A joint informational project by NV, the Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance, the Center for the Study of the Liberation Movement, and KSD Publishing, aimed at debunking myths that exist in the collective memory regarding the activities of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA).
Myth: The UPA was created by the Nazi occupiers, and in close cooperation with them, it carried out punitive operations against Soviet partisans, as well as Ukrainian, Jewish, and Polish civilians. There is no evidence of the UPA’s anti-Nazi struggle.
Facts in Brief
Numerous documents of German, Soviet, Polish, and UPA origin confirm the conflict between the UPA and the Nazi occupiers and their allies. Both German and Soviet sources assessed the UPA’s activities as an anti-German uprising.
Facts in Detail
The extremely brutal occupation policy of the Nazis forced the leadership of the OUN(b) [Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (Bandera faction)] to take up arms in defense of the population. The first UPA company was formed on January 22, 1943. By February 7, it had already destroyed the German command post in the district center of Volodymyrets, Rivne region.
In the spring of 1943, the UPA continuously increased its numbers and the scale of its resistance. The most fierce clashes with the Germans occurred in the regions of Lutsk, Kovel, Horokhiv, Rivne, Kremenets, Kostopil, Sarny, and Lanivtsi. During March 1943, the insurgents captured district centers five times. By the end of the first month of spring, German officials reported to Reichskommissar Erich Koch that only two districts in Volyn remained free of “bandits.”
The occupation administration began conducting large anti-partisan operations involving armored vehicles and aircraft. At the end of April, a division was deployed to the Berezne, Liudvypil, Mizoch, Ostroh, Shumsk, and Kremenets areas to combat the UPA.
The Nazis’ punitive actions proved ineffective. If in March, UPA units attacked German economic targets only 8 times, in April there were 57 attacks, and in May — 70.
At a meeting in Rivne on June 5, 1943, attended by Nazi Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories Alfred Rosenberg, the occupation chief of Volyn and Podillia, Heinrich Schöne, reported that “Ukrainian nationalists are causing more trouble than the Bolshevik bands.”
Interestingly, this fact was later acknowledged by the leadership of the Soviet partisans. On March 4, 1944, Soviet partisan commander Petro Vershyhora informed the Ukrainian Partisan Movement Headquarters: “We cannot allow the same mistake in Poland that we made in Volyn, by handing over the leadership of the popular uprising against the Germans to the counter-revolutionary nationalist groups.”
The Nazis lacked the forces to suppress the resistance. Therefore, from July 1943, the fight against the UPA was led by Erich von dem Bach, the commander of anti-partisan forces in the East. Under his command were the 8th SS Cavalry Division Florian Geyer (10,000 soldiers) and 10 motorized infantry battalions with artillery. This group was supported by 27 aircraft and 50 tanks and armored vehicles.
However, UPA units maneuvered and avoided annihilation. In July alone, the insurgents attacked German strongholds 295 times and economic targets 119 times.
At the beginning of August 1943, von dem Bach was recalled to Galicia to fight Kovpak’s raid. With the weakening of German pressure, the UPA’s anti-Nazi activities increased: 391 attacks on garrisons and 151 attacks on enterprises.
Soon, however, the Higher SS and Police Leader in Ukraine, Hans Prützmann, organized a new offensive against the UPA. This offensive lasted in Southern Volyn from August 23 to September 9, 1943. First, the aviation bombed the village of Antonivtsi, where the headquarters of the “Bohun” group was located. Then, a punitive expedition attacked UPA camps in the Kremenets forests. The UPA units had to split into smaller groups and break through the encirclement.
In the summer of 1943, the anti-Nazi resistance spread to Galicia. On August 18, the Ukrainian People’s Self-Defense (UNS, the initial name of the UPA in Galicia) attacked a German quarry in the town of Skole, Lviv region. One hundred fifty forced laborers were liberated, and the camp guards were eliminated.
In the fall of 1943, larger battles between the insurgents and the Nazis began. On September 3, near the town of Dolyna, Ukrainian soldiers ambushed and shot a battalion of Germans traveling by narrow-gauge railway in the mountains. The occupiers left about 200 soldiers on the battlefield. From September 25–29, the Trembita company repelled an attack by punitive forces on its camp on Mount Stovba.
On November 29–30, 1943, a heavy battle took place between 1,500–2,000 Schutzmannschaft (auxiliary police) and the Kryvonis-II company near the village of Nedilna, Sambir region. The insurgents retreated with significant losses; almost the entire company staff and the company commander were left on the battlefield.
From October to November 1943, 47 battles occurred between the UPA-UNS and the German occupiers, and the UPA’s rural self-defense conducted 125 clashes. The Nazis lost over 1,500 soldiers.
The Nazis failed to completely suppress the UPA resistance. The approaching Soviet-German front diverted most of the military forces. Therefore, the Germans no longer conducted large-scale anti-insurgent operations in Volyn. In Galicia, the confrontation continued until the end of the summer of 1944. The Ukrainian People’s Self-Defense (UNS) was reorganized into the UPA-West. UPA soldiers defended Ukrainian villages from German looting from March to May 1944. Sometimes unsuccessfully: in May, the Wehrmacht defeated the Galayda and Siroantsi companies in the Lviv region.
From May 31 to June 6, 1944, parts of the 7th Panzer Division of the Wehrmacht fought the UPA in the Black Forest. By mid-summer, the confrontation in Galicia reached its peak.
The largest clashes between UPA-West and German-Hungarian forces took place around Mount Lopata at the junction of Drohobych and Stanyslaviv (now Ivano-Frankivsk) regions. Polish underground reports also detail these events. From July 6–16, 1944, intense battles raged, transitioning from artillery shelling to hand-to-hand combat. However, victory went to the insurgents under the command of Vasyl Andrusyak — “Rizun.” Fifty Ukrainians died, while the occupiers lost about 200 soldiers and retreated.
Under the pressure of the Red Army, the Wehrmacht was leaving Ukraine. By early September, only minor clashes and disarmament of German units by the UPA occurred.
There were episodes in the history of the Ukrainian insurgent movement when individual commanders attempted to independently negotiate with the German command under the formula “neutrality in exchange for weapons” or “food in exchange for weapons.” There are also known cases where, under this formula, 80 to 100 units of small arms were indeed handed over to the insurgents. However, such agreements were not welcomed by the Ukrainian underground leadership. In some cases, severe punishment was imposed. In March 1944, by the verdict of the UPA military field court, Porfyry Antonjuk — “Sosenko,” the first initiator of unauthorized negotiations, was executed. In April 1944, Mykola Oliynyk — “Orel” was also executed by the UPA court.
Later, negotiations with the German occupation authorities did take place at the level of the OUN(b) leadership. The occupiers were interested in the OUN and UPA ceasing their anti-Nazi struggle so that the Germans could redirect more forces to halt the Soviet offensive. The OUN, in turn, sought the release of political prisoners from concentration camps (Stepan Bandera, Yaroslav Stetsko, and many others) and to obtain weapons for the UPA, which were always in short supply. Meetings between representatives of the OUN leadership and German authorities took place in March, April, June, and July 1944. As a result, the insurgents received several hundred units of weapons, and in September–October 1944, the Nazis released Stepan Bandera and other Ukrainian nationalists, although they remained under Gestapo surveillance.
In return, the Bandera supporters reduced the intensity of anti-Nazi actions (mainly in Volyn) but did not stop them entirely. As Major Müller, an officer of Army Group South, reported: “While some national-Ukrainian bands place themselves at the disposal of the German Wehrmacht or carry out its tasks, others wage a fierce struggle against the Wehrmacht with fanatical hatred.” Examples of such “fierce struggle” in the Black Forest or on Mount Lopata in Galicia were mentioned above.
The activities of the UPA were recognized as an anti-German uprising by German occupation leaders such as Schöne, von dem Bach, and Prützmann, as well as by the Soviet partisan commander Vershyhora. Researchers estimate the losses inflicted by the UPA on the German occupiers and their allies at 12,000. The Ukrainian underground and insurgent units also lost 10–12,000 in armed confrontation with the occupiers.
To put an end to the history of this myth, it is worth quoting one of the many German documents whose existence was “unknown” to the aforementioned former Minister of Education, Dmytro Tabachnyk. This is a telegram from the Higher SS and Police Leader in Ukraine, SS Obergruppenführer Hans Adolf Prützmann, dated August 25, 1943: “To the Commander-in-Chief of the Army Group South territory. In connection with the fact that the Reichsführer-SS has transferred strong detachments of the military units under my command to the front, I am forced to limit myself to the remnants of these units to suppress the Ukrainian national uprising in Volyn. Since large uncontrolled areas are emerging in northern Ukraine as a result, we must expect increased bandit pressure in the southern direction in the near future.”
Author of the text: Ihor Bihun, Center for the Study of the Liberation Movement.
