorate - 1 thousand, a total of 5 thousand. Starting from April 1, 1943, daily control figures must be doubled "

Thus, in general, Ukraine accounted for 4/5 of the total contingent of people to be taken into fascist slavery. This was a constant Nazi norm, determined by population size. Until the end of the occupation, Hitler’s lure catchers removed 2.8 million civilians from the entire occupied Soviet territory. Of this number, 2.4 million were stolen in Ukraine.

Times have come in Ukraine that have surpassed the nightmares of the old Tatar-Turkish invasions. Fascist robbers hunted men, women and teenagers in cities and villages, on the streets and in houses. People mutilated themselves, inoculated themselves with contagious diseases, hid, fled from their homes - the occupiers arrested their families, confiscated property, burned houses, shot the families of those who evaded, sparing neither adults nor children. In endless trains, day and night, the main wealth of Ukraine was exported to Germany - its people, doomed to unprecedented abuse, torment and death from backbreaking labor, hunger, disease and brutal reprisals by fascist executioners.

The total mobilization, carried out with incredible cruelty, yielded results: by June 1943, the strength of the Wehrmacht reached its peak - 9555 thousand people against 8635 thousand a year earlier.

The need for slave labor prompted the Nazi leaders to temporarily introduce even some “restrictions” on mass murder in the East. The security generals in charge of punitive operations in Ukraine received instructions from Himmler in the summer of 1943: “When searching villages, especially in cases where it becomes necessary to burn down an entire village, the local population must be forcibly transferred to the disposal of the authorized Sauckel. As a rule, children should no longer be shot. If we temporarily limit our strict measures... it is for the following reasons: our most important goal is to mobilize the workforce.”

Ukraine robbery. Having lost a significant part of the captured Soviet territories as a result of military defeats, the Nazis summed up their predatory activities in the East. In October 1944, Rosenberg sent to the party office a summary report of the “Central Partnership East,” which had a monopoly on the collection, processing and supply of agricultural products. The report covered the period from the beginning of the occupation to March 31, 1944. It did not include extortions from economic commands of the military authorities and non-centralized plunder. According to the report, the partnership took possession of 9.2 million tons of grain, 622 thousand tons of meat, 950 thousand tons of oilseeds, 400 thousand tons of sugar, 3.2 million tons of potatoes, 2.5 million tons of feed, 141 thousand tons of seeds, 1.2 million tons of other products, 1075 million eggs. To transport the loot, 1,418 thousand wagons were required. 472 thousand tons were transported by water.

At the expense of the occupied territory, not only the troops of the Nazi front, but also the population of Germany were provided with food. Nevertheless, the Nazi hopes for profit did not come true. At the beginning of the occupation, Berlin economists planned to annually receive 7-10 million tons of grain from Ukraine alone. Hitler raised the figure to 12 million. Despite the efforts of the fascist “procurers” and repressions against rural population, the actual production of the invaders turned out to be significantly less than planned.

The bulk of food (over 80%) was looted from Ukraine. She, as the main supplier, accounted for the bulk of the “shortage”. Having captured Ukraine, the Nazis hoped to turn it into an inexhaustible source of agricultural products and thereby completely and forever resolve the food issue for Germany. But the occupiers did not take into account the main factor - the resistance of the population.

The main role in the disruption of Hitler's planned preparations was played by the widespread sabotage of work, which the invaders could not overcome even with the most brutal terror. Labor sabotage, together with a lack of taxes, led to a sharp reduction in acreage in Ukraine and a drop in yields. In 1942, the average grain yield in Ukraine was only 6.8 c/ha. Of these, 5.2 quintals were taken by the occupiers.

The disruption of enemy preparations in Ukraine intensified even more in connection with the rise of the partisan movement after Stalingrad. The fascist agricultural Fuehrers now did not dare to appear in the areas of operation of partisan detachments. The agricultural area subject to the occupiers was steadily declining. In the summer of 1943, even before the advance of the Red Army, the Berlin press wrote about the existence of an “internal crisis Agriculture in Ukraine". The victorious offensive of Soviet troops after Battle of Kursk finally crossed out the enemy’s plans for the constant exploitation of Ukraine’s agricultural wealth.

The Nazis are robbing the village. Popovka (now the village of Smirnov, Kuibyshev district, Zaporozhye region)

The “successes” of the occupiers in industry turned out to be even less. Initially, convinced of the sufficiency of their own and captured Western European production capacities for the victorious end of the war, the Nazis did not intend to restore the industry of Ukraine. They considered it as a purely raw material appendage of the Reich, a source of food and mineral raw materials. The surviving industrial enterprises in the occupied territory were used only for processing agricultural products and partially for repairing military equipment, vehicles, etc.

The building of the Odessa-port railway station, destroyed by the Nazi occupiers. 1944

However, in the second half of 1942, after serious losses at the front, the occupiers tried to use the industrial potential of Ukraine to their advantage. On August 27, 1942, in his speech, Hitler emphasized the importance of using the entire Donbass industry for the production of military products in the same way as in France, Belgium, Czechoslovakia and other countries. The occupiers began to make feverish efforts to bring into operation the largest metallurgical enterprises in Donbass and the Dnieper region. At Hitler's request, their total production in 1943 was to be 1 million tons, in 1944 - 2 million tons of steel. However, these calculations remained on paper. The maximum monthly steel production that the occupiers managed to establish in Ukraine did not exceed 3–6 thousand tons. This corresponded to the annual level of 35–70 thousand tons. To appreciate the meagerness of these figures, it is enough to recall that on the eve of the war Ukraine produced over 9 million . tons of steel per year.

The enemy's plans were thwarted by the heroic resistance of workers and engineering personnel. By all means, risking their lives, the Soviet people slowed down the restoration of enterprises, disabled equipment, some of which the occupiers were forced to bring from Germany.

Throughout the entire period of occupation, the Nazis tried in vain to satisfy their fuel needs in the East with Donetsk coal. Through hunger and brutal terror, they managed to force some of the professional miners who were unable to evacuate, and tens of thousands of prisoners of war, to work in the mine. Nevertheless, at the beginning of 1943, monthly coal production in the Donbass was only 250 thousand tons. Highest level, before they were expelled from the basin, the occupiers managed to reach 400 thousand tons in June 1943. This corresponded to an annual level of 3–4.8 million tons, compared to 95 million tons produced in Donbass a year before the war.

To ensure their railway transport and other needs in Ukraine, the Nazis were forced to import coal from Upper Silesia.

Thus, the occupiers were unable to use industrial and natural resources Ukraine due to the heroic resistance of the Soviet people. This indicated the failure of the economic plans of the Nazi invaders in Ukraine.

The retreat of fascist troops from the occupied territory was accompanied by a new, unprecedented wave of plunder. Hitler's military also sought to grab its share of the spoils. Ahead of the retreating fascist troops rolled trains and convoys with property stolen on Soviet soil by German generals and officers.

Their allies did not lag behind the masters. During November - December 1943, the occupiers removed from Transnistria 1212 wagons of grain, 1086 wagons of livestock and poultry, 136 wagons of oilseeds and 6038 wagons of other foreign goods. The scale of looting by the occupiers in Ukraine was colossal.

Ruins of the foundry shop of the Nikolaev Shipyard. 1944

"Scorched earth". What the Nazis did not have time or were unable to take out of Ukraine earlier, they sought to destroy during the retreat. By leaving behind a desert zone, the enemy hoped to slow down the advance of the Red Army and paralyze the Ukrainian economy for decades.

These actions, called the “scorched earth” tactics by the Nazis, were carried out jointly by the SS and the Wehrmacht. An order issued by Himmler on September 3, 1943 to the SS and police commander in Kyiv stated: “Not a single person, not a single head of cattle or a hundredweight of grain, or a single railway car must be left behind. Not a single unruined house, not a single undestroyed mine that could be approached over the next years, not a single unpoisoned well... The enemy must find a truly completely burned and destroyed country... The enemy should be left only completely unusable for a long time deserted land.

At the same time, the Wehrmacht high command issued its order, in which it sought to outdo Hitler’s main executioner in inhumanity and barbarity: “In case of retreat, it is necessary to completely destroy in the abandoned territory all structures and supplies that in some way may be useful to the enemy: living quarters (houses) and dugouts), cars, mills, windmills, wells, hay and straw stacks.

All houses without exception must be burned, stoves in houses must be blown up using hand grenades, wells must be made unusable by destroying lifting devices, as well as throwing sewage into them (carrion, manure, droppings, gasoline); Stacks of straw and hay, as well as all kinds of supplies, were burned, agricultural machines and telegraph poles were blown up, ferries and boats were flooded. Destruction of bridges and mining of roads is the task of sappers.

The building of the Zaporozhye Regional Drama Theater named after. M. Zankovetskaya, destroyed by the Nazi occupiers. 1944

Everyone has the responsibility to ensure that the territory left to the enemy for a long time cannot be used by him for any military purposes or for agricultural needs.”

The occupiers also sought to drive away the able-bodied Soviet population fit for military service to the West. On September 7, Goering, on behalf of Hitler, signed a secret decree that the territories that could fall into the hands of the advancing Soviet troops should be turned into a continuous zone of uninhabited desert. “The population...,” the decree said, “must be expelled to the west.”

The Wehrmacht and the fascist police apparatus, industrial firms and transport institutions of the occupiers were involved in the implementation of directives for the complete plunder and transformation of Soviet territory into a deserted desert zone. Urgently developed instructions specified in detail what to rob, how to disable what could not be removed.

Special teams of fascist demolitions, murderers and arsonists expelled Soviet people from their homes onto the roads leading to the west, set fire to cities and villages, blew up bridges, railway stations, factories, mines, power plants, poisoned wells, laid mines, robbed and took away everything possible.

The forced expulsion of the population to the West often turned into massacres of Soviet people. So, on the eve of the German retreat from Sumy, representatives of the commandant’s office drove through the streets of the city, announcing an order to the population to leave the city and go along the road to Konotop. After some time, the gendarmes began combing the streets. They went from house to house, beating and shooting the Soviet people who remained on the spot. In Poltava, the Nazis killed everyone who tried to evade the “evacuation”, set houses on fire, and threw people into the fire.

The Assumption Cathedral of the Kiev Pechersk Lavra, destroyed by the Nazi occupiers. 1944

This is how they acted everywhere. In Artemovsk, a field gendarmerie detachment in September 1943 destroyed about 3 thousand women, children, and old people. Some of them were shot, others were walled up alive in underground alabaster workings. In the village In Velikie Lipnyagi in the Poltava region, the SS killed and burned alive 371 people, of which over 120 were children. More than 400 residents of the village. The Nazis drove Rublyovka and the villages of Lukishchyna and Ezhakovka in the Poltava region into the school building, opened machine-gun fire on the trenches, doused the building with gasoline and set it on fire. Of all the victims of this brutal massacre, only two managed to escape. In Melitopol, during the retreat, fascist executioners drove over 250 women and children into prison and burned them. Several thousand civilians were shot during the German retreat from the city of Osipenko (now Berdyansk).

Khreshchatyk destroyed by the Nazi invaders. Kyiv. 1943

The population of Kyiv in a strip of three kilometers west of the Dnieper was evicted by the occupiers immediately after the Soviet troops reached the left bank of the river. Then the expulsion of the inhabitants of the remaining parts of the city was carried out in stages. Some Kiev residents hid in forbidden areas. The Germans mercilessly shot those who were discovered. The city was systematically destroyed block by block.

In Kyiv, 940 buildings of state and public institutions, 1,742 large residential buildings and 3.6 thousand private houses were destroyed, over 200 thousand people lost their homes. The entire center and many of the best neighborhoods were turned into complete ruins. The Nazis blew up a power plant, disabled the electrical network, water supply, sewerage, and public transport. Bridges across the Dnieper, station and railway facilities of the entire huge Kyiv-Darnitsa junction were blown up. The largest Kyiv plants and factories, the university, hospitals, schools, theater buildings and palaces of culture lay in piles of smoking ruins. For 700 years, after the invasion of the hordes of Batu Khan, Kyiv was not subjected to such destruction.

Forced to retreat, the fascist army tortured Ukraine to the last opportunity, leaving behind mountains of corpses of its civilians, ruins and ashes.

Crimes of bourgeois nationalists. One of the consequences of the Nazi occupation was the intensification of Ukrainian bourgeois nationalism in the western regions of the republic, where socialist transformations in 1939–1941. were not completed. The population of the main territory of Ukraine, where Soviet power existed until 1939, not only did not succumb to nationalist propaganda, but also actively fought against bourgeois nationalists as traitors and enemies of the Motherland.

The cooperation of Ukrainian nationalists with the Nazis intensified after the turning point during Patriotic War in favor of the Soviet Union. This circumstance emphasizes the treacherous nature of the activities of the nationalists, who increased their assistance to the occupiers precisely when they began to suffer defeat.

The OUN Melnikovites grovelled like lackeys before the Germans. In Krakow, the capital of the General Government, Melnik’s “Ukrainian National Committee” operated, which was headed by the famous nationalist geographer V. Kubiyovych. After the formation of the “District Galicia”, a legal cell of this organization was opened in Lviv. The nationalist gangs created by the committee received weapons from the Nazis and terrorized the population of the district, helping the occupiers suppress their resistance. The auxiliary bodies of the occupation apparatus were staffed from among the Melnikites, burgomasters, elders, and officials were selected, and police formations were created. Together with the Nazis, they plundered the wealth of the Ukrainian people, tortured and killed Soviet people.

Melnikov's members repeatedly raised the question of the creation of Ukrainian nationalist military formations with the Nazi administration. However, no consent was received for this. At the beginning of 1943, the OUN members redoubled their persistence. A. Melnik addressed a letter to the head of the OKB, Field Marshal Keitel, and Kubijovich - to Himmler. In March 1943, after fascist Germany, having suffered a heavy defeat at Eastern Front, launched a total mobilization. Himmler considered the proposal of the Melnikites to form a division from the Ukrainian bourgeois nationalists of the “District of Galicia” quite acceptable.

The military section of the Kubijovich committee, which until then had been engaged in the formation of nationalist anti-partisan bands, launched agitation for the entry of Ukrainians into Hitler's army. The campaign was not successful. Then the nationalists, together with the Nazis, found another way. They mobilized into the division those who were threatened with a concentration camp for evading labor in Germany. This is how the 14th SS Grenadier Division “Galicia” was formed. Its commander was SS-Brigadeführer Freitag, officers, especially the highest, was staffed primarily by Germans, commands were given in German.

OUN members-Bandera entered Ukrainian soil in the forefront Nazi troops, Soviet people were killed along with them. But after the arbitrary proclamation of their “government” in Lvov in 1941, they lost the trust of their patrons, who did not intend to share power over

Ukraine. However, Bandera’s supporters did not lose hope of reaching an agreement with the Nazis. To do this, they took measures to strengthen their position in the occupied territory. Having created a network of underground organizations, Bandera's supporters became the dominant force in the nationalist camp in Western Ukraine. At the end of March 1943, they organized the transfer into the forest of almost the entire Ukrainian auxiliary police in Volyn and Polesie. The leadership of Bandera's OUN launched the formation of armed gangs, still counting on cooperation with the fascists, relying on their own “army”. Gangs of other nationalist groups - Bulbov's in Polesie, Melnikov's in Galicia - were absorbed by Bandera.

During 1943, it was formed military organization Bandera OUN, which became known as the “Ukrainian rebel army"(UPA). It relied on the extensive OUN underground. In words, to deceive the population, Bandera gangs were allegedly preparing to fight against the Germans, but in reality they fought only against partisans and Soviet underground fighters. “The political situation in these nationalist areas is so complicated that you need to be vigilant,” wrote the commissar of the Kovpakovsky unit, S.V. Rudnev, in his diary on June 21, 1943, during a raid in the Rivne region. On June 22, a new entry appeared: “And in these villages there are nationalists. In the middle of the village there is a hillock, on the hillock there is a cross decorated with a nationalist flag and a trident. The bastard bourgeois intelligentsia is fooling the heads of the peasants, while they themselves follow the lead of the Germans. They call themselves Ukrainian partisans, but cover up the real bourgeois guise of their movement.” On June 23 it was continued: “Nationalists often shoot from around the corner, from behind bushes, from the ground. Young people are taken forcibly and driven into the forest for training, and then placed in command positions... The Germans create the Polish police to beat the Ukrainians.”

The backbone of the UPA were policemen, deserters, and criminals. Its bulk consisted of kulaks and declassed urban elements. The anti-people program of the Banderaites provided for the liquidation of Soviet power, the restoration of the bourgeois system, the separation of Ukraine from the fraternal Soviet peoples, and the creation of a corporate state on a fascist model.

“Atrocities of the Nazi occupiers” The Nazis sought to destroy entire peoples. Under occupation, they were not bound by any traditions or laws. As a result, they destroyed Jews and Gypsies literally in the tens of thousands. Nowadays, they are often put under