The Ukrainian “Galicia” Division: From Familiar to Unexplored Avenues of Research

Myroslav Shkandrij

doi:10.18523/kmhj188982.2019-6.1-23

Abstract

This article examines the main narratives that have dominated scholarly and political writings on the “Galicia” Division, the Waffen-SS 14th Grenadier Division that at the end of the Second World War was renamed the 1st Ukrainian Division of the Ukrainian National Army. Dominant narratives have focused on accusations of criminality, the hope that the formation would serve as the core of a national army at the war’s end, survival as a motivation for signing up, the experience of the soldiers after their surrender to the British, and the decision to transfer former soldiers to the UK and then to give them civilian status. Only the first of these narratives has been explored in depth as a result of the 1986 Deschиnes Commission of Enquiry into War Crimes in Canada and the 1989 Hetherington-Chalmers Report in the UK. Far less attention has been devoted to other narratives, and some lines of enquiry suggested by the rich memoir and creative literature have hardly as yet been touched.

Highlights

This article examines the main narratives that have dominated scholarly and political writings on the “Galicia” Division, the Waffen-SS 14th Grenadier Division that at the end of the Second World War was renamed the 1st Ukrainian Division of the Ukrainian National Army
Dominant narratives have focused on accusations of criminality, the hope that the formation would serve as the core of a national army at the war’s end, survival as a motivation for signing up, the experience of the soldiers after their surrender to the British, and the decision to transfer former soldiers to the UK and to give them civilian status
The first of these narratives has been explored in depth as a result of the 1986 Deschènes Commission of Enquiry into War Crimes in Canada and the 1989 Hetherington-Chalmers Report in the UK

Summary

Submerged Narratives

There is a third narrative, one that is neither condemnatory nor heroic, but has considerable explanatory value. In the spring of 1944, during a time when the front stabilized for a few months, as many witnesses have indicated there were few alternatives available to young men who were in the line of the Red Army’s advance They could disappear into the woods to join the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), something the Bandera wing of the OUN encouraged, but there they would have to conduct antiSoviet and anti-German guerilla warfare with almost no training or support. The Germans, who were aware that this fate awaited any young men left behind after their retreat, began capturing able-bodied youth and sending them to work in Germany Under these conditions, many saw volunteering for the Division as their best chance of surviving the war. This discussion was influenced by postwar politics, especially by the revision of attitudes toward Germany and the immediate past

Unexplored Topics

Selected Archival Sources