Schooling in Murder: Schutzmannschaft Battalion 201 and Hauptmann Roman Shukhevych in Belarus 1942
Per Anders Rudling
Ernst-Moritz-Arndt-Universität, Greifswald (Germany).
Introduction
The OUN(b) and UPA’s campaign to cleanse Western Ukraine of its non-Ukrainian minorities in 1943 and 1944 was carried out in a brutal, systematic fashion. The UPA’s 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.
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; 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): 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. 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 UPA’s 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 L’viv pogrom has been the topic of heated discussions.
On the controversies surrounding Nachtigall and the L’viv pogrom, see Philip-Christian Wachs, Der Fall Theodor Oberländer (1905-1998): ein Lehrstück 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://ww2-historicalmemory.org.ua/abstract_e.html (Accessed October 11, 2009) A less known, and often overlooked aspect of Shukhevych’s service for Nazi Germany was his whereabouts in 1942, something often omitted in the nationalist historiography.
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. ‘Ukrains’ka Dumka,’ “Roman Shukhevych-Taras Chuprynka,” Ukrains’ki visti, no. 22, May 29, 1975: 7. During this year, Shukhevych served as Hauptmann (captain) of the Schutzmannschaften, and stood under the command of Höhere Polizei- und SS-Führer Heinrich Himmler. This paper is an attempt to document this white spot in the Shukhevych’s 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 Stalin’s call for a partisan movement in the summer of 1941, exclaimed “That’s only good, it gives us a possibility to the exterminate everybody who challenges our rule.”
Ales’ Adamovich, ”Zapisnye knizhki raznykh let,” Nëman: Ezhemesiachnyi literaturno-khudozhestvennyi i obshchestvenno-politicheskii zhurnal, no. 7, (July 1997): 14. Hitler himself compared the fighting of partisans with that of the struggle against “red Indians.”
Philip W. Blood, Hitler’s Bandit Hunters: The SS and the Nazi Occupation of Europe (Washington, DC: Potomac Books, Inc., 2006), 79. 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.”
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; “Erlaß des Chefs des Oberkommandos der Wehrmacht Keitel über Vergeltunsmaßnahmen bei Widerstand gegen die deutsche Besatzungsmacht, vom 16. September 1941,” in Johannes Schlootz ed., Deutsche Propaganda in Weißrußland 1941-1944: Eine Konfrontation von Propaganda und Wirklichkeit (Berlin: Freie Universität Berlin, 1996), 13. At a September, 1941 meeting for army officers, von dem Bach-Zelewski and SS-Brigadeführer 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.”
Helmut Krausnick, Hitlers Einsatzgruppen: Die Truppe des Weltanschauungskrieges 1938-1942 (Frankfurt a. M.: Fischer, 1993), 218. In December, 1941, one month before the Wannsee conference, Himmler’s appointment book carried the cryptic note “Jewish question/to be exterminated as partisans.”
Blood, Hitler’s Bandit Hunters, 54. 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.
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 Weißruthenien-Abt. Ic. Lagebericht, 20. 2. 1942, BA-MA, RH 26-707-15, p. 4.
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,
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, 1941-1944,” German History, Vol. 14, No. 2 (1996): 178. including the execution of Jews and Communists.
Richard Breitman, “Himmler’s Police Auxiliaries in the Occupied Soviet Territories,” Simon Wiesenthal Center Annual, vol. 7 (1997): 27. Central assignments were “anti-partisan warfare, searching the ghettoes and sealing them off during Aktionen, to executions at the murder sites.”
Yehoshua Büchler, “Kommandostab Reichsführer-SS: Himmler’s 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 Martin’s Press, 2000), 77. See also Dean (1996), 181, 192.
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.
Dean, Collaboration in the Holocaust (2000), 122.
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.
By comparison, the balance was 1:1 in The General Gouvernment and Norway, 1:4 in the Reichsprotektorat Böhmen-Mähren and the Netherlands, Serbia 1:6, France 1:15, and Russia 1:20, Petras Stankeras, Litovskie politseiskie batal’ony 1941-1945 gg. (Moscow: Veche, 2009), 37. With the exception of the Soviet POWs, the Schutzmänner were recruited on a voluntary basis.
"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 activities of the very institution of the Schutzmannschaft are one of the lesser-known episodes of the Holocaust.
“The little-known role of the Gendarmerie and the Schutzmannschaft demonstrates the ‘open’ or ill-concealed 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. While there are considerable documentary evidence and witness accounts to establish the participation of the Schutzmannschaften in Nazi war crimes,
Report by Gebietskommissar Carl, October 30, 1941, in Ernst Klee et al, (eds.) ”Schöne Zeiten”: Judenmord aus der Sicht der Täter und Gaffer (Frankfurt a. M.: Fischer, 1988), 164-167. 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. Anti-partisan activities were considered as conventional war crimes, and something to which the Federal German prosecutors in Ludwigsburg generally paid little interest.
Christopher R. Browning, Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the final Solution in Poland (New York: Perennial, 1998), 150.
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.
Ruth Bettina Birn, “’Zaunkönig’ an ’Uhrmacher.’ Grosse Partisanaktionen 1942/43 am Beispiel des ’Unternehmens Winterzauber,’” Militärgeschichtliche Zeitschrift No. 60 (2001): 99-101. Until the late 1960s, a large part of the evidence was kept in inaccessible Soviet archives.
Mats Deland, Purgatorium: Sverige och andra världskrigets förbrytare (Stockholm: Bokförlaget Atlas, 2010), 60. Soviet war crimes trial records of former Schutzmänner 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.
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), 1-30; Karel C. Berkhoff, “Dina Pronicheva’s 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 Dean’s 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).
In addition, many documents were destroyed during, or immediately after the war.
Stankeras, Litovskie politseiskie batal’ony, 5. At the end of the war, many members of the Schutzmannschaften retreated with the German army. A survey of about 200 Schutzmänner indicated that over 30 per cent of them remained in the west after the war.
Martin C. Dean, ”Der Historiker als Detektiv: Fluchtweger der einheimischen Schutzmannschaften und anderer deutschen Polizeieinheiten aus der besetzten Sowjetunion, 1943-1944.” http://www.fantom-online.de/seiten/scienc2.htm (accessed November 7, 2007) Few, if any, were held accountable for their actions. Western countries have yet to try a single Schutzmann for war crimes.
Richard Breitman, “Himmler’s Police Auxiliaries in the Occupied Soviet Territories,” Simon Wiesenthal Center Annual, vol. 7 (1997): 33.
Schutzmannschaft Battalion 201
On June 30, 1941, in L’viv, 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 Sturmbannführer (major) Ieven Pobihushchyi, under the supervision of the German Hauptmann Wilhelm Mocha.
Andrii Bolianovs’kyi, Ukrains’ki viiskovyi formuvannia v zbroinykh sylakh Niemechchyny,, 1939-1945 (L’viv: LNU im. I. Franka, 2003), 143; Sergei Chuev, Ukrainskii Legion (Moscow: Iauza, 2006), 180. Roman Shukhevych’s title was that of Hauptmann (captain) of the first company and deputy commander of the legion.
Ievhen Pobihushchyi-Ren, Mozaїka moїkh spomyniv (Ivano-Frankiv’sk: “Lileia-HB,” 2002), 62. 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.
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. Bolianovs’kyi, Ukrains’ki 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 Ukraїny: F. 5, spr. 67418, T. 1, ark. 208-241, in Volodymyr Serhiichuk (ed.) Roman Shukhevych u dokumentakh radians’kykh orhaniv derzhavnoї bezpeky (1940-1950) Tom I. (Kyїv: PP Serhiichuk M.I., 2007), 529.
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) 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.
Chuev, Ukrainskii Legion, 180; Volodymyr V’’iatrovych, “Roman Shukhevych: soldat,” Ukraїns’ka Pravda, May 2, 2008. http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2008/4/25/75222.htm (accessed May 6, 2008), Ren, 115; Bolianovs’kyi, Ukrains’ki viiskovyi formuvannia, 143. To the battalion were added 60 Soviet POWs from Poltava and Dnipropetrovs’k oblasti, selected by Shukhevych.
Bolyanovs’kyi, Ukrains’ki viiskovyi formuvannia 144; Stepan Kotelets’-Lisovyi, ”Mii spomnyn z legionu: U Krakovi i Komanchi,” in Myroslav Kal’ba, (ed.), U lavakh druzhynnykiv: spohady uchasnykiv (Denver: Vydavnytstva Druzhyn ukrains’kykh natsionalistiv, 1982), 91. Several future UPA commanders served in Schutzmannschaft Battalion 201, besides Roman Shukhevych himself, there was also Oleksander Luts’kyi, 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.
Katchanovski, “Terrorists or National Heores?”, 13-14, see also Petro Sodol, Ukrainska povstanska armiia, 1943-49. Dovidnyk. (New York: Proloh, 1994).
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.
Mykola Posivnych, “Roman Shukhevych (30.VI.1907-5.III.1950)” in Petro J. Potichnyj and Mykola Posivnych (eds.), Litopys Ukraїns’koї Povstans’koї Armiї, Tom 45, Heneral Roman Shukhevych – ”Taras Chuprynka” Holovnyi Komandyr UPA (Toronto and L’viv: Vydavnytstvo “Litopys UPA,” 2007) 29, citing Myroslav Kal’ba, Druzhyny Ukraїns’kykh Natsionalistiv (Detroit: DUN, 1994), 45-53, 75-80. The Schutzmänner 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 so-called 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 Belarus…
Pohibushchyi, Mozaїka moїkh spomyniv (1982/2002), 64.
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,
Bolianovs’kyi, Ukrains’ki viiskovyi formuvannia, 144; Chuev, Ukrainskii Legion, 183. at the time of the implementation of the Holocaust of the Belarusian Jews.
R. A. Chernoglazova (ed.) Tragediia evreev Belorussii v gody nemetskoi okkupatsii (1941-1944): Sbornik materialov i dokumentov (Minsk: Ia. B. Dremach and E. S. Hal’perin, 1995), 169-181.
There is no consensus in the sources about the activities of the battalion. Andrii Bolianovs’kyi’s magisterial work on Ukrainian military formations in the service of Nazi Germany dedicates but a few pages to the division’s whereabouts in 1942.
Bolianovs’kyi, Ukrains’ki viiskovyi formuvannia, 143-151. Frank Golczewski describes the activities of Schutzmannschaft Battalion 201 as “fighting partisans and killing Jews,” but does not provide a source for this claim.
Frank Golczewski “Die Kollaboration in der Ukraine,” in Christoph Dieckmann, Babette Quinkert, Tatjana Tönsmeyer (eds.), Kooperation und Verbrechen. Formen der “Kollaboration“ im östlichen Europa 1939-1945 (Göttingen: Wallenstein, 2003), 176. However, Golczewski does not provide a footnote or source for this claim.
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.
Myroslav Kal’ba, DUN v rozbudovi UPA (Detroit and Ternopil’: Dzhura, 2005), 109-112; Kal’ba in Ievhen Pobihushchyi-Ren, Mozaїka moїkh spomyniv. Tom druhyi. (Munich and London: Ievhen Pobihushchyi-Ren and the Association of Ukrainian Former Combatants in Great Britain, 1985, 264.
The veterans were acutely aware of efforts to track down collaborators and perpetrators.
In his post-war correspondence with Pobihushchyi, Myroslav Kal’ba refers to the activities of the Wiesenthal Centre as “a Jewish assault that knows no limits.” Volume two of Pobihushyi’s memoirs contains a section on his correspondence with other former Schutzmänner. “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 Kal’ba and his wife Iryna wrote Pobihushchyi-Ren on February 23, 1983. Pobihushchyi-Ren, Mozaїka moїkh spomyniv, 268. Most published veteran memoirs avoid any specific mention of the battalion’s geographic whereabouts. Pobihushchyi’s 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 Krochak’s diary, an edited version of which appeared in the 1953 collection, which Pobihushchyi helped to craft.
Teodor Krochak, “Vytiahy z shchodennyka 1941-1943 rr. Pro pobut u Legioni DUN,” in Myroslav Kal’ba (ed.), U lavkah druzhynnykiv; Druzhyny Ukraїns’kykh Nationalistiv v 1941-1942 rokakh (n.p: Vyd-ia Druzhyny ukraїnsks’kykh 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 Lenkavs’kyi. Pobihushchyi-Ren, 53. Likely, the Ievhen Pobihushyi and Ievhen Ren of the 1953 volume was the same person. Myroslav Kal’ba, a non-commissioned officer in Nachtigal and the Schutzmannschaft battalion 201,
Anatolii Kentii and Volodymyr Lozyts’kyi, ”From UVO fighter to sumpreme commander of the UPA,” in P. Sokan and P. Potichnyj, (eds.), Zhyttia i borot’ba Henerala “Tarasa Chuprynky” (1907-1950): dokumenty i materialy Litopys UPA, nova seriia, 10,(Kyiv and Toronto: Litopys UPA, 2007), 95; Bolianovs’kyi, Ukrains’ki viiskovyi formuvannia, 59. who has edited six books on the formation, which the nationalists prefer to refer to as DUN, Druzhuny Ukrains’kykh Nationalistiv generally either avoids listing the battalion’s 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.”
Krochak, “Vytiahy z shchodennyka,” 59, 63, 65, 69, 72; Kal’ba, U lavakh Druzhynykiv, 102, 104, 105, 106. In 2008, Kal’ba added that “All other companies were placed far from Borovkiv, such as Zhar, Komenia, Voronezha and others.” Myroslav Kal’ba, “Nakhtigal’” v zapytanniakh i vidpovidiakh Myroslava Kal’by (L’viv: Halytsk’ka vydavnycha spilka, 2008), 45. Ievhen Pobihushchyi-Ren, Mozaїka moїkh 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-Ren’s memoirs appeared in a second edition in 2002. Myroslav Kal’ba, My prysiahaly Ukraїni: DUN 1941-1942 (L’viv: Memuarna biblioteka NTSh, 1999), 63, 69, 70, 79; A 1982 collection of veteran memories, edited by Kal’ba 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 Kal’ba, U lavkah druzhynnykiv: spohady uchasnykiv. Materialy zibrav i vporiadkuvav Myroslav Kal’ba. (Denver: Vyd-ia Druzhyny ukraїns’kykh natsionalistiv, 1982), 91-95, 102, 104, 105, 106, 117, 119, 144. Unsurprisingly, the veterans’ own accounts of their whereabouts in Belarus make no mention of atrocities, but present the battalion’s 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 so-called Schützpunkte. 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.
Pobihushchyi-Ren, Mozaїka moїkh spomyniv (1982/2002), 65.
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.
David Meltser and Vladimir Levin, The Black Book with Red Pages (Tragedy and heroism of Belorussian Jews) (Cockneysville, MD: VIA Press, 2005), 249. 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.”
Meltser and Levin, The Black Book, 106. 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.”
Krochak,“Vytiahy z shchodennyka,” 76, 82. The accounts contain no information on reprisal actions by the Schutzmannschaften, even though this was a standard practice.
Yet, even the memoirs of the Schutzmänner 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.
Pobihushchyi-Ren, Mozaїka moїkh spomyniv (2002), 65
Interrogated by the MKGD by the very end of the war, Nachtigal and Schutzmannschaft battalion 201 veteran Oleksandr Luts’kyi
Petro Sodol, Ukraїns’ka Povstancha Armiia 1942-1942: Dovidnyk. (New York: Proloh, 1994), 99. 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’.
Bolianovs’kyi, Ukrains’ki viiskovyi formuvannia, 144, citing TsDAHO Ukraїny, f. 57, op. 4, spr. 340, ark. 29-30; DA SB Ukraїny: F. 5, spr. 67418, T. 1, ark. 208-241, in Volodymyr Serhiichuk, Roman Shukhevych u dokumentakh radians’kykh orhaniv derzhavnoi bekpeki (1940-1950) Tom I. (Kyiv: PP Serhiichuk M. I., 2007), 529.
Luts’kyi 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.”
“Protokol doprosa obviniaemogo BODNARA Antona Andreevicha 29 iuinia 1945 goda,” DA SB Ukraїny, F. 5, Spr. 67418, t. 1, ark. 138-146, in P. Sokhan’ and P. Potichnyj (eds.), Litopys UPA, Nova seriia, tom 9, Borot’ba proty povstans’koho rukhu i natsionaluistychnoho pidpillia: protokoly dopytiv zaareshtovanykh radians’kymy orhanamy derzhavnoї bezpeky kerivnykiv OUN i UPA 1944-1945 (Kyїv and Toronto: Litopys UPA, 2007), 320, 328, 63. 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.”
“Protokol dopolnitel’nogo doprosa Pevlyk Vladimira Ivanovicha 8 avgusta 1945 goda,” DA SB Ukraїny, L’viv, Spr. P-36445, ark. 97-98 zv., in Sokhan’ and Potichnyj (eds.), Litopys UPA, Nova seriia, tom 9, 564-565, 73. The interrogation reports from that of other veterans, such as Schutzmann Omelian Pol’ovyi, make no mention of the activities of battalion 201.
Sokhan’ and Potichnyj (eds.), Litopys UPA Nova seriia, tom 9, 78.
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’.
“Meldungen an den Führer über Bandenbekämpfung, Nr. 37 (E-spiel),” Nov. 3, 1942 and “Nr. 36, “Ergebnisse im Gebiet Russland Mitte, Gefecht des Schutzmannschafts-Battallions 201 20 km Nördlich Lepel, Nov. 3, 1942,” Serial 124, Roll 124, Reichsführer-SS u. Chef der Deutschen Polizei Feld-kommandostelle. 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) 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 Schutzmannschaften’s term of service for an indefinite period.
Dean “The German Gendarmerie,” (1996), 179. They therefore declined to renew their contracts. The Schutzmänner 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 wasn’t even a Ukrainian banner on his bier, only a German one. One of [our Ukrainian Schutzmänner] 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 and…shot. From that moment on the attitude of the soldiers of the [Schutzmannschaft battalion 201] to the Germans changed.
Ievhen Pohibushchyi, “Druzhyny Ukraїns’kykh Natsionalistiv na Bilorusi,” in Kal’ba (ed.) Druzhyny Ukraїns’kykh Natsionalistiv u 1941-1942, 38.
This, according to Pobihushchyi, contributed to the battalion’s 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 wounded had different rights and received different treatment.
Pohibushchyi, “Druzhyny Ukraїns’kykh Natsionalistiv na Bilorusi,” in Kal’ba (ed.) Druzhyny Ukraїns’kykh Natsionalistiv, 38.
Around Christmas, 1942, Obergruppenführer von dem Bach-Zelewski informed Pobihushchyi that the battalion would be dissolved. On January 6, 1943, the battalion was sent to L’viv where most members arrived January 8. The officers left Belarus on January 5, the last soldiers January 14, 1943.
Pobihushchyi in Kal’ba (ed.), U lavkah druzhynnykiv (1953), 40; Pobihushchyi-Ren Mozaїka moїkh spomyniv (2002), 85. The 201st battalion was disbanded and taken to L’viv, where its officers were arrested and placed in the jail on Lontsky Street. Some, including Roman Shukhevych, managed to escape and went underground.
Posivnych, “Roman Shukhevych (30.VI.1907-5.III.1950)” in Potichnyj and Posivnych (eds.), Litopys Ukraїns’koї Povstans’koї Armiї, Tom 45, Heneral Roman Shukhevych – ”Taras Chuprynka” Holovnyi Komandyr UPA (Toronto and L’viv: Vydavnytstvo “Litopys UPA,” 2007) 29, citing Myroslav Kal’ba, Druzhyny Ukraїns’kykh Natsionalistiv (Detroit: DUN, 1994), 45-53, 75-80; Chuev, Ukrainskii legion, 184.
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 L’viv,” wrote Pobihushchyi.
Ievhen [Pobihushchyi]-Ren, “Spohady pro generala Romana Shukhevycha,” in Kal’ba (ed.) Druzhyny Ukraїns’kykh Natsionalistiv u 1941-1942, 123.
The German authorities reported to Berlin that while the “better treatment of the Ukrainians by the local administration is not without effect,”
Der Befehlshaber der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD im Generalgouvernment an das Reichssicherheitshauptamt – Amt VII – Berlin. February 2, 1943, ”Meldungen aus dem Generalgouvernement für 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. the disbanding of Schutzmannschaft battalion 201 caused “indignation” and “extensive disquiet” among Galician Ukrainians, also the intelligentsia.
“Mit grossem Unwillen wurde die Auflösung des ukrainischen Bat. 20 [sic!] der Schutzmannschaften in der Ostukraine [sic!] aufgenommen. Die Festnahme des Offizierskorps, das früher die bekannten Roland-Nachtigallunternehmen geführt hat, stiess auf allgemeines Unverständnis und führte insbesondere unter den Kreisen der Intelligenz in Lemberg zu einer weitgehenden Beunruhigung, die sich erst nach Freilassung der Offiziere allmählich legte.” Ibid, p. 8-9, P. 0310, 0311. 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.
DA SB Ukraїny: F. 5, spr. 67418, T. 1, ark. 208-241, in Serhiichuk, Roman Shukhevych, Tom I., 529-530.
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 Kal’ba, 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.
Kal’ba, DUN v rozbudovi UPA, 68. 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.
I. K. Patryliak, Viis’kova diial’nist’ OUN(b) u 1940-1942 rokakh (Kyiv: Kyїvs’kyi natsional’nyi universytet imeni Tarasa Shevchenko, Instytut istroiї Ukraїny NAN Ukraїny, 2004), 386. 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-Zelewski’s personal records, which he kept as Bevollmächtiger für Bandenbekämpfung. 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.
Meldung Nr. 36, “Ergebnisse im Gebiet Russland Mitte. Gefecht des Schutzmannschafts-Batallions 201, 20 km nördlich Lepel, Feld-kommandostelle Nov 3, 1942” Records of the Reich Leader of the SS and Chief of the German Police [Reichsführer-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.
A routine report on the activities of Schutzmannschaft battalion 201, von dem Bach-Zelewski’s report appears in a folder of fifteen “Meldungen an den Führer über Bandenbekämpfung” to Reichsführer-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.
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, Reichsführer-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) 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 Białystok, 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 Bandenbekämpfung. 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 1,337
Executed prisoners 737
Executed later 7,827
Bandit helpers
Arrested 16,553
Executed 14,257
Jews Executed 363,211
Deserters 140
German casualties
Dead 174
Wounded 132
Missing 13
Schutzmannschaft
Dead 285
Wounded 127
Missing 133
Meldung 51a, “Russland-Süd, 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.
Meldungen 36, 40, 41, 42, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 55, 56, 57, covering Russland-Mitte and Gebiet Weissruthenien for the fall of 1942, report 28, 360 enemy casualties and 381 “own losses;” a ratio of 1:74.
NARA MF-3293, T-175, roll 124, frames 2599081, 2599082, 2599007, 2598963, 2896965, 2598940, 2598915, 2598937, 2598916, 2598925, 2598926, 2598836, 2598837, 2598814-2598815, 2598775- 2598778, 25987783-25987784, 2598709, 2598710, 2598703-2598704, 2598692-2598693, 2598653, 2598655. Meldung 51a, which appears in the same folder, summarizing the entire region Russland-Süd, Ukraine, and Białystok, 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 Bandenverdächtige, or ”suspected bandits,” the ratio is 1:843.
Reichsführer-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
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 Schutzmänner were killed and 152 wounded, a casualty ratio of 1:47. In operation Cottbus, 90 per cent of the people killed were unarmed.
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. Christian Gerlach calculates that between 10 and 15 per cent of the victims of the partisan hunts in Belarus actually were partisans.
Gerlach, Kalkulierte Morde, 907. 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 Hitler’s 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’.”
“Minister vs. Katriuk,” 184, citing Manfred Messerschmidt expert report on Schutzmannschaft battalions 115 and 118.
Former Schutzmänner 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.
Marples (2007), 195;
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.
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 Kachanovs’kyi, “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?” From March 15 to April 15, 1943, close to 4,000 Ukrainian former Schutzmänner joined the UPA.
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.
Former Schutzmänner 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.
Katchanovski, “Terrorists or National Heroes?” The skills acquired in 1941-1942 became useful in the UPA’s ethnic cleansing of the Poles of Volhynia.
Timothy Snyder, The Reconstruction of Nations; Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus, 1569-1999 (Princeton, NJ: Yale University Press, 2003), 162; Franziska Bruder, ”Den ukrainischen Staat erkämpfen oder sterben!”: Die Organisation Ukrainischer Nationalisten (OUN) 1929-1948 (Berlin: Metropol, 2007), 184. 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.
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.
Singled out by his German superiors for his particular heroism in battle,
Wolf-Dietrich Heike, Sie wollten die Freiheit: Die Geschichte der Ukrainischen Division 1943-1945 (Dorheim: Podzun-Verlag, n.d), 42. Pobihushchyi summarizes his own experiences of the Einsätze 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]
Pobihushchyi-Ren, Mozaїka moїkh 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.
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.”
National’nyi Arkhiv Respubliki Belarus (NARB), f. 1450, vop. 4, d. 168, ll. 70, 72, 153.
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.
TsDAVOU, f. 3833, op. 2, spr. 1, ark. 246-247, as cited in Vitalii Nakhmanovych, “Do pytannia pro sklad uchasnykiv karal’nykh aktsii v okupovanomu Kyievi (1941-1943) in V. R. Nakmanovych et al, (eds.) Druha svitova viina i dolia narodiv Ukraїny: Materialy 2-ї Vseukraїnsäkoї naukovoї konferentsiї m. Kyїv, 30-31 zhovtnia 2006 r. (Kyiv: Zovnishtorhvydav, 2007), 254.
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.
Former Nachtigall and Schuma 201 veteran Myroslav Kal’ba, one of the few surviving veterans of Nachtigall and Schutzmannschaft battalion 201, who was present in L’viv on June 30th, 1941, deny that that well-documented pogrom took place, and claims not to have seen anyone killed. Myroslav Kal’ba, “Nakhtigal” v zapytanniakh i vidpovidiakh Myroslava Kal’by (L’viv: Halyts’ka vydavnycha spilka, 2008), 23-25. Survivors of the L’viv pogrom remember these events very differently, and emphasize the role of Ukrainian militiamen in the pogroms. On eye witness testimonies and photographs from the L’viv pogrom See Ivan Khymka [John-Paul Himka] “Dostovirnist’ svidchennia: reliatsiia Ruzi Vagner pro l’vivs’kyi 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. 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 Shukchevych’s 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.
For an example of this see, for instance, Volodymyr V’’iatrovych, Stavlennia OUN do evreiv: Formuvannia pozytsii na tli katastrofy (L’viv: 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 V’’iatrovycha. 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 anti-Semitic. The UPA’s 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. OUN involvement in pogroms, the fascist nature of the OUN and its collaboration with Nazi Germany was downplayed or denied. Nachtigall’s involvement in the murder of Jews in the summer of 1941 has been the subject of an emotional debate. The Polish Sejm has described UPA’s ethnic cleansing of the Volhynian Poles in 1943 in terms of “genocide.”
Bronisław Komorowski, Marszałek Sejmu, “Uchwała Sejmu Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej z dnia 15 lipca 2009 r. w sprawie tragicznego losu Polaków 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) By comparison, Shukhevych’s 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.
In his diary, OUN(b), Nachtigal, and Schutzmannschaft battalion 201 member Viktor Khar’kiv (Khmara), describes how he was physically abused by Shukhevych. After visiting the barber without telling his superiors Khar’kiv (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 listen to that and punched me in the face.” TsDAVO Ukrainy, f. 3833, op. 1, spr. 57, ark. 18. Thanks to Grzegorz Rossoliński-Liebe for this reference.
Under his command, soldiers of the Nachtigall battalion carried out mass murder of Jewish civilians in the Vinnytsia area in 1941.
Viktor Khar’kiv (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, Viis’kova diial’nist’ OUN(b) u 1940-1942 rokakh (Kyiv: NAN Ukraїny, 2004), 361-362. Under Shukhevych’s 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.
Grzegorz Rossoliński-Liebe, “Den polnisch-ukrainische Historikerdiskurs über den polnisch-ukrainischen Konflikt 1943-1947,” Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas, No. 57 (2009): 54-85; John-Paul 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. 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.
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 Bełżec. 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) The leadership of the OUN(b) – Shukhevych, Bandera, Lenkavs’kyi, and Stets’ko shared the Nazi stereotypes of the żydokomuna, of Jews as the tools of Moscow and/or Bolshevism, and the latter two openly approved of the German extermination of the Jews.
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 Stets’ko’s 1941 Zhyttiepys’,” Harvard Ukrainian Studies vol. XXIII, no. 3-4 (1999): 171. Like the Nazis, the OUN(b) leadership equated the fight against communism with the struggle against Jews and Muscovites.
The OUN(b) blueprint for its wartime activities, “Borot’ba i diial’nist’ OUN pid chas viiny” from May, 1941, authored by Shukhevych, Stets’ko, Lenkavs’kyi and Bandera, outlined the creation of an OUN “People’s militia,” the establishment of “internment camps, set up for Jews, asocial elements and captives.” [“Tabir internovanykh, pryznachenyi dlia zhydiv, asotsial’nykh elementiv ta polonenykh”] It demanded “Ukraine for the Ukrainians!...Death to the Muscovite-Jewish commune! Beat the commune, save Ukraine!”[“Ukraina dlia Ukraintsiv!...Smert’ moskovs’ko-zhydivs’kyi komuni! Byi komunu, spasai Ukrainu!”], demanding a “dog’s death” for the Muscovite-Jewish outsiders [“moskovs’ko-zhydivs’kykh 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 Kul’chyts’kyi et al (eds.), OUN v 1941 roki. Dokumenty, Chastyna 1. (Kyiv: Natsional’na akademiia nauk Ukrainy, Instytut istorii Ukrainy, 2006), 143, 159, 165.
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. Anti-partisan 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 Schutzmänner in Battalion 201 indicates mass murder and executions, rather than conventional counter-insurgency campaigns. In line with Keitel’s 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.
On Generalplan Ost, see Czesław Madajczyk (ed.), Generalny Plan Wschodni: Zbiór dokumentów (Warszawa: Glówna Komisja Badania Zbrodni Hitlerowskich w Polsce, 1990) and Czesław Madajczyk, “General Plan East: Hitler’s 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). 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 UPA’s 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.