‘…Kiev had a peculiar mentality. Only some twenty years before it had been occupied in quick succession by the Germans and Austrian armies, who had put up a puppet ruler, Hetman Skoropadsky, at the head of the Ukrainian “state”, by Ukrainian nationalists under Petlura, by Reds, Whites and Reds again and, for a short time, in 1920, even by Pilsudski’s Poles. Older people may have remembered that the German-Austrian occupation of 1918 had not been as terrible as all that.’
(Alexander Werth: Russia at War 1941-1945, Barrie and Rockliff, (1964), Page 203)
In 1918 an attack on the Bolsheviks was orchestrated by Winston Churchill in the UK – who wanted to ‘strangle’ Bolshevism in its cradle – and involved 14 countries forming the so-called ‘entente’ that started the Russian Civil War (1917-1922). The countries involved in this attack upon Revolutionary Russia included the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, India, South Africa, USA, France, Japan, Greece, Republic of China, Estonia, Serbia, Italy, Poland, Romania and Czechoslovakia. Although at one point at least 75% of Russian territory had been occupied by the counter-Revolutionary forces, the newly formed Soviet Red Army fought back effectively and eventually ousted this foreign force from most of their land, but there was a problem. During the Russian Civil War, a German influenced Poland (recently granted its ‘independence’ by Lenin) had attacked the territory of Revolutionary Russia and although pushed back, had managed to retain control of the Galicia region of Western Ukraine, with other areas of Western Ukraine being invaded and divided between Romania and Czechoslovakia. This meant that by the end of the Russian Civil War in 1922, the Soviet Union only controlled Eastern Ukraine proper.
‘Although there were many points in common between Eastern and Western Ukraine, which had formed part of Poland between the two wars (until 1918 it had been about half-Russian, half-Austro-Hungarian), above all their anti-Semitism, Eastern Ukraine had been Russian for centuries and for over twenty-five years Soviet, and was still very different from the Western Ukraine. Soviet indoctrination of a whole generation had after all considerably weakened the traditional Ukrainian anti-Semitism. Moreover, to the vast majority of Eastern Ukrainians, Russia was their homeland, and their Soviet, or Russian, patriotism was as great as that of the Russians themselves.’
(Alexander Werth, Russia and the Post-War Years, Taplinger, (1971), Page 27)
This situation was resolved in 1939 following the Nazi German invasion of Western Poland. As a means to protect ethnic Slavs throughout the region, the Red Army entered Western Ukraine (encountering little opposition) and then entered Eastern Poland (where the Red Army suffered 700 casualties in the fighting). Following a general election in the ‘liberated’ region, the majority voted to stay within the Soviet Union. However, from the Soviet perspective, it appeared that the already fascist Polish regime was actually ‘welcoming’ the Nazi German invasion (Poland had signed a Non-Aggression Pact with Nazi Germany in 1934, and since Adolf Hitler coming to power in 1933, had begun a pogrom of persecuting Polish Jews and other ethnic minorities), and was freeing a corridor of Polish territory for the advancement of Nazi German troops into the USSR. Pravda stated on 14.9.1939:
‘Why is the Polish Army not offering the Germans any resistance to speak of? It is because Poland is not a homogeneous country. Only sixty percent of the population are Poles, the rest are Ukrainian, Belarusians and Jews… The eleven million Ukrainians and Byelorussians are living in a state of national oppression… The administration is Polish, and no other language is recognised. There are practically no non-Polish schools or other cultural establishments. The Polish Constitution does not give non-Poles the right to be taught in their own language. Instead, the Polish Government has been pursuing a policy of forced Polonisation…’
(Alexander Werth: Russia at War 1941-1945, Barrie and Rockliff, (1964), Page 56-57)
In 1938, Hitler annexed Czechoslovakia (with British and French agreement). As the Eastern Carpathian Mountains had fallen into Czechoslovakian control during the Russian Civil War (1917-1922), this meant that Nazi German influence could spread into Western Ukraine without a shot being fired. When Nazi Germany invaded the USSR in 1941, Adolf Hitler ordered the maximum of brutality and the eradication of the Slavic race. As Hitler had linked ‘race’ with ‘morality’ (in his Meinkampf), he thought that by committing genocide against the Russian people, their Communist ideology would die with them. Although much of what is now Eastern Ukraine had welcomed the Great October Socialist Revolution in 1917, the population of Western Ukraine was split, with factions tending to identify with German ultra-nationalism, Czarism and some with Bolshevism. Seizing upon these contradictions, Hitler ordered (in early 1943) that an SS Division be recruited and trained in Western Ukraine and used to defend Nazi Germany to the West and attack the Soviet Union to the East. The men who initially (and enthusiastically) volunteered for this Nazi German military formation were recruited from the Ukrainian Catholic population living primarily in the Galicia region. Not only were these populations rightwing and anti-Soviet, but the Roman Catholic Church (under Popes Pius XI and XII) had called upon all Catholics in the world to support Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany in their ‘righteous’ battle against ‘atheistic’ Soviet Communism. This Nazi German military formation was initially known as the ‘Ukrainian SS volunteer (Galcia)’, or more officially as the ’14th SS-Volunteer Division (Galicia)’
‘Your homeland has become so much more beautiful since you have lost – on our initiative, I must say – those residents who were so often a dirty blemish on Galicia’s good name, namely the Jews… I know that if I ordered you to liquidate the Poles… I would be giving you permission to do what you are eager to do anyway.’
Heinrich Himmler – Speech to the 14th Grenadier Division SS
With just over a year in training, this Division was personally inspected on May 16th, 1944, by the leader of the SS – Heinrich Himmler – who ordered that training come to an end, and that the Division to be deployed into combat. On June 27th, the unit was re-named the ‘14th Waffen Grenadier Division SS (1st Galician)’, and as of the June 30th, the Division consisted of 346 officers, 1,131 sergeants, and 13,822 soldiers, a total of 15,299 Ukrainians and Germans committed to the destruction of the Red Army and the Soviet Regime. Although the troop numbers were substantial, transport and communication equipment remained extremely scarce. The whole Division is mainly composed of three Regiments (29th, 30th, 31st) and a single artillery regiment. On June 25th, 1944, the 14th Grenadier Division SS deployed 10,400 of its troops to the Brody area of the Eastern Front (leaving the 3rd Battalion of each regiment in the training area). Although initially acting as a ‘reserve’ to the German military formations opposing the Red Army in the area, its units are recorded as destroying 6 Soviet tanks in one day, with its anti-aircraft units shooting-down 25 Soviet aircrafts. These numbers are probably a fabrication in the light of what happened next.
As the fighting intensified, and the Soviets tightened the encirclement of the area, the Nazi German position became ever more desperate and the 14th Grenadier Division SS was drawn ever nearer to the frontline. On July 20th, the Soviet Red Army began a full-scale attack and the Ukrainian (Catholic) men of the 14th Grenadier Division SS reacted with complete panic and fear – dropping their weapons and running from the battlefield. SS Officers were unable to control their Ukrainian men or stop the panic even with the threat of immediate execution. As a result of the cowardice of the 14th Grenadier Division SS, the Nazi German retreat from the area was one of disorganisation and illogicality. Far from ‘defending’ Nazi Germany, the cowardice of the Ukrainian 14th Grenadier Division SS facilitated an enhanced Soviet advance and probably shortened the war. About 7,000 of the 10,400 troops who participated in the battle were killed or wounded, with 1,000 missing. Only 2,500 people escaped the area, which means that the 14th Grenadier Division SS was wiped out in its first deployment.
Apologists in the West for Anti-Soviet criminality in the Ukraine have often attempted to play-down and trivialise the murderous activities of the individuals within 14th Grenadier Division SS. This has become particularly pronounced since the US-backed (and anti-Russian) neo-Nazi ‘Maidan’ regime illegally seized power from the democratically elected government of the Ukraine in 2014. Today, the US, UK and EU pursue an anti-Russian policy of encouraging and supporting far-right or neo-Nazi regimes not only in the Ukraine, but also in Poland, Estonia, Slovakia, Lithuania and Latvia, etc. This appears to be an attempt of surrounding Russia with a neo-Nazi encirclement (something Hitler failed to do during WWII). The ‘Maidan’ Ukrainian, Polish and others now eulogise the 14th Grenadier Division SS and see its participants not as traitors and murderers, but rather heroes and patriots. Ironically, the 14th Grenadier Division SS – prior to deployment – carried-out massacres against the Polish and Ukrainian civilian populations in the areas they patrolled, and as Himmler’s speech suggests, were active in the Holocaust against the Jews, but the story does not end here.
The Red Army swept through the Ukraine in 1944 and onward to Germany. In its wake was deployed special soldiers of the Soviet NKVD tasked with dealing with the Ukrainian traitors and their non-surrendered German commanders. This neo-Nazi insurgence continued until it was finally extinguished in 1947 (with US and UK-supplied weaponry discovered within insurgency arms supplies).
‘…Western Ukraine was by far the most pro-Nazi part of the Soviet Union to have been occupied by the Germans. For at least two years after the war a savage guerrilla war was waged by Ukrainian nationalists, with Nazi officers, against the Russians. In 1947 I had a long talk with a young Russian I knew who had been drafted into the NKVD troops who fought the Ukrainian guerrillas, as well as the Armija Krajowa Polish Guerrillas on either side of the Polish-Ukrainian border. It was a fierce business, and both side had to be completely ruthless…’
(Alexander Werth, Russia and the Post-War Years, Taplinger, (1971), Page 27)
In 1945 Pope Pius XII had requested that Winston Churchill give asylum to the around 1,500 ‘brave’ men of the 14th Grenadier Division SS – due to them being ‘good Catholics’ – as a means of preventing them falling into Soviet hands and standing trial for Crimes Against Humanity. Churchill agreed and these men were eventually settled in Scotland 1947 with the cover story that they were ‘Polish’ – members of the very ethnic group that they had murdered during the war!
Since 2014, the US, UK and EU have been supporting the neo-Nazi ‘Madain’ regime currently occupying Kiev and waging a race-war against the Socialist Republics holding-out in Eastern Ukraine. This means that Western tax payments, arms and military expertise have been exported to a regime that perceives itself as the inheritor of the Ukrainian SS legacy. The following video shows a 2017 ‘celebration’ of the history of the 14th Grenadier Division SS replete with blessings from a Christian priest. This is not shown on Western mainstream media as it would educate the general public to the far-rightwing policies their ‘elected’ governments are pursuing in their names:
Chinese Language Reference:
https://www.zhihu.com/question/40694455/answer/87818138 (Accessed 17.10.2018)
English Language Reference:
Werth, Alexander, Russia at War 1941-1945, Barrie and Rockliff, (1964)
Yallop David, An Investigation into the Murder of Pope John Paul I, Corgi, (1987)
SANGHA KOMMUNE (SSR) 
1 comments