Ukrainian independence fighters who preferred to ally with the Germans rather than serve the Soviets, while also committing war crimes. This is the story of the Banderites without ideological lenses.
Ukrainian independence fighters who preferred to ally with the Germans rather than serve the Soviets, while also committing war crimes. Such is the story of the Banderites without ideological lenses.
Article
The controversial and still vivid phenomenon of the Banderites, intertwining the fight for independence with senseless cruelty, speaks much more about an extraordinarily violent period—the era of World War II—than about anything else. Nevertheless, or perhaps precisely because of this, it is still used today to ideologically label opponents. But where does the truth lie? Today, we will explore this question.
And I would kindly ask the reader to approach the following text free from the context of the current Russia-Ukraine conflict. Because, frankly, this is not about that. Thank you for thoughtful reading.
A Word of Introduction
Without ideological overlay, the soldiers we know as the “Banderites” can be simply described as Ukrainian nationalists who preferred to ally with the Germans rather than serve the Soviets. They had many reasons for this alliance with the devil over the deep blue sea, a brief outline of which I offer in articles like Holodomor in Ukraine: Stalin’s Genocide with Millions of Dead and The Gulag Camp: Soviet Death Machine of Forced Labor.
Regardless of modern interpretations, one can rationally conclude without ideological baggage that the UPA, the Banderites—call them what you will—were a military product of an exceptionally violent time, a time in which these units prioritized their national ideals and goals over everything else, often even over humanity. Let’s therefore take an ideological-free look at the activities of the so-called Banderites—a term that, surprisingly, has not disappeared from propaganda vocabularies—through the lens of facts and history.
Stepan Bandera, the Fanatical Fighter for Ukrainian Independence
Where does the term “Banderites” come from? It is a simplified label for the radical faction of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), specifically OUN-B, led by Stepan Bandera, leader of the Ukrainian national movement in western Ukraine. During World War II, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army fought for Ukrainian independence against Poles, the Soviet Union, and even Nazi Germany. However, one cannot deny that, since its founding in 1942, its members were also involved in extensive massacres of civilian populations, particularly in Volhynia.
In 1939, Bandera himself established cooperation with Nazi Germany, with whom he shared common interests against Poland and the Soviet Union, organizing a military unit formally under the German Wehrmacht. After Germany attacked the Soviet Union, he soon became disillusioned with the expectation that the Nazi regime would post-facto recognize an independent fascist Ukraine as an Axis ally. Consequently, he began preparing an uprising against the Nazis to establish an independent Ukraine, but the Germans arrested him and sent him to a concentration camp, where he remained until 1944.
By that time, the Third Reich was on the defensive. Thus, the Nazis found Bandera useful. Eventually, he was allowed to return to Ukraine in 1944 in the hope that he would unite with OUN-M and that his units would harass and sabotage Soviet troops, which were crushing Germany at that time. We all know how that turned out—Germany lost.
After WW2
Bandera eventually went into exile in Germany, where he lived a grim life in constant fear of Soviet revenge. Between 1944 and 1948, he moved six times, residing in Berlin, Innsbruck, Seefeld in Tirol, Hildesheim, and Starnberg, before finally settling with his family in Munich, where he lived until October 15, 1959.
That day, Soviet secret services caught up with him and assassinated Bandera in the entryway of his home on Kreittmayrstraße by spraying cyanide into his face.
On January 22, 2010, Bandera was posthumously awarded the title Hero of Ukraine for “defending the national idea and fighting for an independent Ukrainian state.” The award was presented by Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko to Stepan Bandera’s grandson, a decision controversial on the international stage.
The Actions and Crimes of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army during World War II
Throughout its existence, the UPA primarily fought against Poles and Soviets, and, starting in February 1943, also against Germans. In their understandable fight for independence, they committed war crimes and ethnic cleansing.
Two opposing interpretations of this period prevail. Soviet and later Russian propaganda portray the UPA as fascist collaborators with the Nazis and associate them with the war crimes of the “Banderites,” a term now used for any Ukrainian nationalist. Conversely, in Ukraine, the fight of the Banderites and the UPA is often glorified as a martyrdom for Ukrainian independence, with a strong tendency to suppress criticism of their actions. In terms of historical facts, besides fighting regular Soviet and Nazi forces, which were seen as occupying forces from a certain point, the UPA engaged in horrific and systematic ethnic cleansings, especially targeting Volhynian Poles.
Binderies fighting after the War
After World War II, the UPA continued to resist Polish and Soviet power, now without support, and was gradually eliminated by the police and Soviet (NKVD) and Polish (UB) secret services. Many members, often with their families, were displaced. The UPA still operated in southeastern Poland with five to six thousand members in 1946. In 1947, during Operation Vistula, the organization was eliminated in Poland, and under pressure from Polish forces and NKVD units, as well as from the displacement of the Ukrainian population in southeastern Poland, which had provided support to the Banderites, their situation became unsustainable.
Conclusion
Even nearly 80 years later, Bandera remains a controversial figure, often assessed one-sidedly for political reasons. Soviet and later Russian propaganda depicted him as a fascist collaborator with the Nazis and linked him and UPA units with “Banderite” war crimes, a term still applied today to any defender of Ukrainian independence. Conversely, in Ukraine, Bandera is often glorified as a martyr in the struggle for independence, with his contentious posthumous designation as a Hero of Ukraine and a tendency to downplay negative criticism of his activities.
Sources
In this article, I draw on various freely available relevant sources. I consider the most significant to be primarily the study by the Military History Institute, The Incursion of the Banderites into Czechoslovakia in 1945–1947, and the highly detailed work of Tomáš Řepa, The Banderites in Czechoslovakia 1945–1947, published in the academic journal Securitas Imperii by the Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes. References can be found below.
- https://www.vhu.cz/vpad-banderovcu-na-uzemi-ceskoslovenska-v-letech-1945-1947/
- https://www.ustrcr.cz/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/SI_34_s118-144.pdf
- (Zdroj 1): ABS, f. Hlavní správa Vojenské kontrarozvědky (dále jen 302), sign. 302-142-6, List UPA dr. Benešovi, nedatováno. Dostupné v doslovném přepisu in ŠMIGEĽ, Michal: Banderovci na Slovensku (1945–1947), s. 151–154.
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banderite
Leave a Reply