Schooling in Murder: Schutzmannschaft Battalion 201 and

Hauptmann Roman Shukhevych in Belarus 1942

Per Anders Rudling
Ernst-Moritz-Arndt-Universitt, Greifswald (Germany).

Introduction
The OUN(b) and UPAs campaign to cleanse Western Ukraine of its nonUkrainian minorities in 1943 and 1944 was carried out in a brutal, systematic fashion.
The UPAs cleansing of the Volhynian and Galician Poles was the culmination of a
campaign of violence, the understanding of which requires a study of the background of
its leadership, and the establishment of the context within which it operated. While
several researchers emphasize the training of a substantial part of the UPA leadership by
Nazi Germany, this is a relative recent field of study. Many questions remain to be
answered.i What seems clear is that the brutalization of the war in the east came to
influence the violent nature of the campaign, and the way it was carried out. Therefore, in
order to understand the nature of the UPAs anti-Polish campaign, particularly during its
most violent phase in 1943-44, it is important to study the background of its leadership,
particularly its activities and affiliations in 1941-42. Roman Shukhevych, its commander,
had distinguished himself in German service. Serving in German uniform since 1938,
Shukhevych combined his political activism as a Ukrainian nationalist with a
distinguished military record. In 1941, he was a commander of the Nachtigall battalion, a
Wehrmacht formation consisting of Ukrainian nationalists. Soldiers under his command
carried out mass shootings of Jews in the vicinity of Vinnytsia. The role of Shukhevych
and the Nachtigall in the pogroms of the June 30, 1941 Lviv pogrom has been the topic
of heated discussions.ii A less known, and often overlooked aspect of Shukhevychs

service for Nazi Germany was his whereabouts in 1942, something often omitted in the
nationalist historiography.iii During this year, Shukhevych served as Hauptmann (captain)
of the Schutzmannschaften, and stood under the command of Hhere Polizei- und SSFhrer Heinrich Himmler. This paper is an attempt to document this white spot in the
Shukhevychs biography.
Background: Jews, partisans, and bandits
Given the huge size of the Soviet territories under German occupation, the
German military personnel were spreading thinly. Aware of this shortage, Wilhelm
Keitel, the head of the Oberkommano der Wehrmacht, argued Since we cannot watch
everybody, we need to rule by fear. Hitler himself, when learning about Stalins call for
a partisan movement in the summer of 1941, exclaimed Thats only good, it gives us a
possibility to the exterminate everybody who challenges our rule.iv Hitler himself
compared the fighting of partisans with that of the struggle against red Indians.v On
September 16, 1941 Keitel issued an order that every German soldier, killed in a partisan
attack in the occupied Soviet Union would be avenged by the killing of 50 100
Communists.vi At a September, 1941 meeting for army officers, von dem BachZelewski and SS-Brigadefhrer Artur Nebe, the leader of Einsatzgruppe B linked the
partisans to the Jews: Where the partisan is, there also is the Jew, and where the Jew is,
is the partisan.vii In December, 1941, one month before the Wannsee conference,
Himmlers appointment book carried the cryptic note Jewish question/to be
exterminated as partisans.viii As escaping Jews reinforced the partisans, the Nazis linked
the expediency of exterminating Jews to their counterinsurgency activities. The view that

The Jews are without exception identical with the concept of partisan was a key
assumption of the architects of the German counter-insurgency campaigns.ix
Local Collaboration during World War II
The shortage of German military personnel necessitated an increased reliance on
local collaborators. The Schutzmannschaften, auxiliary police forces, were designated as
an instrument, operating under the Gendarmerie, intended to carry out the dirty work
(Schmutzarbeit) of the occupying forces,x including the execution of Jews and
Communists.xi Central assignments were anti-partisan warfare, searching the ghettoes
and sealing them off during Aktionen, to executions at the murder sites.xii
While the Schutzmannschaften had constituted a fairly small force, they were
drastically enlarged after the summer of 1942. From July 1942 to the end of that year, the
overall strength of the Schutzmannschaft-Einzeldienst increased from about 30,000 to
over 200,000 men.xiii While half of the men worked in fire brigades, the dramatic growth
of the Schutzmannschaften mirrored the growth of the pro-Soviet partisan formations. By
October, 1942 there were 55,562 local police in Ostland, (i.e. the Baltics and Western
Belarus) but only 4,428 Germans, i.e. a ration of 1:13.xiv With the exception of the Soviet
POWs, the Schutzmnner were recruited on a voluntary basis.xv
The activities of the very institution of the Schutzmannschaft are one of the lesserknown episodes of the Holocaust.xvi While there are considerable documentary evidence
and witness accounts to establish the participation of the Schutzmannschaften in Nazi war
crimes,xvii their direct participation in anti-Jewish actions is poorly documented in the
surviving German records. The German occupation authorities left relatively little
information about the local auxiliaries. Our knowledge of the anti-partisan activities is

still limited. Only in exceptional cases are the names of individual soldiers, other than
their commanders mentioned. After the war, the West German authorities paid limited
attention to war-time killing of civilian Slavs. Unlike the murder of Jews, killing of local
Slavs was generally not regarded as having been carried out on racist grounds. Antipartisan activities were considered as conventional war crimes, and something to which
the Federal German prosecutors in Ludwigsburg generally paid little interest.xviii The fact
that many of the crimes on the local level were committed not by Germans, but by local
collaborators was something that further diminished the interest in Germany for these
crimes.xix Until the late 1960s, a large part of the evidence was kept in inaccessible Soviet
archives.xx Soviet war crimes trial records of former Schutzmnner were long
inaccessible, and much of the Belarusian and Russian archives remain off-limits to
scholars. Historians are only beginning to use the materials from Soviet war crimes
trials.xxi In addition, many documents were destroyed during, or immediately after the
war.xxii At the end of the war, many members of the Schutzmannschaften retreated with
the German army. A survey of about 200 Schutzmnner indicated that over 30 per cent of
them remained in the west after the war.xxiii Few, if any, were held accountable for their
actions. Western countries have yet to try a single Schutzmann for war crimes.xxiv
Schutzmannschaft Battalion 201
On June 30, 1941, in Lviv, the Bandera wing of the Organization of Ukrainian
Nationalists, (OUN(b)) issued a declaration of Ukrainian statehood, modeled on the
Slovak and Croatian precedents. The OUN(b) had hoped for German recognition of their
pro-Nazi state, which they intended as a totalitarian ally of Nazi Germany. To the
disappointment of the OUN(b), the Nazi leadership refused to recognize their state,

seriously complicating the OUN(b)s relations with its major sponsor. The German
refusal to accept the Ukrainian declaration of statehood led to a conflict with the
leadership of the Nachtigall battalion, a collaborationist formation, consisting almost
exclusively of members of the OUN(b). The Nachtigall battalion was dissolved. On
August 13, 1941, it was ordered to return from Vinnytsia to Neuhammer, where it was
disarmed at gunpoint. Its members were then transported to Frankfurt an der Oder. On
October 21, 1941, the soldiers were reorganized as the 201st Ukrainian Schutzmannschaft
Battalion, which consisted of four companies. The formal commander of the battalion
was Sturmbannfhrer (major) Ieven Pobihushchyi, under the supervision of the German
Hauptmann Wilhelm Mocha.xxv Roman Shukhevychs title was that of Hauptmann
(captain) of the first company and deputy commander of the legion.xxvi Even though
enrollment was voluntary, of the some 300 remaining members of the Nachtigall
division, only about 15 declined to sign up for service in the Schutzmannschaften.xxvii The
members themselves named the battalion after Ievhen Konovalets, a co-founder and the
first leader the OUN, an organization to which almost all of its members belonged.xxviii
To the battalion were added 60 Soviet POWs from Poltava and Dnipropetrovsk oblasti,
selected by Shukhevych.xxix Several future UPA commanders served in Schutzmannschaft
Battalion 201, besides Roman Shukhevych himself, there was also Oleksander Lutskyi,
the organizer and first Commander of the UPA-West, based primarily in Galicia, and his
successor Vasyl Sydor, who commanded UPA-West in 1944-49.xxx
After training in Germany, Schutzmannschaft battalion 201 was assigned to
Belarus on February 16, 1942. The soldiers signed a one-year contract with the

Germans.xxxi The Schutzmnner themselves were disappointed with this assignment,

having hoped to be stationed in Ukraine. Pobihushchyi wrote in his memoirs that
With bitterness in my heart and with serious thoughts I returned to Frankfurt [an der
Oder], and there I received the order, that on March 19, 1942, we would be sent to a socalled Einsatz, i.e. military assignments. The location of our assignment was not given,
since only the commander had the information. Even though I was the commander, I did
not receive the order. Only Mocha had seen it. This was the way the Germans treated the
commander of the legion.How disillusioned we were when we found out that we were
not going to Ukraine, but Belarusxxxii

The men of Schutzmannschaft battalion 201 wore German police uniforms

without national symbols. On March 16, 1942, the battalion was ordered eastwards and
arrived in Belarus, it they replaced a Latvian Schutzmannschaft battalion. Under the
command of General J. Jakob it was spread out over 12 different points in the triangle
Mahiliou-Vitsebsk-Lepel, guarding a territory of 2,400 square kilometers,xxxiii at the time
of the implementation of the Holocaust of the Belarusian Jews.xxxiv
There is no consensus in the sources about the activities of the battalion. Andrii
Bolianovskyis magisterial work on Ukrainian military formations in the service of Nazi
Germany dedicates but a few pages to the divisions whereabouts in 1942.xxxv Frank
Golczewski describes the activities of Schutzmannschaft Battalion 201 as fighting
partisans and killing Jews, but does not provide a source for this claim.xxxvi Several
veterans of Schutzmannschaft battalion 201 made it to the west after the war. Whereas
30-40 veterans of Schutzmannschaft battalion 201 were alive in 1980, only 4 remained by
2004.xxxvii
The veterans were acutely aware of efforts to track down collaborators and
perpetrators.xxxviii Most published veteran memoirs avoid any specific mention of the
battalions geographic whereabouts. Pobihushchyis 1982 memoirs do not provide any
details about where the division was stationed in Belarus. Many memoirs refer back to

the accounts from Schutzmann Teodor Krochaks diary, an edited version of which
appeared in the 1953 collection, which Pobihushchyi helped to craft.xxxix Myroslav
Kalba, a non-commissioned officer in Nachtigal and the Schutzmannschaft battalion
201,xl who has edited six books on the formation, which the nationalists prefer to refer to
as DUN, Druzhuny Ukrainskykh Nationalistiv generally either avoids listing the
battalions specific geographic whereabouts in 1942 or uses abbreviations, referring to
the cities K. M. L, the villages Zh. V, P small city B or the locality H.xli
Unsurprisingly, the veterans own accounts of their whereabouts in Belarus make no
mention of atrocities, but present the battalions tasks as being of a military nature.
Ievhen Pobihushchyi describes the military assignment as
defending the major bridges across the rivers Biarezina and Dzvina and to prevent
Bolshevik partisans from destroying them. That was the main assignment, and for that
purpose, the legion was distributed over an area nearly 50 kilometers long, and
approximately 50 kilometer wide, and the soldiers were quartered in the villages in
groups of 40, since their task was to protect the local administration. In addition, to the
assignments of the legion belonged a constant combing of the forests from Bolshevik
partisans. Such combing operations (besides, being very dangerous) required no less than
two formations (80 men), which, in turn, weakened our positions in the villages, the socalled Schtzpunkte. Still regardless of various difficulties, the entire time that is from
March 22 to December 31, 1942 the Legion painstakingly and in an exemplary fashion
had to carry out its military service in such a way that the Bolshevik partisans would not
be able to destroy another large bridge.xlii

There were indeed pressing military matters, which also required attention. The
so-called Vitsebsk or Surazh Gate was a forty-kilometer-long breach in the German front
line between Velizh and Usviaty in the RSFSR between the German Army groups
North and Center. It opened up as a result of a shock attack by the third and fourth
Soviet Armies in the winter of 1941-1942, and remained open from February to
September 28, 1942. Through this opening in the front, Soviet ammunition, weapons,
sabotage groups and medical supplies were transported behind the enemy lines.xliii There
were various partisan formations in the region. Partisan Detachment 406 carried out

military operations on the Minsk-Vilnius, Maladzechna-Polatsk, and Minsk-Lepel

railroad lines. Over the course of the war, they attacked 148 highway bridges and blew up
three railroad bridges. One of their more spectacular attacks was carried out on October
14, 1942 when they destroyed 9 automobiles and 70 Nazis on [the] Pukhavichy-Omel'na
road.xliv It is quite possible that members of Schutzmannschaft battalion 201 may have
been a target. Schutzmannschaft battalion veterans reported several attacks on August 25
and October 2, in U. and Zh.xlv The accounts contain no information on reprisal
actions by the Schutzmannschaften, even though this was a standard practice.
Yet, even the memoirs of the Schutzmnner themselves indicate that the battalion
had alternative assignments beyond the safeguarding of the infrastructure. Pobihushchyi
wrote that his soldiers found out that in the vicinity there was a camp for Soviet POWs.
According to Pobihushchyi, Shukhevych attempted to have 45 Ukrainians POWs there
released to join the Schutzmannschaft, but was prevented from doing so as a punishment
for refusing to participate in an operation of forced grain requisitions from the local
Belarusian population.xlvi
Interrogated by the MKGD by the very end of the war, Nachtigal and
Schutzmannschaft battalion 201 veteran Oleksandr Lutskyixlvii gave the following
account of the activities of the battalion:
In mid-April, 1942 we were brought from Minsk to the city of Lepel, where we were
divided into four groups. Each group was assigned particularly important military objects
to be safeguarded, but the primary task was to fight the Soviet partisan movement in the
Lepel, Ushycha, and Beshankovichy raiony. Personally, I belonged to a group of the
legion of approximately 90 people, brought to the south of the city of Lepel, in the
village Veleushchyna, where I took part in the safeguarding of roads, the protection of the
representatives of the German command, which moved along the roads from place to
place. Several times I was sent out on assignments to liquidate Soviet partisans. The
information we received was passed on to the staff of the legion, located in the city of
Lepel.xlviii

Lutskyi stated that in October of 1941 the entire legion was put under the
disposal of the SS, and the Germans used us to fight Soviet partisans. At that point our
battalion was already named Schutzmannschaft battalion 201.xlix The Soviet
interrogators were more interested in the veterans role in Nachtigal in 1941 and in the
UPA from 1943 than in their whereabouts in 1942. The reports therefore provide little
information of the activities of Schutzmannschaft battalion 201. Schutzmann Volodymyr
Pavlyk told his Soviet interrogators that [i]n 1941 and 1942 he served in the German
armed formations as a commander of a platoon and company. In that period I, as a
platoon and company commander did not participate in the battles against partisans and
the Red Army, but helped form them and sent them into battle against the Red partisans.l
The interrogation reports from that of other veterans, such as Schutzmann Omelian
Polovyi, make no mention of the activities of battalion 201.li
Some correspondence between the 201 battalion and their German superiors has
survived. The last report from Schutzmannschaft battalion 201 was sent on November 3,
1942, at which point the unit was stationed 20 kilometers north of Lepel.lii On December
1, 1942, the contracts of Schutzmannschaft battalion 201 expired. Its volunteers had
originally agreed to serve until December 31, 1942. Yet, in late 1942 the German
authorities increased the recruitment of forced labor in the occupied territories extending
the Schutzmannschaftens term of service for an indefinite period.liii They therefore
declined to renew their contracts. The Schutzmnner also had grievances with the
leadership style of the Germans. Pobihushchyi himself complained that
[t[he last straw, which led to the dissolution of the entire legion [Schutzmannschaft
battalion 201] was the terrible occurrence, unforgivable crimes that the German command
allowed to be carried out against the riflemen of the legion. At the funeral of one fallen
volunteer there wasnt even a Ukrainian banner on his bier, only a German one. One of
[our Ukrainian Schutzmnner] pushed the swastika bands in under the wreath. When a

German policeman saw this, [the Ukrainian Schutzmann] was terribly abused. No appeals
or pledges from the Ukrainian side helped. It was deemed an insult to the German state.
The rifleman was jailed andshot. From that moment on the attitude of the soldiers of the
[Schutzmannschaft battalion 201] to the Germans changed.liv

This, according to Pobihushchyi, contributed to the battalions refusal to renew the

contract
We decided to abstain from [further] service, since military honor required it. We did not
receive answers to our inquiries about why our leaders were arrested, our dear ones were
arbitrarily sent to work deep into Germany, why wounded Ukrainian soldiers were not
allowed to be treated in the same hospitals as the Germans, but taken to hospitals for
aliens. The Legion did not want to fight for such a New Europe, with different
categories of citizens and soldiers. At the front we all faced death equally. Yet the
lv
wounded had different rights and received different treatment.

Around Christmas, 1942, Obergruppenfhrer von dem Bach-Zelewski informed

Pobihushchyi that the battalion would be dissolved. On January 6, 1943, the battalion was
sent to Lviv where most members arrived January 8. The officers left Belarus on January
5, the last soldiers January 14, 1943.lvi The 201st battalion was disbanded and taken to
Lviv, where its officers were arrested and placed in the jail on Lontsky Street. Some,
including Roman Shukhevych, managed to escape and went underground.lvii The officers
were formally arrested for declining to continue their service, but appear to have been
treated quite leniently by the Germans. The forms under which we were arrested were
quite delicate we only had to surrender our weapons, and with an escorting officer from
the German officer we traveled to Lviv, wrote Pobihushchyi.lviii
The German authorities reported to Berlin that while the better treatment of the
Ukrainians by the local administration is not without effect,lix the disbanding of
Schutzmannschaft battalion 201 caused indignation and extensive disquiet among
Galician Ukrainians, also the intelligentsia.lx The German command suggested that the
men of Schutzmannschaft battalion 201 should gather in Lublin to form a new unit. This
time its members declined to renew their contracts, even if several continued to volunteer

their services to Nazi Germany until 1945. Evhen Pobihushchyi joined the ranks of the
Waffen SS Galizien, progressing to the rank of major.lxi
Counterinsurgency or mass murder?
While the source material of the whereabouts of Schutzmannschaft battalion 201
is incomplete, some of the correspondence between the battalion and its German
commanders has been preserved. According to Myroslav Kalba, the DUN, that is
Nachtigall and Schutzmannschaft battalion 201 lost 450 soldiers and officers, i.e. two
thirds of it members over the entire period 1941-1945.lxii Many of these losses were due
to desertions, most of which took place after 1943. However, during its ten-month tenure
in Belarus, Schutzmannschaft battalion 201 lost only 49 men, while 40 were wounded.
This should be contrasted with to the over 2,000 partisans it killed.lxiii Even if all the
losses of Schutzmannschaft battalion 201 were due to war deaths, this means a
discrepancy in the casualty ratio between its members and enemy bandits of over 1:40.
Such disproportional losses between German and collaborating forces and bandits is
largely in line with what we know about the activities of other Schutzmannschaft
battalions. The imbalance is also reflected in von dem Bach-Zelewskis personal records,
which he kept as Bevollmchtiger fr Bandenbekmpfung. On October 30, 1942 von dem
Bach-Zelewski noted 26 casualties from Schutzmannschaft battalion 201, 4 Germans and
22 fallen members of the Schutzmannschaften. Enemy losses were listed as 89 dead
and 20 wounded.lxiv A routine report on the activities of Schutzmannschaft battalion 201,
von dem Bach-Zelewskis report appears in a folder of fifteen Meldungen an den Fhrer
ber Bandenbekmpfung to Reichsfhrer-SS Himmler, who passed them on to Adolf
Hitler personally. It contains a series of information bulletins from German-led police

forces in occupied Belarus and Ukraine.lxv The reports illustrate the nature of the
counterinsurgency activities in which Schutzmannschaft battalion 201 was involved.
Meldung number 51 is a summary of anti-partisan warfare in Russia-South,
Ukraine, and the Bezirk Biaystok, which is a summary of the police activities in that
region from September to November, 1942. Passed to Hitler on December 29, 1942, it
shows the realities of the Bandenbekmpfung. The number of Jews outweighs all other
groups executed, and the number of bandits executed after an Aktion far outweighs the
number of people killed in action.
Bandits
Killed in combat
Executed prisoners
Executed later
Bandit helpers
Arrested
Executed
Jews Executed
Deserters
German casualties
Dead
Wounded
Missing
Schutzmannschaft
Dead
Wounded
Missing

1,337
737
7,827
16,553
14,257
363,211
140
174
132
13
285
127
133lxvi

Meldungen 36, 40, 41, 42, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 55, 56, 57, covering RusslandMitte and Gebiet Weissruthenien for the fall of 1942, report 28, 360 enemy casualties and
381 own losses; a ratio of 1:74.lxvii Meldung 51a, which appears in the same folder,
summarizing the entire region Russland-Sd, Ukraine, and Biaystok, shows a ratio of
killed Schutzmannschaft and Germans to killed bandits and bandit helpers (excluding
the category of Executed Jews) of over 1:52. If we include the 363,211 executed Jews
in the column of Bandenverdchtige, or suspected bandits, the ratio is 1:843.lxviii

It may also useful to compare the ratio of dead Schutzmannschaften to bandits

with the more infamous anti-partisan Aktionen, such as Operation Cottbus in 1943, during
which 6,087 bandits were registered as killed in action while only 88 German
officers and soldiers and 40 non-Germans Schutzmnner were killed and 152 wounded, a
casualty ratio of 1:47. In operation Cottbus, 90 per cent of the people killed were
unarmed.lxix Christian Gerlach calculates that between 10 and 15 per cent of the victims
of the partisan hunts in Belarus actually were partisans.lxx Regular warfare or
counterinsurgency campaigns do not generate such staggering imbalances. Rather, they
show the genocidal consequences of the war of annihilation, in line with Keitel, Himmler,
and Hitlers directives. German historian Manfred Messerschmidt makes the following
assessment of the Schutzmannschaften
In evaluating the operations of the Schuma battalions one has to consider that they
were involved in a ruthless scenario of terror. This included the compulsory use of
specific language. They had to speak of gangs [Banden]. Annihilation operations
were called pacification or re-establishment of security and order.lxxi

Former Schutzmnner in UPA

In the spring of 1943, the men of the Schutzmannschaft battalion 201, who had
crossed over from Belarus to Volhynia came to constitute the heart of the OUN(b)
security service, the Sluzhba Bezpeki, or SB.lxxii As the result of a campaign of mass
desertion from the German collaborating forces following Stalingrad, several thousand
deserting Ukrainian policemen flocked to the ranks of the UPA, forming its backbone.lxxiii
From March 15 to April 15, 1943, close to 4,000 Ukrainian former Schutzmnner joined
the UPA.lxxiv Former Schutzmnner and other forms of auxiliary policemen, who had
joined the UPA on OUN(b) orders constituted about half of the UPA and OUN(b) leaders
in the fall of 1943: 23 per cent had a background in regional and local auxiliary police

formations, 18 per cent had been trained in German intelligence and military schools at
the beginning of the war, 11 per cent in the Nachtigall and Rolland Battalions, 8 per cent
in the regional or local administration in Nazi-occupied Ukraine, and one per cent had a
background in the Waffen-SS Division Galizien.lxxv The skills acquired in 1941-1942
became useful in the UPAs ethnic cleansing of the Poles of Volhynia.lxxvi John-Paul
Himka writes that
Of course, infiltrating the Ukrainian police formations meant taking part in anti-Jewish
actions. Apparently, this did not constitute an obstacle of conscience for the radical
nationalists. In fact, taking part in some actions was probably useful, since weapons could
be confiscated during ghetto clearings and added to the stockpile. lxxvii

Singled out by his German superiors for his particular heroism in battle,lxxviii
Pobihushchyi summarizes his own experiences of the Einstze in Belarus in the following
way:
The struggle against the partisans was extraordinarily good education for our officers and
soldiers. It taught us a lot. Too bad, that my notes were lost at the time I was interned.
Our education, battle experience was very useful to all of our soldiers, non-commissioned
officers and officers, who continued their military paths in the Ukrainian Insurgent Army
or the I UD UNA [The first Ukrainian Division of the Ukrainian National Army] lxxix

By 1943, as the German violence escalated, the OUN(b) appeared increasingly concerned
with the image of the Schutzmannschaften. By now, Soviet Belarusian partisans
habitually referred to the Schutzmannaschaft batallion 118 in ethnic terms as
Ukrainians and Ukrainian police.lxxx The OUN(b) now began to disassociate itself
from the Schutzmannschaften. A Ukrainian police can exist only in a Ukrainian state,
OUN(b) propaganda stated.lxxxi
Conclusion
Researching the whereabouts of Schutzmannschaft battalion 201 in occupied
Belarus in 1942 is in many ways a difficult piece of detective work. Not only are the
sources scarce, a number of actors Soviet authorities, Ukrainian nationalists and the

veterans themselves have all tried to distort the historical record.lxxxii Under the
presidency of Viktor Yushchenko (2005-2010) it was government policy to glorify
Shukhevych, who the president posthumously turned into a national hero in 2007. The
government-orchestrated Shukhevych cult was accompanied by a campaign by official
historians to produce a hagiographic representation of Shukchevychs life. His activities
in the Schutzmannschaften have been ignored and glossed over, and the presence of a
handful of Jews in the UPA presented as evidence that the OUN could not have been
involved in anti-Semitic activities.lxxxiii OUN involvement in pogroms, the fascist nature
of the OUN and its collaboration with Nazi Germany was downplayed or denied.
Nachtigalls involvement in the murder of Jews in the summer of 1941 has been the
subject of an emotional debate. The Polish Sejm has described UPAs ethnic cleansing of
the Volhynian Poles in 1943 in terms of genocide.lxxxiv By comparison, Shukhevychs
role as a Hauptmann of Schutzmannschaft Battalion in 1942 has generated marginal
attention. Yet, a few conclusions can be made from this episode.
Shukhevych appears to have had a violent temper, and to have abused his soldiers
physically.lxxxv Under his command, soldiers of the Nachtigall battalion carried out mass
murder of Jewish civilians in the Vinnytsia area in 1941.lxxxvi Under Shukhevychs
leadership the UPA carried out a campaign of mass murder in Volhynia and Galicia in
1943-1944, in which 60,000-100,000 Poles and thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of
Jews lost their lives.lxxxvii It is reasonable to assume that also Schutzmannschaft battalion
201, like other Schutzmannschaft battalions and Nachtigall, its previous incarnation was
involved in a ruthless scenario of terror, aimed not only against bandits (partisans and
Jews), but also passive bystanders.lxxxviii The leadership of the OUN(b) Shukhevych,

Bandera, Lenkavskyi, and Stetsko shared the Nazi stereotypes of the ydokomuna, of
Jews as the tools of Moscow and/or Bolshevism, and the latter two openly approved of
the German extermination of the Jews.lxxxix Like the Nazis, the OUN(b) leadership
equated the fight against communism with the struggle against Jews and Muscovites.xc
To the Schutzmannschaften, the struggle against communism was linked to the killing of
Jews. In Belarus, the exterminating of Jews and partisans were overlapping tasks. Antipartisan operations were often carried out as extermination campaigns, or outright
massacres. Jewish civilian victims of these massacres were often murdered under the
pretense that they were also partisans. The Schutzmannschaften and their German
commanders tallied up massacred Jews as partisans. The ratio of 1:40 killed bandits
to Schutzmnner in Battalion 201 indicates mass murder and executions, rather than
conventional counter-insurgency campaigns. In line with Keitels instructions of mass
retribution, the numbers also resemble those of other Schutzmannschaften in occupied
Belarus. They were part of a greater scheme, that of Generalplan Ost, which foresaw the
deportation and extermination of entire ethnic groups and communities.xci Given the
training of much of the UPA and SB OUN leadership by Nazi Germany, it is no
coincidence that the patterns and tactics of the OUN and UPAs ethnic cleansing of the
Volhynian Poles resemble the anti-partisan tactics of the Schutzmannschaften. Within
their ranks, a significant part of the UPA leadership had been accustomed to the use of
disproportionate violence, attacks on civilians, and the use of collective retribution. The
ethnic cleansing of the Volhynian Poles, Jews, Armenians, and Czechs carries the
hallmarks of the SS and Schutzmannschaftens tactics of anti-partisan warfare.

See, for instance Timothy Snyder, To Resolve the Ukrainian Problem Once and for All: The Ethnic
Cleansing of Ukrainians in Poland, 1943-1947, Cold War Studies, Vol. 1, No. 2, (1999): 86-120; JohnPaul Himka, Ukrainian Collaboration in the Extermination of the Jews During the Second World War:
Sorting Out the Long-Term and Conjunctural Factors, in The Fate of the European Jews, 1939-1945:
Continuity or Contingency, ed. Jonathan Frankel (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997),
Studies in Contemporary Jewry 13 (1997): 170-189; Ivan Katchanovski, Terrorists or National Heroes?:
Politics of the OUN and the UPA in Ukraine, paper presented at the World Conference of the Association
for the Study of Nationalities, New York, NY, April 15, 2010. Forthcoming, Nationalities Papers.
i

On the controversies surrounding Nachtigall and the Lviv pogrom, see Philip-Christian Wachs, Der Fall
Theodor Oberlnder (1905-1998): ein Lehrstck deutscher Geschichte (Frankfurt a.M.: Campus, 2000),
55-71 and Per Anders Rudling, The Shukhevych Cult in Ukraine: Myth Making with Complications,
paper presented at the conference World War II and the (Re)Creation of Historical Memory in
Contemporary Ukraine, Kyiv, Ukraine, September 25, 2009. Available online, http://ww2historicalmemory.org.ua/abstract_e.html (Accessed October 11, 2009)

ii

A typical biography in the nationalist press could like this: On assignment from the OUN,
[Shukhevych] travelled to Gdansk, and in June 1941 he became the deputy commander of the so-called
Ukrainian Legion. It gathered the best Ukrainian youth in emigration in Poland and Germany. After
training them they marched east together with the German army. The legion reached Vinnytsia, but Hitler
did not like him, and punished him by liquidating the battalion. In 1943 Roman Shukhevych was elected
head of the Bureau of the Leadership of the OUN, and in the fall he occupied the position as Supreme
Commander of the UPA. Sign. Ukrainska Dumka, Roman Shukhevych-Taras Chuprynka, Ukrainski
visti, no. 22, May 29, 1975: 7.

iii

Ales Adamovich, Zapisnye knizhki raznykh let, Nman: Ezhemesiachnyi literaturno-khudozhestvennyi

i obshchestvenno-politicheskii zhurnal, no. 7, (July 1997): 14.

iv

Philip W. Blood, Hitlers Bandit Hunters: The SS and the Nazi Occupation of Europe (Washington, DC:
Potomac Books, Inc., 2006), 79.

vi

I. N. Kuznetsov and V. G. Mazets, eds. Istoriia Belarusi v dokumentakh i materialakh (Minsk: Amalfeia,
2000), 542, citing TsGAOR SSSR, f. 7445, op. 2, d. 140, l. 502-504; Erla des Chefs des
Oberkommandos der Wehrmacht Keitel ber Vergeltunsmanahmen bei Widerstand gegen die deutsche
Besatzungsmacht, vom 16. September 1941, in Johannes Schlootz ed., Deutsche Propaganda in
Weiruland 1941-1944: Eine Konfrontation von Propaganda und Wirklichkeit (Berlin: Freie Universitt
Berlin, 1996), 13.
vii

Helmut Krausnick, Hitlers Einsatzgruppen: Die Truppe des Weltanschauungskrieges 1938-1942

(Frankfurt a. M.: Fischer, 1993), 218.
viii

Blood, Hitlers Bandit Hunters, 54.

Hannes Heer, Killing Fields: The Wehrmacht and the Holocaust in Belorussia, 1941-1942, Holocaust
and Genocide Studies 11 (1997): 88, citing Kommandatur des Sicherungs-Gebietes Weiruthenien-Abt. Ic.
Lagebericht, 20. 2. 1942, BA-MA, RH 26-707-15, p. 4.

ix

Martin C. Dean, The German Gendarmerie, the Ukrainian Schutzmannschaft and the Second Wave of
Jewish killings in Occupied Ukraine: German Policing at the Local Level in the Zhitomir Region, 19411944, German History, Vol. 14, No. 2 (1996): 178.

Richard Breitman, Himmlers Police Auxiliaries in the Occupied Soviet Territories, Simon Wiesenthal
Center Annual, vol. 7 (1997): 27.

xi

Yehoshua Bchler, Kommandostab Reichsfhrer-SS: Himmlers Personal Murder Brigades in 1941,

Holocaust and Genocide Studies Vol. 1, No. 1, (1986): 94, citing the Stahlecker report, and Prague Military
Archives, V. H. A.: Pol. Reg. Mitte 13/74 and 5/36. Martin Dean, Collaboration in the Holocaust: Crimes
of the Local Police in Belorussia and Ukraine, 1941-44 (New York: St Martins Press, 2000), 77. See also
Dean (1996), 181, 192.

xii

xiii

Dean, Collaboration in the Holocaust (2000), 122.

xiv

By comparison, the balance was 1:1 in The General Gouvernment and Norway, 1:4 in the
Reichsprotektorat Bhmen-Mhren and the Netherlands, Serbia 1:6, France 1:15, and Russia 1:20, Petras
Stankeras, Litovskie politseiskie batalony 1941-1945 gg. (Moscow: Veche, 2009), 37.
xv

"The Minister of Citizenship and Immigration (applicant) v. Vladimir Katriuk (respondent) (T-2408-96)
Federal Court of Canada Trial Division, Nadon, J. January 29, 1999, Federal Trial Reports, Vol. 156
(Fredricton, NB: Maritime Law Book Ltd, 1999), 178-179.

The little-known role of the Gendarmerie and the Schutzmannschaft demonstrates the open or illconcealed nature of the genocide in the occupied territories of the Soviet Union. The Jews were killed by
shooting in pits close to their neighbours. As German forces, especially Security Police , were so thin on
the ground, most of the available local manpower had to be utilized to carry out such as vast programme.
Martin C. Dean, The German Gendarmerie,191.
xvi

Report by Gebietskommissar Carl, October 30, 1941, in Ernst Klee et al, (eds.) Schne Zeiten:
Judenmord aus der Sicht der Tter und Gaffer (Frankfurt a. M.: Fischer, 1988), 164-167.

xvii

xviii

Christopher R. Browning, Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the final Solution in Poland
(New York: Perennial, 1998), 150.
Ruth Bettina Birn, Zaunknig an Uhrmacher. Grosse Partisanaktionen 1942/43 am Beispiel des
Unternehmens Winterzauber, Militrgeschichtliche Zeitschrift No. 60 (2001): 99-101.

xix

xx

Mats Deland, Purgatorium: Sverige och andra vrldskrigets frbrytare (Stockholm: Bokfrlaget Atlas,
2010), 60.

Alexander Victor Prusin, Fascist Criminals to the Gallows!: The Holocaust and Soviet War Crimes
Trials, December 1945-February 1946, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Vol. 17, No. 1 (Spring 2003), 130; Karel C. Berkhoff, Dina Pronichevas Story of Surviving the Babi Yar Massacre: German, Jewish,
Soviet, Russian, and Ukrainian Records, in Ray Brandon and Wendy Lower (eds.) The Shoah in Ukraine:
History, Testimony, Memorialization, (Bloomington: Indiana University Press in Association with the
United States Holocaust Museum, 2008), 291-317. Other than Deans pioneering work on the Schuma in
Belarus, there is also Stankeras 2009 book on Lithuanian Schutzmannschaften. See also Per Anders
Rudling, The Khatyn Massacre: A Historical Controversy Revisited, Journal of Genocide Research
(Forthcoming).
xxi

xxii

Stankeras, Litovskie politseiskie batalony, 5.

Martin C. Dean, Der Historiker als Detektiv: Fluchtweger der einheimischen Schutzmannschaften und
anderer deutschen Polizeieinheiten aus der besetzten Sowjetunion, 1943-1944. http://www.fantomonline.de/seiten/scienc2.htm (accessed November 7, 2007)
xxiii

Richard Breitman, Himmlers Police Auxiliaries in the Occupied Soviet Territories, Simon
Wiesenthal Center Annual, vol. 7 (1997): 33.

xxiv

Andrii Bolianovskyi, Ukrainski viiskovyi formuvannia v zbroinykh sylakh Niemechchyny,, 1939-1945

(Lviv: LNU im. I. Franka, 2003), 143; Sergei Chuev, Ukrainskii Legion (Moscow: Iauza, 2006), 180.

xxv

Ievhen Pobihushchyi-Ren, Mozaka mokh spomyniv (Ivano-Frankivsk: Lileia-HB, 2002), 62.

Pobihushchyi, the former commander of the Roland battalion, served as an officer in Schutzmannschaft
battalion 201, and became an officer in the Waffen-SS Division Galizien in 1943. Bolianovskyi,
Ukrainski viiskovyi formuvannia, 60, 143, 360. The commanders of the other three companies were
Hauptmann Bryhyder, who later continued as an officer in SS Galizien, Vasylyi Sydor and Volodymyr
Pavliuk. DA SB Ukrany: F. 5, spr. 67418, T. 1, ark. 208-241, in Volodymyr Serhiichuk (ed.) Roman
Shukhevych u dokumentakh radianskykh orhaniv derzhavno bezpeky (1940-1950) Tom I. (Kyv: PP
Serhiichuk M.I., 2007), 529.
xxvi

Parmen Posokhov, Shukhevych. Beloe piatno v biografii, FRAZA, August 15, 2007
http://fraza.org.ua/zametki/15.08.07/40788.html?c=post&i=113503 (accessed November 18, 2007)

xxvii

Chuev, Ukrainskii Legion, 180; Volodymyr Viatrovych, Roman Shukhevych: soldat, Ukranska
Pravda, May 2, 2008. http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2008/4/25/75222.htm (accessed May 6, 2008), Ren,
115; Bolianovskyi, Ukrainski viiskovyi formuvannia, 143.
xxviii

Bolyanovskyi, Ukrainski viiskovyi formuvannia 144; Stepan Kotelets-Lisovyi, Mii spomnyn z

legionu: U Krakovi i Komanchi, in Myroslav Kalba, (ed.), U lavakh druzhynnykiv: spohady uchasnykiv
(Denver: Vydavnytstva Druzhyn ukrainskykh natsionalistiv, 1982), 91.

xxix

Katchanovski, Terrorists or National Heores?, 13-14, see also Petro Sodol, Ukrainska povstanska
armiia, 1943-49. Dovidnyk. (New York: Proloh, 1994).
xxx

Mykola Posivnych, Roman Shukhevych (30.VI.1907-5.III.1950) in Petro J. Potichnyj and Mykola

Posivnych (eds.), Litopys Ukransko Povstansko Armi, Tom 45, Heneral Roman Shukhevych Taras
Chuprynka Holovnyi Komandyr UPA (Toronto and Lviv: Vydavnytstvo Litopys UPA, 2007) 29, citing
Myroslav Kalba, Druzhyny Ukranskykh Natsionalistiv (Detroit: DUN, 1994), 45-53, 75-80.

xxxi

xxxii

Pohibushchyi, Mozaka mokh spomyniv (1982/2002), 64.

xxxiii

Bolianovskyi, Ukrainski viiskovyi formuvannia, 144; Chuev, Ukrainskii Legion, 183.

xxxiv

R. A. Chernoglazova (ed.) Tragediia evreev Belorussii v gody nemetskoi okkupatsii (1941-1944):

Sbornik materialov i dokumentov (Minsk: Ia. B. Dremach and E. S. Halperin, 1995), 169-181.
xxxv

Bolianovskyi, Ukrainski viiskovyi formuvannia, 143-151.

Frank Golczewski Die Kollaboration in der Ukraine, in Christoph Dieckmann, Babette Quinkert,
Tatjana Tnsmeyer (eds.), Kooperation und Verbrechen. Formen der Kollaboration im stlichen Europa
1939-1945 (Gttingen: Wallenstein, 2003), 176. However, Golczewski does not provide a footnote or
source for this claim.
xxxvi

Myroslav Kalba, DUN v rozbudovi UPA (Detroit and Ternopil: Dzhura, 2005), 109-112; Kalba in
Ievhen Pobihushchyi-Ren, Mozaka mokh spomyniv. Tom druhyi. (Munich and London: Ievhen
Pobihushchyi-Ren and the Association of Ukrainian Former Combatants in Great Britain, 1985, 264.

xxxvii

In his post-war correspondence with Pobihushchyi, Myroslav Kalba refers to the activities of the
Wiesenthal Centre as a Jewish assault that knows no limits. Volume two of Pobihushyis memoirs
contains a section on his correspondence with other former Schutzmnner. In his attack Wiesenthal lies to
create a narrative which Nachtigal and Roland leave a trail of blood all the way to Kyiv and Babyn Iar.
The Jewish assaults know no limits, Myroslav Kalba and his wife Iryna wrote Pobihushchyi-Ren on
February 23, 1983. Pobihushchyi-Ren, Mozaka mokh spomyniv, 268.

xxxviii

Teodor Krochak, Vytiahy z shchodennyka 1941-1943 rr. Pro pobut u Legioni DUN, in Myroslav
Kalba (ed.), U lavkah druzhynnykiv; Druzhyny Ukranskykh Nationalistiv v 1941-1942 rokakh (n.p: Vydia Druzhyny ukranskskykh nationalistiv, 1953), 59, 63, 65, 69, 72. There are some uncertainties regarding
the authorship of this volume. In addition to an unsigned foreword, this collection of memoirs lists four
authors, Ievhen Pobihushchyi, Teodor Krochak, Karlo Malyi and Ievhen Ren. Later in life Ievhen
Pobihushyi used the name Ievhen Pobihushchyi-Ren. In his 1982 memoirs, Pobihushchyi-Ren writes that
the 1953 volume had three authors, namely himself, Krochak and Malyi. He also informs his readers that
unsigned forward was written by Stepan Lenkavskyi. Pobihushchyi-Ren, 53. Likely, the Ievhen
Pobihushyi and Ievhen Ren of the 1953 volume was the same person.

xxxix

Anatolii Kentii and Volodymyr Lozytskyi, From UVO fighter to sumpreme commander of the UPA,
in P. Sokan and P. Potichnyj, (eds.), Zhyttia i borotba Henerala Tarasa Chuprynky (1907-1950):
dokumenty i materialy Litopys UPA, nova seriia, 10,(Kyiv and Toronto: Litopys UPA, 2007), 95;
Bolianovskyi, Ukrainski viiskovyi formuvannia, 59.

xl

Krochak, Vytiahy z shchodennyka, 59, 63, 65, 69, 72; Kalba, U lavakh Druzhynykiv, 102, 104, 105,
106. In 2008, Kalba added that All other companies were placed far from Borovkiv, such as Zhar,
Komenia, Voronezha and others. Myroslav Kalba, Nakhtigal v zapytanniakh i vidpovidiakh
Myroslava Kalby (Lviv: Halytskka vydavnycha spilka, 2008), 45. Ievhen Pobihushchyi-Ren, Mozaka
mokh spomyniv (Munich and London: Ievhen Pobihushchyi and the Association of Ukrainian Former
Combatants in Great Britain, 1982), 87, 97, 103. The first volume of Pobihushchyi-Rens memoirs
appeared in a second edition in 2002. Myroslav Kalba, My prysiahaly Ukrani: DUN 1941-1942 (Lviv:
Memuarna biblioteka NTSh, 1999), 63, 69, 70, 79; A 1982 collection of veteran memories, edited by
Kalba follows the same trend, containing little information on its activities in Belarus, focusing more on
the battalions whereabouts in 1941 and its dissolution. Most of the contributions are non-committal as to its
specific whereabouts, or use abbreviations. However, a certain Vasyl (no last name provided) mentions
being stationed in Zhary, Letel [sic?] and the city Voronezh on the Biarezina river around Easter, 1942,
and Krochak locates his first baptism of fire to the southeast of Zhariv, by Homol, where none of us had
been before. A chapter by Stepan Kotelets-Lisovyi mentions a few localities in Belarus the villages
Cherven, Komen, the village Porych, not far from Komen,Borovka, Zhary, and the village Voronezh
on the Biarezina river, but does not give the dates for its specific whereabouts. Myroslav Kalba, U lavkah
druzhynnykiv: spohady uchasnykiv. Materialy zibrav i vporiadkuvav Myroslav Kalba. (Denver: Vyd-ia
Druzhyny ukranskykh natsionalistiv, 1982), 91-95, 102, 104, 105, 106, 117, 119, 144.

xli

xlii

Pobihushchyi-Ren, Mozaka mokh spomyniv (1982/2002), 65.

xliii

David Meltser and Vladimir Levin, The Black Book with Red Pages (Tragedy and heroism of
Belorussian Jews) (Cockneysville, MD: VIA Press, 2005), 249.
xliv

Meltser and Levin, The Black Book, 106.

xlv

Krochak,Vytiahy z shchodennyka, 76, 82.

xlvi

Pobihushchyi-Ren, Mozaka mokh spomyniv (2002), 65

xlvii

Petro Sodol, Ukranska Povstancha Armiia 1942-1942: Dovidnyk. (New York: Proloh, 1994), 99.

Bolianovskyi, Ukrainski viiskovyi formuvannia, 144, citing TsDAHO Ukrany, f. 57, op. 4, spr. 340,
ark. 29-30; DA SB Ukrany: F. 5, spr. 67418, T. 1, ark. 208-241, in Volodymyr Serhiichuk, Roman
Shukhevych u dokumentakh radianskykh orhaniv derzhavnoi bekpeki (1940-1950) Tom I. (Kyiv: PP
Serhiichuk M. I., 2007), 529.
xlviii

Protokol doprosa obviniaemogo BODNARA Antona Andreevicha 29 iuinia 1945 goda, DA SB

Ukrany, F. 5, Spr. 67418, t. 1, ark. 138-146, in P. Sokhan and P. Potichnyj (eds.), Litopys UPA, Nova
seriia, tom 9, Borotba proty povstanskoho rukhu i natsionaluistychnoho pidpillia: protokoly dopytiv
xlix

zaareshtovanykh radianskymy orhanamy derzhavno bezpeky kerivnykiv OUN i UPA 1944-1945 (Kyv and
Toronto: Litopys UPA, 2007), 320, 328, 63.
Protokol dopolnitelnogo doprosa Pevlyk Vladimira Ivanovicha 8 avgusta 1945 goda, DA SB Ukrany,
Lviv, Spr. P-36445, ark. 97-98 zv., in Sokhan and Potichnyj (eds.), Litopys UPA, Nova seriia, tom 9, 564565, 73.

li

Sokhan and Potichnyj (eds.), Litopys UPA Nova seriia, tom 9, 78.

Meldungen an den Fhrer ber Bandenbekmpfung, Nr. 37 (E-spiel), Nov. 3, 1942 and Nr. 36,
Ergebnisse im Gebiet Russland Mitte, Gefecht des Schutzmannschafts-Battallions 201 20 km Nrdlich
Lepel, Nov. 3, 1942, Serial 124, Roll 124, Reichsfhrer-SS u. Chef der Deutschen Polizei Feldkommandostelle. T-175, Item EAP 161-b-12/250, 1st frame, 2598495, Guide to German Records
Microfilmed at Alexandria, VA. No. 33, Records of the Reich Leader of the SS and Chief of the German
Police (Part II), (Washington, DC: The National Archives, National Archives and Record Service General
Service Administration 1961), 4. http://www.archives.gov/research/microfilm/t175-2.pdf (Accessed
January 17, 2010)
lii

liii

Dean The German Gendarmerie, (1996), 179.

Ievhen Pohibushchyi, Druzhyny Ukranskykh Natsionalistiv na Bilorusi, in Kalba (ed.) Druzhyny

Ukranskykh Natsionalistiv u 1941-1942, 38.

liv

Pohibushchyi, Druzhyny Ukranskykh Natsionalistiv na Bilorusi, in Kalba (ed.) Druzhyny

Ukranskykh Natsionalistiv, 38.

lv

Pobihushchyi in Kalba (ed.), U lavkah druzhynnykiv (1953), 40; Pobihushchyi-Ren Mozaka mokh
spomyniv (2002), 85.
lvi

Posivnych, Roman Shukhevych (30.VI.1907-5.III.1950) in Potichnyj and Posivnych (eds.), Litopys

Ukransko Povstansko Armi, Tom 45, Heneral Roman Shukhevych Taras Chuprynka Holovnyi
Komandyr UPA (Toronto and Lviv: Vydavnytstvo Litopys UPA, 2007) 29, citing Myroslav Kalba,
Druzhyny Ukranskykh Natsionalistiv (Detroit: DUN, 1994), 45-53, 75-80; Chuev, Ukrainskii legion, 184.

lvii

Ievhen [Pobihushchyi]-Ren, Spohady pro generala Romana Shukhevycha, in Kalba (ed.) Druzhyny
Ukranskykh Natsionalistiv u 1941-1942, 123.

lviii

lix

Der Befehlshaber der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD im Generalgouvernment an das

Reichssicherheitshauptamt Amt VII Berlin. February 2, 1943, Meldungen aus dem
Generalgouvernement fr die Zeit von 1. Bis 31. Januar 1943. P. 0310, p. 8, reproduced in Heinz Boberach
(ed.), Regimekritik, Widerstand und Verfolgung in Deutschland und den besetzten Gebieten [microform]:
Meldungen und Berichte aus dem Geheimen Staatspolizeiamt, dem SD-Hauptampts der SS und dem
Reichssicherheitsamt 1933-1944, Teil II: Besetzte und angeglierdete Gebiete (1939-1945) Mikrofische 006.
Mit grossem Unwillen wurde die Auflsung des ukrainischen Bat. 20 [sic!] der Schutzmannschaften in
der Ostukraine [sic!] aufgenommen. Die Festnahme des Offizierskorps, das frher die bekannten RolandNachtigallunternehmen gefhrt hat, stiess auf allgemeines Unverstndnis und fhrte insbesondere unter den
Kreisen der Intelligenz in Lemberg zu einer weitgehenden Beunruhigung, die sich erst nach Freilassung der
Offiziere allmhlich legte. Ibid, p. 8-9, P. 0310, 0311.

lx

lxi

DA SB Ukrany: F. 5, spr. 67418, T. 1, ark. 208-241, in Serhiichuk, Roman Shukhevych, Tom I., 529530.
lxii

Kalba, DUN v rozbudovi UPA, 68.

I. K. Patryliak, Viiskova diialnist OUN(b) u 1940-1942 rokakh (Kyiv: Kyvskyi natsionalnyi

universytet imeni Tarasa Shevchenko, Instytut istroi Ukrany NAN Ukrany, 2004), 386.

lxiii

Meldung Nr. 36, Ergebnisse im Gebiet Russland Mitte. Gefecht des Schutzmannschafts-Batallions 201,
20 km nrdlich Lepel, Feld-kommandostelle Nov 3, 1942 Records of the Reich Leader of the SS and
Chief of the German Police [Reichsfhrer-SS und Chef der deutschen Polizei] United States National
Archives and Records Administration (Henceforth NARA), EAP T-175, item161-b-12/250, reel 124, frame
2599081; Blood, 90-91, citing Tagesbuch von dem Bach (TVDB), Bundesarchiv, Berlin (Lichterfelde) A
R20/45b, 55-95.

lxiv

lxv

This folder, containing materials captured by the US Army, bears annotations showing that Hitler had
seen it. US National Archives, MF-3293, T-175, roll 124, Reichsfhrer-SS Chef der Deutschen Polizei,
Feld-Kommandostelle, NARA EAP T-175, item 161-b-12/250, frames 2598495 to 2599093.
www.archives.gov/research/microfilm/t175-2.pdf (Accessed January 17, 2010)
Meldung 51a, Russland-Sd, Ukraine, Bialystok vom 1.9. bis 1.12. 1942, December 29, 1942.
NARA, RG 242, T175, reel 81, frame 2601524. Also cited in Blood, 90.

lxvi

lxvii

NARA MF-3293, T-175, roll 124, frames 2599081, 2599082, 2599007, 2598963, 2896965, 2598940,
2598915, 2598937, 2598916, 2598925, 2598926, 2598836, 2598837, 2598814-2598815, 25987752598778, 25987783-25987784, 2598709, 2598710, 2598703-2598704, 2598692-2598693, 2598653,
2598655.
lxviii

Reichsfhrer-SS Chef der Deutschen Polizei, Meldungen 35, 36, 37, 38, 40, 41, 42, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49,
51, 55, and 56, issued November 3, 1942 to January 17, 1943. NARA MF-3293, T-175, roll 124

Manfred Messerschmidt, expert report, cited in The Minister of Citizenship and Immigration
(applicant) v. Vladimir Katriuk (respondent) (T-2408-96) Federal Court of Canada Trial Division, Nadon,
J. January 29, 1999, Federal Trial Reports, Vol. 156 (Fredricton, NB: Maritime Law Book Ltd, 1999),
183.
lxix

lxx

Gerlach, Kalkulierte Morde, 907.

Minister vs. Katriuk, 184, citing Manfred Messerschmidt expert report on Schutzmannschaft
battalions 115 and 118.

lxxi

lxxii

Marples (2007), 195;

lxxiii

Other Schutzmannschaft battalions saw mass desertions around the same time. On Schutzmannschaft
battalions 115 and 118, see Duda and Staryk, 132, 152. On Schutzmannschaft battalion 103, see Ivan
Kachanovskyi, Ukraintsy ne veriat v mify ob OUN i UPA, Fraza.ua, October 14, 2009,
http://www.fraza.ua/print/14.10.09/76064.html (Accessed January 22, 2010) See also Katchanovski,
Terrorists or National Heroes?
lxxiv

Serhiichuk (ed.) Roman Shukhevych, Tom I. ,11. Timothy Snyder gives a somewhat higher number,
around 5,000 Ukrainians from the Schutzmannschaften deserted to join the UPA in March, 1943. Timothy
Snyder, To Resolve the Ukrainian Problem Once and for All: The Ethnic Cleansing of Ukrainians in
Poland, 1943-1947, Cold War Studies, Vol. 1, No. 2, (1999): 97.
lxxv

lxxvi

Katchanovski, Terrorists or National Heroes?

Timothy Snyder, The Reconstruction of Nations; Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus, 1569-1999
(Princeton, NJ: Yale University Press, 2003), 162; Franziska Bruder, Den ukrainischen Staat erkmpfen
oder sterben!: Die Organisation Ukrainischer Nationalisten (OUN) 1929-1948 (Berlin: Metropol, 2007),
184.

John-Paul Himka, Ukrainian Collaboration in the Extermination of the Jews During the Second
World War: Sorting Out the Long-Term and Conjunctural Factors, in The Fate of the European Jews,
1939-1945: Continuity or Contingency, ed. Jonathan Frankel (New York and Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1997), Studies in Contemporary Jewry 13 (1997): 179.
lxxvii

lxxviii

Wolf-Dietrich Heike, Sie wollten die Freiheit: Die Geschichte der Ukrainischen Division 1943-1945
(Dorheim: Podzun-Verlag, n.d), 42.
lxxix

Pobihushchyi-Ren, Mozaka mokh spomyniv (1982/2002), 72. The Ukrainian National Army was the
name the members of the 14. Waffen-Grenadier-Division der SS (Galizische Nr. 1) chose for their
organization on March 17, 1945. In their own writings, they avoid using the term SS.
lxxx

Nationalnyi Arkhiv Respubliki Belarus (NARB), f. 1450, vop. 4, d. 168, ll. 70, 72, 153.

TsDAVOU, f. 3833, op. 2, spr. 1, ark. 246-247, as cited in Vitalii Nakhmanovych, Do pytannia pro
sklad uchasnykiv karalnykh aktsii v okupovanomu Kyievi (1941-1943) in V. R. Nakmanovych et al, (eds.)
Druha svitova viina i dolia narodiv Ukrany: Materialy 2- Vseukransko naukovo konferentsi m. Kyv,
30-31 zhovtnia 2006 r. (Kyiv: Zovnishtorhvydav, 2007), 254.
lxxxi

Former Nachtigall and Schuma 201 veteran Myroslav Kalba, one of the few surviving veterans of
Nachtigall and Schutzmannschaft battalion 201, who was present in Lviv on June 30th, 1941, deny that that
well-documented pogrom took place, and claims not to have seen anyone killed. Myroslav Kalba,
Nakhtigal v zapytanniakh i vidpovidiakh Myroslava Kalby (Lviv: Halytska vydavnycha spilka, 2008),
23-25. Survivors of the Lviv pogrom remember these events very differently, and emphasize the role of
Ukrainian militiamen in the pogroms. On eye witness testimonies and photographs from the Lviv pogrom
See Ivan Khymka [John-Paul Himka] Dostovirnist svidchennia: reliatsiia Ruzi Vagner pro lvivskyi
pohrom vlitku 1941 r, Holokost i suchasnist: studii v Ukraini i sviti No. 2, vol. 4 (2008): 43-79. That
memories are selective and self-serving is well-known. On how participants in well-documented events
suppress their memories to make them conform to a particular political agenda, see John-Paul Himka and
Eva Himka, Absense and Presence of Genocide and Memory: The Holocaust and the Holodomor in
Interviews with Elderly Ukrainian Nationalists in Lviv, Fifth Annual Danyliw Research Seminar of
Contemporary Ukrainian Studies, Chair of Ukrainian Studies, University of Ottawa, October 29, 2009.

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For an example of this see, for instance, Volodymyr Viatrovych, Stavlennia OUN do evreiv:
Formuvannia pozytsii na tli katastrofy (Lviv: Vydavnytstvo Ms, 2006), 77-79, but see also Taras Kurylo
and John-Paul Himka [Ivan Pavlo Khymka] Iak OUN stavylasia do ievreiv? Rosdumy nad knyzhkoiu
Volodymyra Viatrovycha. Ukraina Moderna vo. 12 (2008): 252-265. We know the names of four Jews
who served in UPA. This is presented as evidence that the OUN and UPA could not have been antiSemitic. The UPAs murder of thousands of Jews is overlooked, ignored, or denied by nationalists
historians and OUN apologists. Per Anders Rudling and John-Paul Himka, The Ukrainian Insurgent Army
(UPA) and the Holocaust, paper presented at the 41st National Convention of the American Association
for the Advancement of Slavic Studies (AAASS), Boston, MA, November 13, 2009.
lxxxiii

Bronisaw Komorowski, Marszaek Sejmu, Uchwaa Sejmu Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej z dnia 15 lipca
2009 r. w sprawie tragicznego losu Polakw na Kresach Wschodnich Website of the Sejm of the Republic
of Poland, http://orka.sejm.gov.pl/opinie6.nsf/nazwa/2183_u/$file/2183_u.pdf (accessed October 18, 2009)
lxxxiv

In his diary, OUN(b), Nachtigal, and Schutzmannschaft battalion 201 member Viktor Kharkiv
(Khmara), describes how he was physically abused by Shukhevych. After visiting the barber without telling
his superiors Kharkiv (Khmara), other members of his battalion go looking for him. Returning from the
barber shop, I run into captain Shukhevych, who has been told about the fact. On the spot he attacked me,
asked me how I could have managed to get out, despite the explicit prohibition of leaving the sealed-off
limits around the casern. I began explaining that I had only been to the barber. Captain Shukhevych did not
lxxxv

listen to that and punched me in the face. TsDAVO Ukrainy, f. 3833, op. 1, spr. 57, ark. 18. Thanks to
Grzegorz Rossoliski-Liebe for this reference.
Viktor Kharkiv (Kharma) wrote in his diary: At the time of our march eastwards we saw with our
own eyes the victims of the Judeo-Bolshevik terror, and the sight of it so strengthened our hatred to the
Jews, that in two villages we shot all the Jews we encountered. I recall one example. At the time of our
march through one village we saw many vagrant people. Asked where they were going, they answered that
the Jews were threatening them and that they are afraid of spending the nights in their houses. As a result of
that, we shot all the Jews we encountered there. TsDAVO Ukrainy, f. 3833, op. 1, spr. 57, ark. 17. Also in
Ivan Kazymyrovych Patryliak, Viiskova diialnist OUN(b) u 1940-1942 rokakh (Kyiv: NAN Ukrany,
2004), 361-362.

lxxxvi

Grzegorz Rossoliski-Liebe, Den polnisch-ukrainische Historikerdiskurs ber den polnischukrainischen Konflikt 1943-1947, Jahrbcher fr Geschichte Osteuropas, No. 57 (2009): 54-85; JohnPaul Himka The Ukrainian Insurgent Army and the Holocaust, Paper presented at the 2009 National
Convention of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, Boston, MA, November
13, 2009.

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lxxxviii

Other Schutzmannschaft battalions from the General Government, such as 203 and 204 consisted of
Trawniki men, many of which came to staff the death camps of Sobibor and Beec. Frank Golczewski,
Shades of Grey: Reflections on Jewish-Ukrainian and German-Ukrainian Relations in Galicia, in Ray
Brandon and Wendy Lower (eds.), The Shoah in Ukraine: history, testimony, memorialization
(Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press in association with the United States Holocaust
Memorial Museum, 2008), 114-155. On the activities of Schutzmannschaft battalion 115/118, see Per
Anders Rudling, The Khatyn Massacre: A Historical Controversy Revisisted, Journal of Genocide
Research (Forthcoming)
Gabriel Finder and Aleksander Prusin, Collaboration in Eastern Galicia: The Ukrainian Police and the
Holocaust, East European Jewish Affairs, Vol. 34 No. 2 (2004): 102; Karel Berkhoff and Marco
Carynnyk,The Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and Its Attitude towards Germans and Jews:
Iaroslav Stetskos 1941 Zhyttiepys, Harvard Ukrainian Studies vol. XXIII, no. 3-4 (1999): 171.

lxxxix

The OUN(b) blueprint for its wartime activities, Borotba i diialnist OUN pid chas viiny from May,
1941, authored by Shukhevych, Stetsko, Lenkavskyi and Bandera, outlined the creation of an OUN
Peoples militia, the establishment of internment camps, set up for Jews, asocial elements and captives.
[Tabir internovanykh, pryznachenyi dlia zhydiv, asotsialnykh elementiv ta polonenykh] It demanded
Ukraine for the Ukrainians!...Death to the Muscovite-Jewish commune! Beat the commune, save
Ukraine![Ukraina dlia Ukraintsiv!...Smert moskovsko-zhydivskyi komuni! Byi komunu, spasai
Ukrainu!], demanding a dogs death for the Muscovite-Jewish outsiders [moskovsko-zhydivskykh
zaid]. TsDAVO Ukrainy, f. 3833, op. 2, spr. 1, ark. 57-76. Kopiia. Mashynopys and TsDAVO Ukrainy, f.
3855, op. 1, spr. 2, ark. 1-2. Kopiia. Mashynopys. Both published in Stanislav Kulchytskyi et al (eds.),
OUN v 1941 roki. Dokumenty, Chastyna 1. (Kyiv: Natsionalna akademiia nauk Ukrainy, Instytut istorii
Ukrainy, 2006), 143, 159, 165.

xc

xci

On Generalplan Ost, see Czesaw Madajczyk (ed.), Generalny Plan Wschodni: Zbir dokumentw
(Warszawa: Glwna Komisja Badania Zbrodni Hitlerowskich w Polsce, 1990) and Czesaw Madajczyk,
General Plan East: Hitlers Master Plan for Expansion, Polish Western Affairs, vol. III, no.2 (1962),
accessed online, http://www.worldfuturefund.org/wffmaster/Reading/GPO/gpoarticle.HTM (August 28,
2009).