The Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists

The nationalist political movement called the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) was founded in the 1920s of the 20th century. Its adherents preached the idea of an independent Ukraine, independent of Poland and the USSR. The paramilitary units of the OUN took advantage of the weakening of the Red Army after the attack on the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany in June 1941 and after armed conflict occupied Lvov and declared an independent Ukraine. A massacre followed in which over eight thousand local inhabitants – Russians, Poles, Jews and Ukrainian Communists, including women and children – were murdered. The violence struck the Volhynian Czechs – who were one of Ukraine's national minorities – as well. In response to the declaration of Ukrainian independence, Adolf Hitler had several members of the Ukrainian government shot and the remaining members (including Stepan Bandera – the leader of the radical faction of the OUN) were interned in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. The military formation of the OUN was disbanded and some of its members even joined the German occupation forces and hoped for the recognition of Ukraine as a sovereign state by Hitler. After having lost the Battle of Stalingrad, Adolf Hitler gave his approval to the creation of Waffen-SS units manned by Ukrainian volunteers. At that time, however, it had already dawned on the representatives of the OUN that Germany would never help them in the creation of an independent Ukrainian state. Therefore they began to rely on themselves. At the turn of 1942/1943, former OUN units were reorganized to the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), which operated primarily in the areas of Volhynia and Galicia. In 1944, it counted 35.000 troops. After the end of WW II, the UPA continued to resist the Polish and Soviet rule and was gradually wiped out by the Red Army, the militia and units of the NKVD. In 1947, some of the remaining units of the UPA tried to fight their way through Czechoslovakia to Austria and Western Germany. In their desperate attempt, the UPA units were gradually destroyed by Czechoslovak armed forces in the course of the so-called "Vistula Operation" taking place in the southeastern part of Poland and in Slovakia. It is assumed that the last UPA unit in the USSR was eliminated as late as 1956. Stepan Bandera was murdered by a KGB agent in Munich on 15 October, 1959.

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