Yaroslav Stetsko

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Jaroslaw Stezko (before 1936)
Commemorative plaque at the "Yaroslav and Yaroslav Stetsko Museum" in Velykyj Hlybotschok

Jaroslaw Semenowytsch Stezko ( Ukrainian Ярослав Семенович Стецько ; born January 19, 1912 in Ternopil , Austria-Hungary ; died July 5, 1986 in Munich ) was a Ukrainian politician in exile.

Life

Jaroslaw Stezko was born as a member of the Ukrainian population in Galicia , which belongs to Austria . After the end of the First World War and after the end of the lost struggle for independence of the Ukrainians , the end of the Polish-Ukrainian war and the Polish-Soviet war , Ukraine belonged to the Soviet Union , Poland and Romania and Czechoslovakia . As a member of the Ukrainian minority in Poland, Stezko attended grammar school in Ternopil and studied philosophy and law in Kraków and Lviv from 1929 to 1934 .

Political activities

As a teenager he became a member of the national youth organization of the Ukrainians, then their paramilitary organization and the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN). When Stepan Bandera became deputy head of the OUN for the first time in 1932 , Stezko became the deputy of the political and ideological advisor. Since the OUN had hopes for German foreign policy in the conflict with the Polish majority society, he was one of the participants in an OUN conference that met in Berlin at the beginning of June 1933 after the transfer of power to the National Socialists . The OUN leaders have been repeatedly arrested by the Polish political police. After the Pieracki assassination attempt , Stezko was one of the twelve OUN leaders who were brought to a political trial in Warsaw from November 1935 to January 1936 in which long prison terms were imposed, and Bandera and two other Ukrainians were sentenced to death - even if they were not was executed - and Stetsko to five years imprisonment, from which he was released halfway through. In 1939, Stezko was the organizer of the OUN Congress that took place in Rome .

Second World War

After the Hitler-Stalin Pact and the German and Soviet occupation of Poland in 1939, the Galicia region belonged to the Soviet Union. Stezko, on the other hand, initially oriented himself towards the German Reich and in 1940 was elected Bandera's deputy in the radical wing of the OUN-B in the General Government in Cracow . A week after the Germans invaded the Soviet Union , Stetsko wrote Ukraine's declaration of independence and was proclaimed President of Ukraine on June 30, 1941 by a meeting of OUN-B members in Lviv. Since this contradicted the German intentions, the politicians of the OUN were arrested by the Gestapo on July 12, 1941. Bandera and Stezko made various offers of cooperation in Berlin, but the Germans did not pursue them. From January 1942, Stezko was a prisoner in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp . In April 1944, Stepan Bandera and his deputy Jaroslaw Stetzko were approached by Otto Skorzeny to discuss plans for diversions and sabotage against the Soviet Union.

He was released there in September 1944 when the Germans tried to mobilize Ukrainian forces and partisans against the Allies because of the impending defeat.

post war period

Grave in the forest cemetery in Munich

After the war ended, Stezko stayed in West Germany, where Ukrainian collaborators and former forced laborers gathered and some of them emigrated overseas from there. Stezko settled in Munich and lived at Zeppelinstrasse 67. There he founded the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations (ABN) organization and headed it until his death in 1986. The organization was supported by the Republic of China . He also became a board member of the World Anti-Communist League , now known as the World League for Freedom and Democracy. From 1968 until his death he was the sole leader of the OUN-B.

Stezkos also politically active woman Yaroslawa Stezko (1920-2003) experienced Ukraine's independence in 1991 and was a member of the Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists (KUN), the successor organization of the OUN, in the Verkhovna Rada .

Aftermath

Memorial plaque at Zeppelinstrasse 67 in Munich with the signature of the President of Ukraine

Stetsko is still considered a controversial personality. His work is particularly revered in Ukrainian nationalist circles. His book "Two Revolutions" serves as the ideological basis for the All-Ukrainian Association "Svoboda" . In 2010, a memorial plaque was installed on a private building at Zeppelinstrasse 67, initiated by the then President Viktor Yushchenko .

anti-Semitism

In August 1941, Stetzko wrote an autobiographical work with which he addressed the German rulers. This document contains some noteworthy anti-Semitic passages, among other things you can read:

“Moscow and the Jews are Ukraine's greatest enemies. I regard Moscow as the main enemy, which has kept Ukraine in bondage by force, no less do I judge the Jews as a harmful and hostile fate, which help Moscow to subjugate Ukraine. Therefore I insist on the standpoint of the extermination of the Jews and the expedient introduction of German methods of extermination of the Jews in Ukraine, excluding their assimilation. "

Fonts (selection)

  • The world danger of our time . Munich: ABN, 1980
  • The present stage of the national liberation struggle of the subjugated nations . Munich: ABN, 1974

literature

Web links

Commons : Yaroslav Stetsko  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f Lemma Stetsko, Yaroslav, in: Encyclopedia of Ukraine . Volume 5, 1993, p. 55
  2. ^ Frank Golczewski : Germans and Ukrainians 1914-1939 . Paderborn: Schöningh 2010, p. 564
  3. ^ Frank Golczewski: Germans and Ukrainians 1914-1939 . Paderborn: Schöningh 2010, p. 643
  4. ^ Frank Golczewski: Germans and Ukrainians 1914-1939 . Paderborn: Schöningh 2010, p. 699
  5. ↑ Olesja Issajuk: Playing off Hitler , at Ukrajinskyj Tyshden, June 30, 2011
  6. ↑ Завдання підривної діяльності проти Червоної армії обговорювалося на нараді під Берліном у квітні того ж року (1944) між керівником таємних операцій вермахту О.Скорцені й лідерами українських націоналістів С.бандерою та Я.Стецьком D.Vyedeneyev and O.Lysenko, the OUN and foreign secret services 1920s – 1950s . Ukrainian Historical Magazine 3, Institute of History National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, 2009 p. 137
  7. ↑ https://www.muenchen.tv/mediathek/tag/jaroslaw-stetzko/video/ukrainische-gedenkafel-beschmiert/
  8. ↑ http://svoboda.org.ua/party/history/
  9. ↑ http://www.ris-muenchen.de/RII/RII/DOK/ANTRAG/3480356.pdf
  10. ↑ KC Berkhoff, M. Carynnyk: The Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists . P. 162. И. Б. Кабанчик: Евреи на Украине. Учебно-методические материалы. Составитель . Lviv (Львов), 2004; P. 187. А. Р. Дюков: Второстепенный враг. ОУН, УПА и решение "еврейского вопроса". Монография / Послесл. Ю.Шевцова . Moscow: Regnum, 2008; ISBN 978-5-91150-028-3 ; P. 16
personal data
SURNAME Stetsko, Yaroslav
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Стецько, Ярослав Семенович (Ukrainian); Stetsko, Yaroslav Semenovych (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Ukrainian politician
DATE OF BIRTH January 19, 1912
PLACE OF BIRTH Ternopil , Austria-Hungary
DATE OF DEATH 5th July 1986
Place of death Munich