Nachtigal flag. Battalion "Nachtigall": Nightingales in animal skin
First, we present data on the organization of these formations in the system of Hitler's Abwehr.
Stepan Bandera wrote: “At the beginning of 1941, the opportunity arose to create a school under the German army for two Ukrainian units, approximately the size of a kuren.” Here Bandera noted that “military training exercises” were carried out by OUN-Bandera members R. Shukhevych, D. Gritsay-Perebiynis and O. Gasin-Lytsar. It is quite well known that the Abwehr special battalion "Nachtigal" ("Nightingale", "Night Bird") named after S. Bandera was formed in March-April 1941 from Banderaites. The formation underwent military training in Neuhammer as part of the 1st battalion of the special purpose regiment "Brandenburg-800", which was subordinate to Abwehr-2 (the Abwehr department that carried out sabotage in the enemy camp). The political leader of the battalion was Theodor Oberländer (a well-known German figure who dealt with the Germans of the East, SS Oberführer), the battalion commander on the German side was Oberleutnant Albrecht Herzner, the battalion commander on the Ukrainian side was Captain Roman Shukhevych.
The Abwehr special battalion "Roland" named after E. Konovalets and S. Petliura was formed in April 1941 from Bandera, Melnik, Petliura and Hetmanites and underwent military training in Saubersdorf near Vienna under the leadership of the Wehrkreiskommando XVII of Vienna, which was also subordinate special formation of the Abwehr "Brandenburg-800", but the battalion was intended for military operations in the southern direction of the Eastern Front. Its leaders were: Rico Yary from the German side and Major Evgen Pobigushchiy (“Ren”) from the Ukrainian side. Essentially, the leader of the battalion was Major Pobiguschiy, because R. Yary, as a member of the OUN-Bandera group and at the same time an Abwehr resident in the same OUN, constantly carried out other assignments.
Before talking about those so-called “Ukrainian” special battalions, it is necessary to give short information about the Abwehr formation “Brandenburg-800”, which they were part of, and about the “special” purpose of these formations (which is what nationalist authors often hide) . And the point here is this. In the book of the German General B. Müller-Hillebrand “German Land Army. 1933-1945” it is noted: “The Brandenburg-800 division was formed on September 21, 1943 on the basis of the deployment of units of the 800th Special Purpose Construction Training Regiment “Brandenburg”, which was a special unit that was at the disposal of the 2nd Directorate of the Abwehr OKW (OKW Intelligence and Counterintelligence Service).However, the deployment of the division was delayed.In October 1944, it was reorganized into the Brandenburg Motorized Division.
Here, as we see, the author goes around sharp corners and the division is presented as an ordinary military formation, moreover, a “construction”, “training” and at the same time a “special special purpose unit”. What did the Abwehr saboteurs of the 2nd Division build if the regiment and then the division were called “construction”? Nothing at all. They caused destruction, sabotage and massacres!
Other authors reveal the truth. It turns out that the special purpose regiment "Brandenburg-800" and the special purpose division "Brandenburg" were "construction" and "training" only for camouflage. In fact, these formations were special units of Abwehr-2 (sabotage in the enemy camp) only because they carried out special tasks at the front and in the immediate rear of the enemy: they organized and carried out sabotage, cleared entire enemy areas from possible and impossible preparations for sabotage against Germany. Detachments of this formation caused panic and chaos in the area of operation. Their actions were also intended against partisan detachments and formations, which carried out frequent and massive sabotage in the rear of Nazi troops.
Abwehr historiographer Gert Buchheit testifies that during the “Eastern Campaign” of the Nazis, only one front-line intelligence subordinate to the first department (Abwehr-1) of the Abwehr directorate at the headquarters of the Wehrmacht High Command (OKW) “neutralized”, that is, liquidated, 20 thousand Soviet citizens. Buchgait does not name such an action by the 2nd department of the Abwehr, which was directly involved in sabotage and punitive actions against the enemy and which, in fact, belonged to the special purpose formations “Brandenburg-800” and “Brandenburg”, and to them, in turn, such special forces -battalions like "Nachtigall" and "Roland".
Another researcher sheds light in this direction - the Hungarian historian and publicist Julius Mader, who conducted a fairly voluminous analysis of many studies of the actions of the Abwehr during the last war: “Foreign (the Abwehr,” he pointed out, “had a widely ramified apparatus for fighting active opponents of the Hitler regime , insisting on the speedy destruction of resistance groups and partisan detachments. The Abwehr and its special unit "Brandenburg-800" operated in 13 European countries. Only in 12 of them (not counting the USSR) the Nazi occupiers killed during military operations, shot and tortured in prisons over 1,277,750 people. Most of these victims should be attributed to the murderers from the Abwehr and their professional “partisan hunters”. And how many Soviet people were destroyed by them? It has not yet been counted. I think that future historians will also count these victims.
Thus, we will make some clarifications and summarize. The formation of the special purpose "Brandenburg-800" arose even before the war of Nazi Germany against the Soviet Union. At first it was a special battalion, which in 1940 became the special forces regiment Brandenburg 800, and then in 1943 the Brandenburg division. This was not an ordinary army unit, but a special association of saboteurs, punitive forces, bashi-bazouks, formed from condottieri of non-German nationalities, from those countries against which the Nazis were preparing aggression. Thus, the 1st battalion, stationed in Brandenburg (after which the entire regiment and special forces division was named), was formed from representatives of the nationalities of Eastern Europe (mainly the territories of the USSR) and was intended for war in the “eastern direction” (it was assigned to it assigned to the "Nachtigall" battalion for training in Neuhammer and the attack on Lvov); The 2nd Battalion was stationed in Düren (Rhineland) and consisted of Alsatians, traitorous French, Belgians and Dutch; The 3rd battalion was stationed in Baden (near Vienna) and intended for operations in the south, in the countries of South-Eastern Europe (the special battalion "Roland" was assigned to it). At the same time, the number of companies, battalions, and then regiments of this formation significantly, or even several times, exceeded the usual recruitment standards.
Consequently, “Nachtigal” and “Roland” were not just ordinary military formations within the Wehrmacht (nationalists are still trying to call them “Drugs of Ukrainian Nationalists” (DUN), but special-purpose Abwehr formations - to carry out sabotage and punitive actions in the country enemy. For this purpose, they underwent military training in special schools to ensure the completion of tasks. E. Pobigushchiy, head of the Roland battalion, and then the Schutzmanschaft battalion, notes in his memoirs that the detachment’s task was “to look for developments of Soviet units and so provide the rear." And what it means to “provide the rear” is well known, because it meant eliminating those “bookmarks”!
Both formations, as almost all nationalist authors testify, were the fulfillment of the long-standing dream of the OUN leaders to form professional military units with the help of the Nazis and turn them into the basis of their future nationalist armed forces. This dream, as we know, came true, but unsuccessfully and not as intended.
Actions of "Nachtigall" and "Roland"
This question is complicated because the Abwehr, as is known, did not advertise its actions. It is known that on June 30, 1941, the special battalion "Nachtigal" entered Lviv together with the 1st battalion of the special purpose regiment "Brandenburg-800". The Gestapo and SB units (imperial security services) had not yet arrived in the city, and therefore internal order was entrusted to the military commandant, General Renz, and his field commandant. This gave grounds for Polish and Soviet publicists and historians in the 50-70s to accuse the Brandenburgers and Nachtigalites of punitive actions in the first days of the occupation of Lvov. As the famous scientist and public figure NIR A. Norden testified at a press conference in Berlin on October 22, 1959 regarding the investigation into the crime of Bonn Minister T. Oberländer (former political leader of the Nachtigal battalion and other similar sabotage formations on the Eastern Front, in in particular, the “Tamara-1” and “Tamara-2” detachments in Chechnya), from July 1 to July 6, 1941, Abwehr men from “Nachtigall”, controlled by Oberlander-Herzner-Shukhevich, together with the Brandenburgers, Felgendarmes and Bohvkars of the regional executive of the OUN- b, killed 3 thousand people in Lvov, mostly Soviet activists, Jews and Poles, among them over 70 famous scientists and cultural figures.
It is believed that in the near future all this will be fully explored, despite the previous “fog” and “smoke screen”, both in Polish and Soviet literature, and in Ukrainian-nationalist literature.
However, even now there are some clarifications. Recently a book by Polish author Alexander Korman, “From the Bloody Days of Lviv 1941,” was published in London. The author cites numerous facts, names, and eyewitness accounts of this tragedy. The researcher states unequivocally: from June 3 to July 6 in 1941 (during the stay of the special battalion “Nachtigal” in Lviv), Polish scientists, Jews and communists were destroyed by the Nazis, Nachtigalites and militants from the OUN-Bandera.
Corman cites in the book a photocopy of Stepan Bandera's appeal, which was distributed in Lvov from June 30 to July 11 in 1941 in the form of flyers and posters: “People! Know! Moscow, Poland, Magyars, Jews are your enemies! Destroy them!” In another interpretation, this postcard sounded like this: “Destroy the Lyakhovs, Jews, communists without mercy, do not spare the enemies of the Ukrainian people’s revolution!”
The author claims that the extermination action was led by SS Hauptsturmführer (captain) Hans Kruger (Krieger), who later headed the Gestapo in Stanislav. The murders took place according to a list prepared by the services of E. Vretsena (SB OUN-b) and “Legends” (I. Klymiv), the head of the regional executive of OUN-b. The arrests were carried out by departments of the Abwehr (Brandenburgers), field police and Nachtigall. They carried out the executions. E. Vretsena himself personally participated in the executions of Polish scientists.
A. Korman provides a lot of evidence in the book. Here are a few of them: “Nachtigalites” pulled out communists and Poles from their houses, who were hanged here on the balconies”; “Ukrainian soldiers of the “Nachtigal” battalion were called “poultry men” by the residents of Lvov; “The poultry keepers were in German uniforms and with German military decorations. They spoke Ukrainian”; “On the streets of Russkaya and Boimiv, several Polish students were shot dead, who were brought by militants of Ukrainian nationalists”; "..500 Jews. The Ukrainians killed them all," etc.
The author also cites the fact that the wife of the arrested professor of the Lviv Polytechnic Kazimir Bartel (former Prime Minister of Poland) visited Archbishop Sheptytsky with a request to help free her husband, but he replied that “he could not do anything.”
In general, Alexander Korman's book is a reliable, informative study. However, it is one-sided, because it is imbued not with universal, but predominantly Polish passions.
Despite the lack of significant and comprehensive documents and analytical studies, we now know for sure that Bandera’s action in the first days of the occupation of Lvov was large-scale and quite desperate: from the proclamation of the “June 30 Act” to the bloody massacre - the extermination of Soviet activists, representatives of the Polish intelligentsia and the Jewish population . This action was undoubtedly led by N. Lebid, the chief of the OUN security service, and a little later - the guide of the entire OUN-Bandera group in the region. His assistants were: his deputy in the security service of the OUN E. Vretsyona and the head of the regional executive of the OUN-b "Legend" (I. Klymiv), Gestapo lieutenant Y. Moroz and the leaders of "Nachtigall" T. Oberlender, A. Herzner and R. Shukhevych . At least the heavy hand of the Gestapo (G. Krieger) and Abwehr (T. Oberländer) weighed heavily on all this.
The Abwehr special battalion "Nachtgal", together with the 1st battalion of the "Brandenburg-800" regiment, detachments of the Feldgendarmerie and OUN militants from the "Legends" resort - Klymiva, took a direct part in the bloody orgies of the first days of the occupation of Lvov.
The further “fate” of the special battalions
After an unsuccessful “mutual understanding” with the Nazis during the proclamation of the “Act of June 30, 1941”, that is, the so-called proclamation of independent Ukraine in Lvov, which was carried out by Y. Stetsko (“Karbovich”, Bandera’s first deputy), with the help of “Nachtigall” named S. Bandera, both on the orders of Bandera and after the arrests of the participants in this venture, both special battalions were recalled from the front and at the end of October were united into one formation, which immediately began training for a new assignment.
In mid-March 1942, the united (now Schutzmannschaft) battalion under the command of E. Pobigushchy (“Rena”) was sent to Belarus and operated in the Mogilev-Vitebsk-Lepel triangle as part of the 201st police (“security”) division of the general Jacobi against the Belarusian partisans and civilians.
In the collection “Drugs of Ukrainian Nationalists in 1941 - 1942” (published in 1953), E. Pobigushchiy writes: “Artists would have wonderful motives for painting,” describing and admiring the beautiful Belarusian landscapes of the places where they were brought.
But they were sent here, of course, not to paint plein air, but to “guard the bridges,” notes Pobigushchy. We know well that the “bridge guards” did not fight the partisans, but only guarded the bridges constantly, carrying out this service day after day. At the same time, we also know well that the “army guards” of Hitler’s Germany did not guard bridges, but carried out protective service in the rear of Hitler’s troops, which meant that they constantly carried out punitive actions against “bandits” (as Pobiguschy called the red partisans ) and local residents who helped the "bandits".
It is also known that the Schutzmanschaft battalion, four companies commanded by R. Shukhevych, M. Brigider, V. Sidor and Pavlik, became a unit of the 201st police division and brigades and separate operational battalions commanded by von-dem E. Bach-Zelewski, Obergruppenführer (Colonel General) of the SS troops. This SS Obergruppenführer led the fight against partisans in the occupied territories of the Soviet Union and Poland, especially in Belarus and northern Ukraine. The units reporting to him were predominantly SS men, and therefore the 201st Police Division was forced to act like them.
It becomes somewhat clearer when Pobiguschiy-“Ren” writes about “combat operations” (which, of course, were in no way carried out by “bridge guards”) and that SS-Obergruppenführer von Bach “said at a meeting of all commanders that this is my best department , then he did not say this for the sake of saying that the merit was due to the elders.” It is also known that those foremen, including Shukhevych and Pobigushchy, were awarded “iron crosses” by the Nazis not for “protecting the bridges,” but for “combat valor.” Pobiguschiy stated: “the legion completed its task 100 percent.” Here he boasts that the division command asked the “legion” to guard the division commander. Therefore, the former Nachtigall and Rolandovites deserve such an honor! Not useless, of course: such differences!
The same E. Pobigushchy is more frank in his memoirs: “Of course, there were frequent battles against partisans, combing of forests, attacks on their camps. The kuren fulfilled its task well, as von Bach said, saying that of all 9 kurens that guarded the middle rear of the Eastern Front - our kuren completed the task best."
Now it is completely clear that they did not “guard the bridges”, but “guarded the middle rear” of the group of Hitler’s army “Center”, which was advancing on Moscow.
Another author, M. Kalba, in the book “Nachtigall” (DUN smokehouse) in the light of facts and documents” (Denver, 1984) writes that “Nachtigall” was never a sabotage formation and did not carry out any acts of sabotage, although he also determines here that the kuren "was attached to the Brandenburg." And then Kalba refers to the German author Werner Brockford, who wrote about the formation of Brandenburg and, among other things, pointed out that Nachtigal “committed fantastic deeds” in the spirit of “an American-made war film.” What exactly Brockford had in mind is still unknown and remains behind the scenes, but “fantastic deeds” in the spirit of an “American-made war film” intrigue not only the author’s imagination.
However, today it is quite clear that the Schutzmannfaft battalion did not “guard bridges” in the partisan region in Belarus, but acted as part of the punitive formations of SS Obergruppenführer von dem Bach-Zelewski against Belarusian partisans and civilians, and participated in the punitive operations “Bolotnaya” fever", "Triangle", "Cottbus" and others. That the neighbor of the 201st Security Division and an enterprising partner in combat operations against the partisans and peasants of Belarus was the notorious “Dirlivanger Brigade”, known during the war, formed from criminals, professional sadists and murderers. Several members of the “Ukrainian” formation as part of the 15th police regiment participated in the punitive action described in the documentary story “Eternal Cortelis” by Vladimir Yavorivsky, as a result of which animals with human names wiped off the face of the earth along with the inhabitants of the Volyn villages of Borki, Zabolotye, Borisovka and Cortelis.
Abwehr battalions "Nachtigall" and "Roland"
The same Pobiguschiy “Ren” recalls that before Christmas in 1943 “the legion was disbanded.” The reasons for this have not yet been clarified. They served wonderfully, received “iron crosses”, were the best in the SS punitive troops von dem Bach-Zelewski and suddenly.., “disbanded”! Pobigushchy also recalls that SS Obergruppenführer von Bach told him personally that “all legionnaires” (as Pobigushchy and other authors call punitive policemen) “will go home in small groups and there must register with the police in Lvov.”
“Demobilization” took place, but under very mysterious circumstances. However, in Lvov, some of the Ukrainian officers and non-commissioned officers, including Pobigushchy, were kept “under arrest” by the Nazis, but “a change in political conditions saved us.” Here we are talking, of course, about the fact that during the formation of the 14th SS Grenadier Division "Galizienne" they were called up as junior officers of the now SS formation, where Pobiguschiy-"Ren" was first a regiment commander, and then a battalion commander with the rank of Sturmbannführer (major ) SS. So, finally, the officer cadres turned from Abwehr police officers into SS men.
"What is the use of DUN"? - Stepan Bandera asked in one of his articles and here he answered: “The special thing they brought with them was knowledge of the organization, strategy and tactics of partisan warfare used by the Bolsheviks in the Second World War, and German methods of destroying partisan detachments. This knowledge was very useful in creating the UPA."
As we can see, Bandera was interested in the experience of the Nazis’ struggle against Soviet partisans. And we must also add that the UPA was led, its “commander-in-chief” became the recent captain of the Abwehr and the Schutzmanschaft of the formation, R. Shukhevych, who immediately became a cornet general in the UPA.
Consequently, it was not the experience of “protecting bridges” that the former Nachtigall and Rolandites learned, but the fight against partisans and civilians of Belarus using the German methods of von dem Bach-Zelewski and Dirlivanger.
Vitaly Ivanovich Maslovsky
Translation from Ukrainian RM.U
Yes, modern literature does not deny that Jews were killed by representatives of the police created by the Ukrainian National Committee, which declared the independence of Ukraine on June 30, and simply by amateur pogromists. Among the latter were Poles, which is not surprising, given the anti-Semitism in pre-war Poland.
However, although there were more than three times more Poles in Lviv at that time than Ukrainians, there is much less information about their participation in the pogroms. Some victims (and in total 4-6 thousand Jews died in late June - early July), of course, fell at the hands of the Germans, but the main role of the occupiers then was reduced to incitement and non-intervention. But the death of the Polish professors is considered the work of the Einsatzgruppen, led by SS Brigadeführer Eberhard Schöngart.
As for the Nachtigal battalion, it is being proven in Ukraine that all the accusations against it, in particular the testimony of witnesses, were fabricated by the KGB and the security service of the GDR in order to tarnish the political leader of this unit - later the prominent West German politician Theodor Oberländer. In 1960, this figure in the GDR was sentenced in absentia to life imprisonment precisely for the murders of Jews and Poles in Lvov. But a conclusion is drawn: since the Bonn court acquitted him that same year, it means that “Nachtigall” was not involved in these acts.
However, everything is far from so simple. In fact, there was no acquittal because there was no trial; The prosecutor's office closed the case: regarding the Jewish pogroms - due to lack of evidence, and regarding the execution of Polish professors - due to the establishment of the non-involvement of the accused.
At the same time, one cannot help but notice that such a whistleblower of Ukrainian nationalism as Vitaly Maslovsky, in his final work “Who and against whom Ukrainian nationalists fought during the Other World War” (M., 1999) does not use that evidence base , on the basis of which Oberlander was convicted in the GDR. He openly writes about the “lack of significant and comprehensive documents and analytical studies” on this issue, and deduces the involvement of “Nachtigall” in the crimes only from the book of the Polish author Alexander Korman “From the Bloody Days of Lvov 1941.” (London, 1991), based on eyewitness accounts.
“Nakhtigalivtsi” came from the Budynkas of communists and Poles, who were immediately hung on the balconies...”; “The Ukrainian soldiers of the Nachtigal battalion were called “birders” by the locals of Lvov...”; “The birds were in German uniforms and with German military insignia. They spoke in Ukrainian language..."- Maslovsky quotes this publication.
And the Polish historian Jacek Wilczur, who lived in Lviv in 1941, claims that he was then told: “Ptashniks” killed in four ways - with bullets, a bayonet, a rifle butt, or simply beaten to death with their hands and feet.”. As already indicated in the quotation from Corman, it was the Nachtigalevites who were called “birders” - because of the image of a nightingale on their cars and motorcycles: in this they differed from the Ukrainians who served in other German units as translators.
Would it be fair to reject Vilchur’s evidence on the grounds that he himself did not see these crimes, or due to doubts about his objectivity? Memory, of course, can fail anyone. But it is known that pogroms in Lvov actually took place, and if a Polish historian had been a Ukrainophobe, he would have been more likely to attribute those atrocities to nationalists independent of the Germans (for example, the police subordinate to the national committee), rather than to a unit of the German army - for in the first case the blame was laid would be for some Ukrainians, while in the second it is divided between the German command and its subordinates.
"Prelude to the Holocaust." What the German archives say
And yet, the materials available to us from Corman and Vilchur do not allow us to firmly determine how serious their evidence base is. This also applies to other press reports about Polish historians who are convinced of the involvement of “Nachtigall” in those crimes in Lviv. In addition, some of their fellow compatriots hold the opposite opinion... And to independently draw a conclusion about the guilt or innocence of the Ukrainian Abwehr battalion, having at hand not the historical works themselves, but only responses to them or individual quotes, such a task seems unrealistic.
Now, however, any Internet user has access to a source that makes it easier for those who do not speak foreign languages to come to a definite conclusion on this issue. This is an article by Hannes Heer, “Prelude to the Holocaust: Lemberg in June-July 1941,” written ten years ago and recently reprinted in Russian on a number of sites. True, there are two shortcomings in the publication of this most interesting text. Firstly, the extensive reference apparatus and links to sources are not presented in a convenient form for work (the footnotes are practically not translated, German abbreviations are not deciphered, which makes them difficult to understand even for many trained readers), secondly, nothing is said about the author himself .
Meanwhile, Hannes Heer is the most famous German historian, who in the late 90s of the last century organized the most resonant exhibition “Crimes of the Wehrmacht”, breaking the stereotypical idea widespread in Germany that the SS, Gestapo, SD - but not the army - were involved in Nazi atrocities.
At the beginning of the “Prelude...” Heer explains that the battalion of the 800th training and sabotage regiment of the Abwehr Brandenburg (800 soldiers), to which the Nachtigal battalion (400 soldiers) was assigned, was assigned a special task in Lvov - preparing actions “self-purification,” which in Nazi jargon meant the destruction by the local population of Jews and other elements undesirable for the occupiers:
« Assuming that the military leaders involved in the East knew in advance about the “self-purification” actions planned by the Einsatzgruppen and, perhaps, had already heard about the first such staging, which took place on June 25/26 in Kaunas, Lithuania, Stülpnagel(commander of the 17th Army of the Wehrmacht. - A.P.) pursued the goal of obtaining support from the Einsatzgruppen for its own actions in this direction.
The army had at its disposal a unit that could be used not only for risky forays behind enemy lines, but also for other tasks - the battalion 800 of the Brandenburg training and sabotage regiment. Since there were no military reasons to use the elite formation - the Red Army surrendered Lemberg without a fight - only a political order remains as an explanation. There was a logic to this - the three Ukrainian companies of the Nachtigal battalion were extremely anti-communist and anti-Semitic and were recruited from residents of Lemberg and the surrounding area who knew the terrain well.
Judging by the preparatory activities, Lemberg was assigned a special role: both the order to capture the city and the appointment of the commandant came from the 17th Army. Moreover, after the occupation of Lemberg, she continued to tightly control the cordon of the city. Apart from the battalions involved, no formations were allowed to enter Lemberg, the admission of individuals was possible only with special passes (how strict the control was is shown by the fact that the special representative of the Abwehr, Prof. Koch, was initially not allowed into the city), even the passage of front-line units - such like the Waffen-SS Viking Division - was delayed for one day.
Movement within the city was also restricted: patrols had to be accompanied by an officer, and mountain riflemen were ordered to remain at their posts in the citadel and the High Castle. These precautions give the impression that they wanted to give Battalion 800 the opportunity to operate without interference. In this regard, it is interesting that battalion 800 did not obey the ordered order of march - behind the mountain riflemen - and became the first part of the Wehrmacht to enter the city.
This disregard of the order, mentioned in the battalion report, did not, judging by the documents, have any consequences, since the army obviously covered it up. In the justification for the violation of discipline, which was given by the battalion commander Heinz - he wanted to save “still living German soldiers and Ukrainians” from the burning GPU prison, as well as with a quick maneuver to prevent the “Jewish population and mob” from plundering warehouses - tasks appear that actually Battalion 800 was tasked with taking control of the prisons and, possibly, coordinating anti-Jewish actions.
The matter was not limited to taking control. From the testimony of witnesses, it becomes clear that after the arrival of battalion 800 and the Ukrainian companies subordinate to it, some of the corpses in the prisons were mutilated. The same thing, apparently, happened in other cities of Galicia. The perpetrators are called OUN-B activists. The NKVD members, witnesses say, were primarily concerned with evacuation measures and their own hasty retreat; they had “too little time” for sadistic torture.
These gruesome manipulations of the corpses explain the inconsistencies in the reports from the prisons (most of the testimonies of those who visited the prisons on June 28-29 do not contain, unlike later testimonies, indications that the corpses were mutilated; nor does the first report of Battalion 800 contain such indications ). It should be added that the Jewish victims of the NKVD were taken from Lemberg prisons before the population began to be allowed inside for identification».
Almost every phrase of the author is supported by links. Only in this fragment of the article there are 14 of them (here we do not present these footnotes to save space, but in Russian reprints of the full text they are present; however, working with them, as noted, is not easy). Moreover, the author refers not only to publications of eyewitness memoirs and monographs by historians, but also to archival documents. In particular, information about the first report of the 800th battalion was taken from the archives. And the assertion that the Nachtigallians were recruited mainly from Lviv residents is based on the book by Philipp-Christian Wax “The Case of Theodor Oberländer” (Frankfurt, 2000), the author of which, fascinated by the character and biography of the hero of his work, closely communicated with him in the last years of his life and had access to personal archive.
As is known, the blame for the executions in Lviv prisons was placed not only on the NKVD, but also on Lviv Jews in general, and in order to more likely provoke a pogrom, the Jews were instructed to dismantle the corpses of those executed in the presence of the latter’s relatives.
Here is what Heer writes about the role of Shukhevych’s battalion in these events:
« Ukrainians from the Nachtigal battalion were also involved in the scenario. They forced Jews driven into prison to crawl on their knees to the corpses and wash them, they tore the dresses of women and girls in order to photograph them half naked, they tore out the beards of old men. They suddenly threw grenades at working Jews or caused them to panic with targeted shots. The culmination was the ritual of punishment with spitzrutens, repeated again and again.
As one of the Jewish survivors reports: “After we had dealt with dismantling the mountains of corpses, we were forced to run for a long time around the courtyard, while we had to hold our hands above our heads. [...] During the run, or maybe immediately after it, I heard the German command “To the spitzrutens” or “Line up for the spitzrutens.” As far as I remember, this command was given by someone from a group of German soldiers who stood somewhat away from the common grave and watched us the entire time. The group consisted of 5 or 6 people. These were officers. [...] According to this German order, Ukrainian soldiers lined up in two trellises and pointed bayonets. All the Jews in the prison yard had to pass through these trellises, while Ukrainian soldiers beat and stabbed them. I was not among the first to go through the trellises. Pure chance. The first Jews who had to pass were almost all bayoneted.” In total, 4,000 Lemberg Jews died during this orchestrated massacre.».
« Contrary to the claims of German officers that Nachtigall personnel did not leave their locations, the presence of battalion soldiers in all three prisons was confirmed. First of all, for the NKVD prison there are exact testimony of witnesses, on the basis of which the Bonn prosecutor's office established that at least part of the second company(and the battalion had three companies. - A.P.) “proceeded to acts of violence against the exiled Jews and was responsible for the deaths of numerous Jews.” The testimony of an SD officer who was present at the execution of Jews by soldiers of the Nachtigal battalion in the courtyard of the gymnasium gives legitimate reasons to doubt that the circle of criminals was limited only to the second company, and the place where the crimes were committed was the NKVD prison.
The Nachtigall fighters were more than determined: hagiographic literature about the actions of battalion 800 in Lemberg tells without mincing words that the Ukrainians were obsessed with only one thing - revenge. The secret field police report states that the translators assigned to it through Nachtigall were so “fanatical” towards the Jews that “the limits of their use [...] within the framework of military discipline” became obvious on the very first day. Even for the political instructor Oberlander, who was not too friendly towards Jews, the condition of his soldiers these days became a cause for concern.».
The above two fragments are supported by 15 references. A third of them are witness statements contained in the resolution of the Bonn prosecutor's office, which studied the Oberlander case. The key witnesses are a former Lviv resident and later Israeli journalist Eliahu Jones, who would later write a book about the fate of the Lviv Jews, and a West German businessman of Jewish origin, Moritz Grünbart, who was in prison at the time of the occupation of Lviv (he fled from the Lodz ghetto and was arrested by the NKVD for illegal border crossing).
It is extremely difficult to imagine that these people were influenced by the KGB. And the archival documents released by Vyatrovich, which he interprets as indicating the preparation of a provocation, speak exclusively of working with Soviet witnesses for the trial on the territory of the GDR. The “orange” historian has no hint that there may be evidence against “Nachtigall” in the West German Oberlander case.
A convinced Nazi and his Ukrainian lawyers
However, the testimony of Grünbart and Jones is not such a secret: their memoirs about what happened in Lviv in the first days of its occupation were published in Der Spiegel in February-March 1960, when the scandal with Oberlander had just begun, and are now available to everyone on the official website of this magazine.
One of these publications quotes Oberlander’s words at a press conference: “ I can say that during the six days during which Nachtigal was in Lvov, not a single shot was fired and that I am not aware of a single case of any violence... During those six days I had to constantly monitor the posts posted "Nachtigalem" for the protection of various objects. I was then in Lemberg for a long time and I can tell you that during these six days “Nachtigall” did not fire a single shot in Lvov».
However, he was lying. Heer did not invent that the political leader of Nachtigall was then concerned about the excessive zeal of his charges: this statement is supported by a reference to Oberlander’s letter to his wife, cited in the mentioned book by Wachs.
By the way, the statement at the press conference quoted above clearly contradicts what Ukrainian historians and apologists of “Nachtigall” are now writing. So, according to Oberlander, the battalion was constantly guarding some objects, and according to Vyatrovich and others like him, this unit was sent on a week’s leave the day after entering Lviv, after which it left the city.
But the contradiction here is apparent and symptomatic. At the time when the scandal broke, the defenders of Nachtigall and Oberländer could still try to claim that there was no shooting at all in Lvov. But when it is clear to everyone that this version does not work, all that remains is to talk about a “week-long vacation”: then the crimes committed by soldiers in the uniform of this battalion can be explained by their personal indiscipline, removing responsibility from the command.
The Bonn prosecutor’s office in 1960 was also unable to clear the entire personnel of Nachtigall. In her resolution, which Vyatrovich quotes, it is possible that “ members of the Ukrainian Nachtigal battalion, whose names have not been established, could, at their own discretion, take part in murders and pogroms, without the knowledge and contrary to the clear prohibitions of the battalion commanders».
But Vyatrovich and Co. do not provide any archival documents to confirm the prohibitions, and Oberlander’s letter to his wife clearly states whether crimes were committed with or without knowledge. It is clear that one cannot trust the objectivity of the Bonn prosecutor's office, which is emphasized by historians of this kind. Not so long ago, “2000” already wrote what denazification was like in Germany ( Should we expect victims of national reconciliation? // № 15 (554), 15-21.04.11):
« ...Since 1945, a process called denazification was actually launched in the western occupation zone, and individual war criminals were convicted. But the logic of the Cold War led the West to curtail this process and demilitarize Germany. Many criminals were released from prison early and began to play prominent roles in the country. And some have never been behind bars.
For example, the creator of such a key element of the Nazi system as the Nuremberg racial laws, Hans Joseph Globke, headed the government apparatus under Chancellor Konrad Adenauer from 1953 to 1963. True, he was helped to some extent by the fact that he was, so to speak, a non-party Nazi. His active work in the Center Party (until 1933) became the basis for Bormann personally refusing him admission to the NSDAP in 1940. That is why Globke avoided denazification. However, both the German and US leadership were well aware of his role under Nazism.».
I will add that the Americans, having received information about the whereabouts of Holocaust organizer Adolf Eichmann, did not share it with Israel precisely out of fear that his capture would put Globke at risk.
Attempts to justify Oberländer did not inspire confidence among democratically minded Germans even at that time. Thus, Der Spiegel stated back in 1960 that the international investigative commission “Lvov-1941”, which was then created in Holland, had discredited itself and its materials were absolutely unconvincing. And Ukrainian historians - defenders of Nachtigall - also like to refer to this commission.
While defending the reputation of the Ukrainian Abwehr battalion, they naturally defend Oberlander. And the level of this protection just shows the degree of their historical competence.
For example, Vyatrovich explains why the USSR wanted to compromise Oberlander: “ ...The desire to punish war criminals was used as a cover for a political game inspired by the KGB against the West German government led by Chancellor Konrad Adenauer. In 1953, he appointed Theodor Oberländer as Minister for War Victims, Deported and Repatriated Germans. Under his care were millions of German refugees and migrants from the former lands of the Reich, which after the war went to Poland, Czechoslovakia and the USSR. Anti-communist sentiments prevailed among these people. Over time, Oberlander, relying on them, decided to create a powerful political party with a strong anti-left bias, which attracted the attention of the Stasi, and therefore the KGB. The valiant security officers still managed to partially implement the task of compromising the Adenauer government and Oberlander himself. Despite his acquittal in court, Oberlander had to resign as a minister involved in a high-profile political scandal"(ZN, No. 6, 02/16/08).
In fact, the politician resigned as minister in May 1960, when the prosecutor's office had not yet taken up his case. And most importantly, there are no serious materials about his plans to create a new party in Germany. On the contrary, everything was exactly the opposite: Oberlander in 1953 joined the Adenauer government precisely as a representative of the junior partner of the CDU - the All-German Bloc / Union of Expelled and Deprived of Rights party, for which people from lands lost by Germany voted 1945 But already in 1955, he, together with the leader of this political force, Waldemar Kraft and its other prominent functionaries, moved to the CDU, attracting the main electorate of this party (which then quickly faded) to the Christian Democrats. They were quite comfortable among Christian Democrats, since at that time the degree of anti-left bias of the latter was simply off the charts. And the USSR benefited from discrediting Oberlander precisely as a figure in Adenauer’s cabinet, while the emergence of a new party would be more likely to be beneficial to Moscow, increasing the potential for internal conflicts in the German government.
And Holocaust researcher in Galicia Zhanna Kovba, who diligently emphasizes the non-involvement of Ukrainian nationalist formations in atrocities, finds only the following words to characterize Oberlander: “ Not least because of his sharply anti-communist, anti-Radyan views, and because he was an officer in the Wehrmacht, a member of the Nachtigall battalion.
Of course, the figure mentioned was an anti-communist and anti-Soviet. However, for example, Churchill’s anti-communism and anti-Sovietism did not prevent him from becoming an ally of the USSR. But Oberländer found himself on the opposite side, since he was a convinced Nazi - at the age of 18 he participated in Hitler’s “Beer Hall Putsch” (1923), because of which he spent four days in jail. The subject of his main interests before the Second World War was not communism and the USSR, but Poles and Jews. On the one hand, he was engaged in inciting national contradictions in Poland, on the other, in the fight against the Poles from among the subjects of the Reich. Already in the mid-30s, he spoke out in favor of banning social relations between Germans and Poles, and in 1939-1940. carried out ethnic cleansing in Polish lands annexed to Germany.
However, Oberlander did not like the Poles not just as such, but as Slavs - back in 1936, in the article “Demographic pressure in the German-Polish borderland,” he wrote that “the rapid growth of the Slavic population is a serious threat to the whole of Europe.” At the same time, he spoke out for the liquidation of assimilated Jews, in whom he saw the main bearers of Bolshevism. Oberlander proposed to partially transfer the Jewish property confiscated in Poland to the Poles to improve their attitude towards the Germans. But those at the top in Berlin did not listen to this proposal. It is precisely such purely tactical disagreements that sometimes inflate into fundamental contradictions in Western literature, primarily in the aforementioned book by Wachs, where Oberlander appears almost as a fighter against Nazism like Stauffenberg*.
___________________________________
* Klaus Schenck von Stauffenberg (1907-1944) - Colonel of the Wehrmacht; one of the main participants in the “conspiracy of the generals,” which culminated in the unsuccessful attempt on Hitler’s life on July 20, 1944. Stauffenberg was shot along with a group of comrades. - Red.
However, modern German, British and American studies report a lot about Oberlander’s Nazi activities and his racist views. Excerpts from these works are also abundantly presented in articles about him in the English and German versions of Wikipedia.
And the fact that Ukrainian historians and defenders of Nachtigall stubbornly do not see these qualities in the political leader of the battalion is precisely a convincing argument in favor of distrust of their arguments about the non-involvement of this Abwehr unit in crimes.
Published documents show that the “warriors” of “Nachtigall” were obviously involved in the pogroms in Lvov in 1941, both as provocateurs and as perpetrators. But the extent of their specific guilt remains to be seen, as well as Oberlander’s guilt: if the latter’s defenders strive to present the crimes of his subordinates as arbitrary acts, this does not mean that this was the case. It’s just that this version is the most convenient for whitewashing the battalion’s political instructor.
The SS men are the organizers. Who are the performers?
As for the murder of Polish professors, it was undoubtedly a German action. However, defenders of nationalists are deceiving when they claim that the leading Polish researcher of this problem, Zygmunt Albert, has proven that Ukrainians are completely innocent of this. In fact, in his work, which is also in Russian, the following is said: “ Many Poles still mistakenly believe that Ukrainians committed the murder of professors. If this were so, then the Hamburg prosecutor would not have admitted after the war that it was the work of his compatriots - the Germans... This prosecutor admitted that only the shooting group consisted of Ukrainians, translators, dressed in SS formation uniforms».
But Hannes Heer wrote about the role of “Nachtigall” in providing the Gestapo with translators. Albert also shares the widely spread version in Poland that the professors were discovered on a tip from nationalists:
« Many Poles asked themselves where the Germans got the list of professors sentenced to execution. This is not significant, since the names and addresses could at least be found in the pre-war telephone directory. One can, however, believe Walter Kutschman, who said Assoc. Lantskoronskaya that the list was given to the Gestapo by the Ukrainians. Fortunately, there were only 25 professors on the list. After all, only one university had 158 associate professors and professors...
Based on the fact that the Gestapo on that July night was looking for those who died after the start of the war(i.e. after September 1, 1939 - A.P.): ophthalmologist prof. Adam Bednarsky and dermatologist prof. Roman Leszczynski, it can be assumed that the list originated in Krakow. Due to the fact that Lviv was separated by the border, Krakow could not know who died after that. The most plausible version seems to be that the Krakow Gestapo, before the start of the German-Soviet war, demanded that Ukrainians, students or graduates of higher schools in Lvov, indicate the names and addresses of professors known to them. Therefore, the list was, fortunately, so relatively short».
If this version, which is shared by most other Polish researchers, is correct, then there may well be “Nachtigallites” among the killers’ spotters.
But before the professors were shot, they had to be arrested. An employee of the Polish Institute of National Remembrance, Stanislav Bogachevich, states that these warriors also arrested them, and believes that Oberlander’s personal role in this needs to be clarified. Jacek Wilczur also writes about their participation in the arrests. It is also reported that in the spring of 2005, the Union of Descendants of Murdered Professors, in a letter to then President Viktor Yushchenko, spoke of the battalion soldiers as participants in this crime. But what exactly the authors sought from the Ukrainian president and what answer they received is unknown.
Meanwhile, as Igor Melnik rightly emphasized in his speech, “ It is our responsibility to know who killed whom... And we need to not kill, but we live, so that this never happens again».
But, alas, no attempts are being made to find out the true role of “Nachtigall” in the events of that time. On the contrary, it seems that this truth is not needed, while the mythology created under Yushchenko remained in service with some structures of the new government. After all, for example, a reprint of Vyatrovich’s apologetic article “How the legend of Nachtigall was created” cited here is presented on the website of the Ukrainian Embassy in the USA (both in Ukrainian and English versions) in the “Pages of History” section (see. Stopped time// “2000”, No. 26 (564), 1-7.07.11).
" "Last spring, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine introduced a bill on the establishment of a new national holiday in the country - “Day of Restoration of Ukrainian Statehood,” scheduled for June 30. On this day, in 1941, in Lviv, which had just been occupied by the Ukrainian Wehrmacht Nachtigal battalion, activists of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) proclaimed an independent Ukrainian state. On the same day, in Lviv, Ukrainian legionnaires and OUN militants began mass executions of Jews, Poles, Russians, communists and Soviet workers. It seems that it would be useful for both Ukrainian and Russian readers to be reminded of the events of those days.
Ukrainian nationalism as an organized ideological and political movement took shape in the lands of Poland inhabited by Ukrainians, as well as among the Ukrainian emigration scattered around the world in the 1920s - 1930s. In Poland, Ukrainian nationalists were the most radical and did not disdain terrorist methods of struggle. Back in 1923, connections were established, which were never interrupted, with the intelligence services of first Weimar and then Nazi Germany, from which they received comprehensive methodological and material assistance. In 1929, the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) was created. In 1939, after the capture of part of Poland by German troops in this territory, active work was underway to put together a military wing of the OUN. The formation of the so-called “marching groups” began - the core of the future Ukrainian national army. In collaboration with the Nazis, these units were soon deployed into the “Ukrainian Nationalist Squads”. It was these squads that served as the mobilization base for the subsequent formation of special battalions of the Wehrmacht intelligence service “Abwehr”, staffed by Ukrainians.
“At the beginning of 1941, the opportunity arose to create a school under the German army for two Ukrainian units, approximately the size of a kuren,” - so in the late 1950s. the leader of Ukrainian nationalists Stepan Bandera recalled the birth of the Abwehr special battalions. The battalion, codenamed Spezialgruppe Nachtigall, staffed by OUN volunteers, was formed between March and April 1941 in the Polish city of Krynica, and then underwent combat and special training in Neuhammer, Germany. At the same time, from April 1941, the Abwehr battalion “Roland” (Organization Rolland), also staffed by Ukrainians, was formed in Vienna.
The word "Nachtigall" in German means a harmless nightingale. In modern Ukrainian historiography, there is an idyllic legend that German officers gave this name, imbued with the sad melodic Ukrainian songs that the training camp soldiers sang in the evenings. It should be noted that the OUN members themselves were reluctant to use the German names of their formations, preferring their own term “Drugs of Ukrainian Nationalists” (DUN). The same battalion “Nachtigal” in OUN documents was called “Northern Kuren DUN”. The leader of the Ukrainian nationalists S. Bandera never mentions the German name in his long essay about the military organization OUN-UPA and its leader R. Shukhevych. The “innate” ambivalence of the Ukrainian Wehrmacht formations is fully present in the modern scientific and journalistic field in Ukraine, terminologically as if dissociating Ukrainian nationalists from the crimes of Nazism.
The Nachtigall battalion consisted of 330 people. consisting of four companies. Almost immediately, the new formation was included in the special purpose regiment Brandenburg-800, which was under the jurisdiction of the 2nd department (organization of sabotage) of the Abwehr. At the head of the battalion was a kind of triumvirate. Oberleutnant Albrecht Herzner was appointed as the German commander, captain Roman Shukhevych, a close ally of S. Bandera, a member of the Revolutionary Wire of the OUN (b), was appointed as the commander from the Ukrainian side. After the war, Bandera himself called Shukhevych “one of the most significant figures in the entire history of the nationalist revolutionary liberation movement.” Finally, the political leader of the battalion became an equally “remarkable” character, who will be discussed below - an expert on Eastern Europe, Theodor Oberländer. When forming Ukrainian national units, the Germans hoped to use them primarily as saboteurs and intelligence officers. In addition, the undoubted propaganda effect on the Western Ukrainian population of participation of Ukrainian Wehrmacht soldiers in the fight against the Red Army was taken into account. The legionnaires were dressed in Wehrmacht field uniforms, but had some distinctive features, for example, blue and yellow piping on their shoulder straps and a bird silhouette on their cars (due to which they were remembered by many witnesses). So, “Nachtigall” was a personnel unit of the Wehrmacht, and was maintained and subordinated to the German authorities.
As part of the 1st battalion of the special purpose regiment "Brandenburg-800", on June 18, 1941, the Nachtigal and Roland battalions were transferred to the Soviet-Polish border in the city of Radymno. Before this, in a solemn atmosphere, they swore allegiance to the leader of the Third Reich, vowing to fight for him “until they bleed.” Among the first units of the Wehrmacht, early in the morning of June 22, Nachtigal crossed the Soviet border and headed to the city of Przemysl, then crossed the San River with the task of advancing on Lvov. However, in the first days of the war, Nachtigal moved in the second echelon, remaining in the operational reserve of the German troops.
The Wehrmacht offensive in Western Ukraine in the summer of 1941 developed rapidly. On June 25, Lutsk was taken, on June 28, Rivne, on June 30, Lviv, on July 2, the Germans took Ternopil, and the Hungarian troops took Stanislav (now Ivano-Frankivsk). By July 7-9, the Wehrmacht was already on the old Soviet border.
On the night of June 29-30, 1941, the commander of the Brandenburg-800 regiment assigned his subordinate units the task of occupying Lvov. The Nachtigal battalion entered the city early in the morning of June 30, without encountering resistance from the Red Army, which had already left the city. Ukrainian legionnaires, ahead of the columns of German troops by several hours, occupied some important objects, including the town hall buildings and radio stations. The battalion was divided into hundreds and fifty, and established control over the main central streets of the city. At the Cathedral of St. George, the Nachtigall fighters were warmly greeted by Metropolitan Andrei Sheptytsky, head of the Greek Catholic (Uniate) Church.
In the Ukrainian nationalist discourse, the place of “Nathigal” is especially important due to the fact that immediately after the battalion occupied Lviv and the Lviv radio center in the building of the Lviv “Prosvita”, the creation of an independent Ukrainian state was announced. This was announced in a solemn atmosphere by the representative of the leader of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists - OUN(b) Stepan Bandera, professor at Lvov University Y. Stetsko - one of Bandera’s closest supporters and a member of the highest body of the Bandera wing of the OUN, the Revolutionary Wire, created by the latter in 1940. To the “storm of applause and tears of joy” of those present, Stetsko read out the “sacred act of proclamation of Ukrainian statehood” (“Act of the Proclamation of the Ukrainian State”), authored by S. Bandera.
At the same time, the composition of the Ukrainian government was announced, headed by Stetsko himself. The corresponding proclamation was read out on the radio and is said to have caused a “great upsurge” among Ukrainians. On July 1, the proclaimed Ukrainian state was blessed by Metropolitan Sheptytsky. He welcomed the German army as a liberating army.
Meanwhile, the top political leadership of the Third Reich and the Wehrmacht command were not aware of such an independent act of the Ukrainian nationalists. The “High Assembly” limited itself to a heartfelt greeting to the “creator and leader of Greater Germany” Adolf Hitler. A few days later, the newly-minted Prime Minister Stetsko addressed the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Nazi Germany, informing him of the accomplished “will of the Ukrainian people” and at the same time offering his services to “Greater Germany”.
The Banderaites understood their relationship with Nazi Germany as a temporary and, moreover, equal alliance to overthrow the “Bolshevik yoke” and hoped that Hitler would allow them to create a more or less independent national state like Slovakia or Croatia. Ukrainian nationalists did not hide their plans to use Nazi Germany for their own purposes, primarily to expel the Bolsheviks from Ukraine. The meaning of this political action in the late 1950s. S. Bandera explained pompously, trying to “slip” between two totalitarianisms - Soviet and Nazi: “When in 1941 a war broke out between two aggressive, totalitarian imperialisms on Ukrainian soil and for its possession, then the OUN, remembering the conclusions of Yevgeny Konovalets from the events of 1917 - 1918, gave rise to the current framework for the active participation of the Ukrainian nation in the historical arena.
The proclamation of the revival of the Ukrainian State in June 1941 and the construction of an independent state life testified that the Ukrainian people will under no circumstances renounce their rights as masters of their own land, and only respect for these sovereign rights of Ukraine by other peoples and states can serve as a platform for friendship with them.” . Specifically about the Ukrainian battalions, Bandera wrote: “By sending a DUN detachment to study in the German army, the OUN set its own conditions, which were accepted by those German military officials who organized the matter.”
But the naive calculation of the nationalists that by presenting the Germans with the fact of creating a Ukrainian state, they would be able to achieve recognition of their rights, turned out to be a calculation. The German patrons, who had long nurtured Ukrainian nationalism and planned to use it for their own purposes in the war against the Soviet Union, did not like such self-will.
Stetsko was soon arrested in Lviv, and the conductor (leader) of the OUN Bandera was arrested in Krakow. The latter soon found himself in the Nazi concentration camp Sachsenhausen, where he spent until September 1944, and the newly-minted Ukrainian state was abolished, having existed for only two days.
All the more valuable for modern Ukrainian historians and nationalist politicians is that brief moment when national statehood existed, at least formally. Local historians make a lot of effort to prove that this act of independence was not a declaration and an empty phrase.
It is argued, for example, that in June 1941, in Galicia and Volyn, which Soviet troops and Soviet authorities left virtually without a fight, representatives of the OUN “became almost complete masters of the majority of populated areas of the entire region.” In this sense, “Nathigal”, which passed “with fire and sword” through a number of cities in Western Ukraine, which we will talk about below, seems to be at the “pedestal” of the Ukrainian state tradition, the heir of which the current Kiev government considers itself to be. “Nathigal” is understood as a kind of advanced armed detachment of Ukrainian patriots who brought (or at least symbolized) the liberation of the Ukrainian people from the “Bolshevik yoke.”
At the same time, the dark side of the history of this unit, its function as a punitive instrument, a faithful assistant of the Nazi conquerors who entered Soviet soil not with peaceful plans at all, remains in the shadows or is categorically brushed aside.
It is difficult to deny the documented facts that will be presented below, but interpretations come into play.
The Ukrainian side, often without denying the very participation of “Nakhigal” in punitive actions, justifies them with understandable motives: they say that the legionnaires were taking revenge on them for the million (as Ukrainian historians and publicists claim) of Western Ukrainians allegedly killed or deported by the Bolsheviks in 1939 - 1941. The Soviet authorities also include “thousands” of prisoners in prisons in Galicia and Lvov, whom NKVD officers allegedly “shot and threw grenades at” immediately before the German occupation. The confrontation between historians has long gone beyond the scope of an academic dispute and it has very specific victims: for example, in 1999, the famous historian Professor V. Maslovsky, who had recently published a book on this topic, was killed in the entrance of his own house.
Whatever ideals the Ukrainian nationalists were guided by, in reality their implementation resulted in faithful service to the occupiers and active complicity in numerous crimes against the civilian population and party-Soviet activists of Western Ukrainian cities. The most famous of them was the Lviv pogrom, which took place at the end of June - beginning of July 1941. This crime against humanity, in which Nachtigall fighters took an active part, became one of the first acts of mass extermination of civilians in the occupied territory of the Soviet Union.
While impromptu celebrations on the occasion of the independence of Ukraine were taking place in the building of the Lviv Prosvita, in parallel with them and, as if illustrating the character of the new state, terrible and bloody events took place. The Nachtigall fighters, together with OUN activists ("Ukrainian police") who had emerged from underground and auxiliary police units hastily created by the Germans, and simply residents of Lvov, began an unprecedented cruelty of clearing the city of Jews, Soviet activists and representatives of the Polish intelligentsia, taking revenge on the innocent people for the corpses of Ukrainian activists discovered in abandoned NKVD prisons. Collective responsibility for the executions was placed on Lvov Jews who had nothing to do with them. In a few days - from June 30 to July 2 - about 4 thousand Jews alone were killed in Lvov. In addition, a large number of citizens of Russian and Polish nationalities were killed.
The issue of the Holocaust is an international issue and it cannot simply be silenced. In modern Ukraine, politicians and historians have long chosen the path of completely denying everything that can connect the OUN movement and the Holocaust. At one time, many Israelis were struck by the statement of Ukrainian President V. Yushchenko that today not a single document has been found proving the participation of Ukrainian nationalists in the extermination of Jews. At best, compromising materials in Ukraine are called “fabricated by the KGB.” Current Ukrainian nationalists continue this tradition.
Meanwhile, the recollections of witnesses, primarily victims of the pogroms in Lviv in the summer of 1941, are more than enough to formulate charges of crimes that do not have a statute of limitations.
According to a resident of Lvov, T. Sulim, who witnessed the bloody massacres, “there was not a street in the city on which the corpses of people did not lie.” “Inhuman screams,” recalled one of the surviving Jews, “broken heads, disfigured bodies and faces of the beaten, covered in blood mixed with dirt, aroused the bloodthirsty instincts of the mob, which howled with pleasure. Women and old men, who lay almost breathless on the ground, were poked with sticks and dragged along the ground.”
The epicenter of the extermination of Jews was the Lviv Brigidki prison. According to the testimony of former Lvov resident Kurt Levin, he and his father Rabbi Ezekiel Levin were driven to Brigidki, where Ukrainians and Germans brutally beat Jews. One Ukrainian was especially remembered by K. Levin. He beat the Jews with an iron stick. “With each blow, pieces of skin flew into the air, sometimes an ear or an eye. When the stick broke, he found a huge charred club and broke the skull of the first Jew who came under his hand with it.” The brains scattered in all directions and landed on Levin’s face and clothes...
The pogroms were accompanied by cruel abuse of defenseless people. Many recalled the so-called “kneeling marches,” when Jews were forced to crawl to a prison or execution site. Washing pavements and entrances with tongues was also common. The women were stripped naked and driven through the streets. Such mockery reveals not a very high flight of fancy, but an extreme degree of bitterness of the executioners. Numerous photographic evidence of these abuses has survived to this day.
Although the pogroms in Lvov these days became widespread, there is a lot of evidence of the active and organized participation of the Nathigal legionnaires in them. Immediately after the arrival of the Nachtigal battalion in Lviv, about 80 Ukrainian legionnaires were selected from its composition. As former battalion fighter G. Melnik recalled, a few days later they returned to the unit’s location and said that they had arrested and shot many local residents. Two of the legionnaires, named Lushchik and Pankiv, personally told Melnik that they took Polish scientists to Vuletskaya Mountain in Lviv and shot them. Another former legionnaire, J. Spital, recalled how in the premises of the house on the street. Drogomanov (formerly Mokhnatsky), 22 housed a kind of “arrest house” in which Nachtigal soldiers shot people of different nationalities every night. One night, a large group of prisoners was thrown from a second-floor balcony and then shot to death.
Witness Makarukha, who was a Soviet worker before the war, was arrested, taken to the police building, stripped and subjected to severe torture. The battalion commander Shukhevych personally participated in his interrogation, demanding that Makarukha hand over the communists. These days, while in prison, Makarukha saw every day Ukrainian nationalists in German uniforms, with a trident on their chests and
yellow-blue stripes on their shoulder straps, and the Germans selected groups of 10 to 15 people in prison, who were then shot. He was also shot, but, wounded, he was able to get out of the pit with corpses and hide. One of the following days, he saw how a soldier in a German uniform grabbed a small Jewish child by the legs, smashed his head against the wall of the house and in this way killed him.
Witness Hübner, a member of an air force construction battalion stationed in Lvov at the time, observed the carnage at the fire station from the window of his unit's washroom. About 30 people, aged from 17 to 51 years old, were driven individually through the fascist line in the direction of the tower of this depot. At the same time, they were tortured so cruelly that most of them did not reach the door of the tower, but fell to the ground dead. The few who made it to the tower were then thrown out of the upper windows of the tower. In those cases when they remained alive after the fall, they were finished off. The witness learned that the killers were servicemen of the Nachtigal unit from the fact that in the unit only commands were given in German, and they spoke to each other in Ukrainian.
Having “successfully” completed the mission in Lvov, on July 7, 1941, the Nachtigal battalion moved to Ternopil and Grymailov. Then he spent two weeks in Vinnitsa. After this, a special team of legionnaires took part in executions in the city of Satanov, then in Yuzvin. For some time, teams from the battalion guarded Soviet prisoners of war, simultaneously identifying commissars and Jews from among them and shooting them. At the same time, both in Lvov, and in Satanovo, and other places, the battalion leadership (T. Oberlander, R. Shukhevych) had in advance lists of people to be destroyed, not only adults, but also children.
A couple of times the legionnaires had to face regular units of the Red Army in battle. So, near the town of Brailov, “Nachtigal” was quite seriously battered by Soviet troops. However, its main “front” was far from the front line.
It must be especially emphasized that the Jewish pogroms in Lvov were not a random phenomenon, an “excess of the perpetrators,” as they say now. Anti-Semitism is one of the pillars of the OUN ideology, deeply rooted and receiving ideological justification from emigrant figures of Ukrainian nationalism in the 1920s and 1930s. The same Yaroslav Stetsko, elected head of the Ukrainian government in Lvov in 1939, wrote in one of his articles in the Canadian magazine “New Way”: Ukrainians “were the first in Europe to understand the corrupting activity of Jewry,” and dissociated themselves from the Jews centuries ago, preserving “ the purity of their spirituality and culture.” Nationalists considered Jewry and Bolshevism to be representatives of a single Jewish communist conspiracy. And in the 17th paragraph of the resolution of the 2nd All-Great Council of the OUN, held on the eve of the Great Patriotic War, in April 1941, it was directly stated: “The Jews in the USSR are the most devoted support of the ruling Bolshevik regime and the vanguard of Moscow imperialism in Ukraine.” Therefore, they were declared “enemies of the Ukrainian nation.” And at the beginning of July 1941, the OUN published an appeal with the words: “People! Know! Moscow, Poland, Magyars, Jews - these are your enemies. Destroy them. Poles, Jews, communists - destroy without mercy.”
The position of local churches regarding the mass extermination of Jews should be emphasized. Although in some places priests tried to stop pogroms that had already begun, and later hid Jews - in their homes or in church institutions - most of the clergy came out in support of the Nazi “Final Solution”. One priest of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Church addressed his flock with the following sermon: “I beg you: do not give a single piece of bread to a Jew! Don't give him a drop of water! Don't give him shelter! Anyone who knows that
a Jew is hiding somewhere, he must find him and hand him over to the Germans. There should be no traces left of the Jews. We must wipe them off the face of the earth. Only when the last Jew disappears will we win the war!”
Modern Ukrainian literature speaks rather evasively about the Lviv events: they say, Ukrainian battalions really ruled the city for some time, pogroms and massacres of Jews and Poles took place, but Ukrainian independence did not last long and the German administration that replaced the Ukrainian one bears responsibility for this. “And in general,” writes one of Bandera’s apologists R. Chasty, “it is possible that the Lviv pogroms were initiated by the Germans themselves. It is also possible that no Ukrainian military took part in them. And the legend about their participation was created by the Nazis themselves at a time when relations with Ukrainian nationalists had completely deteriorated...” It turns out that the Nazis “invented” numerous witnesses who, decades later, recalled with a shudder about those days and numerous voluntary assistants to the executioners with yellow-blue and white armbands - Ukrainian “policemen” and “OUN members”.
Although in Lvov and other Western Ukrainian cities the Ukrainian legionnaires of Nachtigall and the Nazi invaders did what is called a common cause, after the dissolution of the Ukrainian government the Nazis did not dare to retain Ukrainian battalions staffed by OUN activists for long. As one of the leaders of the Abwehr, P. Leverkühn, recalled, “there was a gradual change in the mood of his soldiers and officers... The Ukrainian battalion, which in Lvov sparked a readiness to fight among tens of thousands of liberated Western Ukrainians, became unreliable, riots began in it, and its were forced to disband." Already on August 10, 1941, Roland was disbanded. And on August 13, Nachtigal was also recalled to the rear. It was sent to the Neuhammer camps for "additional training" but was soon disbanded. The personnel were invited to join the new police battalion without any “independent frivolities.” So in Frankfurt-on-Oder the 201st police battalion was formed (commander E. Pobigushchy, his deputy R. Shukhevych, who was sent to fight against the unfolding partisan movement in Belarus and there he more than once “distinguished himself” like the Lvov “exploits”...
Ukrainian nationalist historians generally evaluate with satisfaction the “combat experience” gained by the fighters of “Nachtigall” and “Roland”, and then of the police battalion in the cities and forests of Western Ukraine and Belarus: later, many of them joined the ranks of the Ukrainian Army created in the spring of 1943 rebel army (UPA), bringing with them “knowledge of the organization, strategy and tactics of guerrilla warfare.” The 201st battalion was responsible for dozens of burned Belarusian farms and villages, as well as the Volyn village of Kortelisy, where 2.8 thousand residents were shot, accused of having connections with partisans. It is known that the battalion commander Pobiguschiy and his deputy Shukhevych were awarded “iron crosses” for their activities.
The Nachtigal and Roland battalions, as well as their reincarnation - the 201st police battalion - became only the first signs in a huge list of Ukrainian police and auxiliary units created by the Nazis from Ukrainian collaborators. It is known, for example, that until the end of 1943, almost 45 Ukrainian auxiliary police battalions were formed on the territory of the Reichskommissariat “Ukraine”. In other occupied territories of the USSR, another 13 battalions were created from Ukrainians, and on the territory of the Polish General Government - 8 more. Their “combat activities”, mainly on the territory of Belarus and Ukraine - a chain of war crimes, including the tragically famous Khatyn . As you know, there were dozens, if not hundreds, of such Khatyns.
The history of “Nachtigall” and the pogroms in Lviv was unknown to the general public for a long time. More precisely, it is known, but not all of it. Already in the first months of the Great Patriotic War, the atrocities of the occupiers in Lviv were made public to the whole world. The note of the People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs dated January 6, 1942, which later became the official document of the prosecution at the Nuremberg trials, stated: “On June 30, Hitler’s bandits entered the city of Lvov and the next day they carried out a massacre under the slogan “beat the Jews and Poles.” Having killed hundreds of people, the Nazi bandits staged an “exhibition” of those killed in the arcade building. Mutilated corpses, mostly women, were stacked against the walls of the houses.
In the first place of this horrific “exhibition” was the corpse of a woman, to whom her child was nailed with a bayonet.” However, for a long time, the Soviet authorities did not have details of who exactly committed these massive crimes against humanity. The NKID note mentions “Hitler’s bandits” and “Gestapo men.” Perhaps the role of Ukrainian nationalists in this massacre would have remained in the shadows if big politics had not intervened in the matter after the war.
The fact is that in post-war West Germany, the former political leader of the Nachtigal battalion, Theodor Oberländer, occupied a prominent place on the political scene. In 1953 - 1960 he held an important position at that time in the government of K. Adenauer - Minister for Refugees, Displaced Persons and War Victims. It is clear that among his charges, which included, first of all, people living in the territories seized from Germany, there were few people who sympathized with the Soviet Union. Oberländer's Ministry became a stronghold of far-right and revanchist forces in Germany.
At the end of the 1950s. In the neighboring GDR, an investigation was opened in absentia into the facts of war crimes committed by Oberlander personally and the military units subordinate to him. In 1959, he was tried in absentia, sentencing the former head of Nathigal to life imprisonment. He was charged, among other things, with the execution of several thousand Jews and Poles after the occupation of Lvov in July 1941. There is evidence that later (after the disbandment of Nachtigall, his career in the Wehrmacht took off) Oberlander personally took part in torture and execution, in particular, he personally killed 15 people in the prison of Pyatigorsk in 1942. In Germany, in response, a pre-trial investigation began, which, as expected, did not find any crime in Oberlander’s actions, just as the facts did not impress the investigators, published by witnesses and former servicemen of the battalion at a press conference held on April 5, 1960 in Moscow about the atrocities of the Nathigal battalion in Lviv and its environs (the Ukrainian cities of Zolochev, Satanov, Yuzvin, etc.)
However, Oberlander's political career came to an end and he was forced to submit his resignation.
The Oberländer case gave rise to a wide debate in both Germany and the USSR and forced the public to remember his past “merits.” Oberlander came to the position of head of Nathigal from the university department: in 1941, he served as dean of the Faculty of Law and Social and Political Sciences at Charles-Ferdinand University in Prague and was considered an expert in the field of agriculture and law of Eastern European countries, and had two doctoral degrees.
True, he turned all his knowledge to very specific purposes: Oberländer became one of the inspirers of the ethnic concept of the “new order” in Eastern Europe (the work “Struggle on the Front Line”, 1937), holding the opinion that the economic decline in Germany was the result actions of “Eastern European Jewry”, which is an agent of the Comintern. The theory of overpopulation as a source of social problems in Germany became one of the most important justifications for the mass extermination of the population in territories intended for the settlement of Germans in the East. So, this convinced Nazi with serious theoretical baggage in the position of political leader of the Nachtigal battalion was, as they say, in his place.
The short but turbulent history of the Ukrainian Nachtigal battalion is one of the cornerstones of the history of Ukrainian nationalism during the Second World War. It was from “Nachtigall” that the fierce armed struggle of Ukrainian nationalists in Western Ukraine began, which lasted almost until the mid-1950s. The leaders of Nachtigall today stand at the head of the pantheon of Ukrainian heroes. Those who remembered the war are leaving, and the aggressive pressure of the OUN lobby forms the image of the OUN-UPA as the bearer of the ideas of humanism and democracy, and its participants as sacrificial and noble fighters. R. Shukhevych was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of Ukraine in 2007.
The lessons of history, which did not serve the Kyiv authorities, have brought Ukraine today to the brink of disaster - military, political, economic and ideological.
Alexander ISAKOV
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Meaning of the word nachtigal
nachtigal in the crossword dictionary
nachtigal
- German traveler, doctor, African explorer, German Consul General in West Africa since 1884, explored Lake Chad, the Tibesti and Wadai highlands (1869-74), author of the book "The Sahara and Sudan"
Encyclopedic Dictionary, 1998
nachtigal
Nachtigal Gustav (1834-85) German explorer of Africa. In 1869-74 he explored the Tibesti and Vadai highlands, the lake area. Chad. In 1884 he was appointed Consul General of Germany in the West. Africa; established a German protectorate over the countries of Cameroon and Togo. In 1879-89, Nachtigall’s 3-volume work “The Sahara and Sudan” was published.
Nachtigall
Special unit (battalion) "Nachtigal", also known as group "North" The squad of Ukrainian nationalists is one of two armed units formed primarily from members and supporters of Nazi Germany, the Abwehr, for operations on the territory of the Ukrainian SSR as part of the sabotage unit “Brandenburg 800” during Operation Barbarossa.
According to the plans of the OUN, Ukrainian nationalist squads were to become the basis of the future army of Ukraine, allied with the armed forces of the Third Reich (Wehrmacht). The creation of the unit was authorized on February 25, 1941 by the head of the Abwehr, Wilhelm Canaris. Sabotage groups Nachtigall were transferred to the territory of the Ukrainian SSR before the start of the Great Patriotic War, while the main part of the battalion crossed the border of the USSR on June 22, 1941 and acted together with German troops along the route Przemysl - Lvov - Ternopil - Proskurov - Zhmerynka - Vinnitsa. In October 1941, "Nachtigal" and "Roland" were redeployed to Frankfurt an der Oder, sent for retraining for use as security police units, after which they were reorganized into the 201st Security Police Battalion at the end of the same year.