Roman Schuchewytsch

Roman Schuchewytsch 1943

Roman Jossypowytsch Shukhevych ( Ukrainian Роман Йосипович Шухевич ; pseudonym Taras Tschuprynka * thirtieth June 1907 in Krakowitz , Galicia , Austria-Hungary , † 5. March 1950 in Lviv , Ukrainian SSR ) was a Ukrainian nationalist, politician, captain of the protection team Battalion 201 and Officer of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA).

Its role in Ukrainian history and historical classification is very controversial today. On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of his birth, the then incumbent President Viktor Yushchenko posthumously awarded him the medal “ Hero of Ukraine ” and he was honored in an exhibition.

life and career

Schuchewytsch family

youth

Roman Schuchewytsch was born in 1907 in Krakowitz in Galicia , then part of Austria-Hungary , into a Ukrainian family. After the First World War , several attempts to establish a Ukrainian nation-state were put down. Galicia then belonged to Poland . The parents of Schuchewytsch were enthusiastic about the country, the Ukrainian nationalist pioneer Jewhen Konowalez lived at times as a subtenant with the family.

Roman Schuchewytsch attended high school in Lviv , and during his time as a high school student he also became a member of a Ukrainian scout organization. He was a talented athlete and singer, after graduating from school he had a few solo appearances in the Lviv Opera , and he also took part in numerous regional sports competitions.

Ukrainian nationalism

Roman Schuchewytsch (left) in 1930

However, Shukhevik became an increasingly radical supporter of the Ukrainian national movement, in 1925 he joined the paramilitary Ukrainian military organization . As a Ukrainian involved in national movements, he was not accepted at the Lemberg Polytechnic despite successfully passing the entrance exam , so Schuchewytsch first studied in Gdansk . After a year he was admitted to the Lemberg Polytechnic and returned, where he continued his studies in October 1926.

In the same month, on October 19, 1926, the then 19-year-old Shukhevich, together with Bohdan Pidhajnyj, participated in a fatal attack on a high-ranking Lviv school official, accused by the Ukrainian military organization of " polonizing " the school system. His accomplice is said to have fired the fatal shots. The two remained undiscovered and Shukhevytsch subsequently took part in numerous other acts of sabotage. From 1928 to 1929 he did his compulsory military service in the Polish army . In 1929 he joined the newly founded Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN). In 1930 he took part in numerous attacks on Polish property in order to force the Sanacja regime under Józef Piłsudski to react and thus to radicalize the Ukrainian public.

Schuchewytsch with sister, 1938

Shukhevytsch is said to have been involved in the planning and implementation of a large number of other attacks by national Ukrainian movements, such as the murder of the moderate Polish politician Tadeusz Hołówko (August 29, 1931), who campaigned for Ukrainians' autonomy rights within Poland would have.

After the murder of the Polish Interior Minister Bronisław Pieracki on June 15, 1934 by the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), there were raids on members of the OUN. Schuchewytsch was arrested on July 18, 1934 and transferred to the Polish isolation camp in Bereza Kartuska . For lack of evidence, he was released in December 1935. He was soon arrested again and finally released in 1937.

He then founded a successful advertising agency called “Fama”, which formed a facade for the activities of the OUN and later also opened up other business areas. In 1939 he took part in a pro-Ukrainian coup in the Czechoslovak Carpathian Ukraine , which was annexed by the Kingdom of Hungary in March 1939 . Schuchewytsch was also involved in brief combat operations against Hungarian troops.

During the Second World War

Shukhevych in the 1940s

After the outbreak of World War II, Schukhevytsch joined the Legion of Ukrainian Nationalists and fought on the side of the German Wehrmacht in the Nightingale battalion as an officer and commander of the unit. According to some historians, he is said to have participated in massacres against Polish and Jewish civilians in Lviv in the summer of 1941, but this has not been proven. In 1942, Shukhevytsch and his battalion were stationed in what is now Belarus, where he fought partisans directed against German occupiers. Here, too, the battalion is said to have participated in the murder of Jews. Shukhevytsch's battalion is said to have killed around 2,000 partisans during his stay in Belarus. However, it is also proven that Schuchewytsch personally saved a Jewish girl from persecution by the National Socialists and obtained false papers for her. A former combatant later claimed that Shukhevych had even actively tried to prevent further excesses by the Ukrainian insurgent army against Jews after he had taken over its leadership from Dmytro Klyachkivskyi .

In 1943 Schuchewytsch, whom German authorities increasingly distrusted, was arrested by the Gestapo . But he was able to flee and join the Ukrainian insurgent army. As their commander, he fought partisan battles with Soviet units long after the end of World War II. Shukhevich fell on March 5, 1950 at the age of 42 in a battle with Soviet Army and Special Forces of the MGB ( МГБ ) near Lviv, killing an MGB officer. He had previously tried in vain to contact the American embassy in Moscow through his liaison woman "Nusja". While returning from Moscow, "Nusja" was followed and arrested on March 2, 1950 in Lviv. In prison, unsuspectingly, she confided in a female cell spy and inadvertently gave the decisive clue about Schuchewytsch's current whereabouts.

Aftermath

Ukrainian postage stamp from 2007 depicting Shukhevych

Memorial plaque for Shukhevych in Lviv

Shukhevich's role in Ukraine is the subject of controversy today. Sections of the population, especially in the west of the country, today appreciate Shukhevytsch, similar to the controversial Stepan Bandera , as a kind of “national hero”. His work for the establishment of a Ukrainian nation state and for Ukrainian concerns is emphasized.

Since the independence of Ukraine there have been numerous postage stamps and commemorative coins with pictures of Roman Shukhevytsch, monuments have been erected and some western Ukrainian cities, including Lviv, posthumously made him an honorary citizen. In 2000, under the presidency of Leonid Kuchma, a patriotic historical feature film "Нескорений" "Neskorenyj" (The Indomitable) was made about him , which was suggested and promoted by the Ukrainian Ministry of Culture and Art.

Large parts of the Ukrainian population, especially in the east of the country, reject him as a “Nazi collaborator ” and demand a “de-heroization” of Schukhevytsch.

In 2007 he was posthumously named “Hero of Ukraine” by President Viktor Yushchenko . This decision was particularly criticized by the Polish public. The award was withdrawn from him on April 21, 2010 by a court in Donetsk as unlawful, but this is not legally binding, so that he still carried this title. In August 2011, the title was officially revoked.

On June 1, 2017, the Kiev city council decided to rename the Watutin Prospect, named after the Army General of the Red Army Nikolai Fyodorovich Watutin , the Shukhevytsch Prospect.

family

His son Jurij Schuchewytsch (* 1933) was a Soviet dissident and is now a member of parliament in Ukraine.

literature

• Jürgen W. Schmidt: The death of the Ukrainian General Chorunschi Roman Ṧuchevič. In: Jürgen W. Schmidt (ed.): Espionage, terror and special forces. Case studies and documents from 140 years of secret service history. Berlin 2019 pp. 141–148 ISBN 978-3-89574-965-0

Web links

Commons : Roman Shukhevych  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Photo gallery about Roman Schuchewytsch ( Memento from February 6, 2008 in the Internet Archive )

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Douglas Tottle: Fraud, Famine and Fascism - The Ukrainian Genocide Myth from Hitler to Harvard . Progress Books, Toronto 1987, ISBN 0-919396-51-8 , pp. 105 .
2. ^ ^{A b} New Germany : Legal Protection for a Soviet Victory of May 9, 2009.
3. ^ Rolf-Dieter Müller : On the side of the Wehrmacht. Hitler's foreign helpers in the "Crusade against Bolshevism" 1941 - 1945 . Fischer Taschenbuch 2010, ISBN 9783596181506 (Original: Ch. Links Verlag 2007, ISBN 9783861534488 ), p.
4. ↑ П. Мірчук: Шухевич - командир армії безсмертних. - Нью-Йорк - Торонто - Лондон, 1970. - стор. 21st
5. ↑ G. Motyka, Ukraińska partyzantka, 1942–1960 , PAN, 2006, p. 43.
6. ↑ Timothy Snyder , Sketches from a Secret War: A Polish Artist's Mission to Liberate Soviet Ukraine , Yale University Press, 2007, p. 75.
7. ^ RJ Crampton, Eastern Europe in the twentieth century , Routledge, 1994, p. 50.
8. ↑ G. Motyka, Ukraińska partyzantka, 1942–1960 , PAN, 2006, p. 58.
9. ^ Tadeusz Piotrowski (2000): Genocide and Rescue in Wołyń: Recollections of the Ukrainian Nationalist Ethnic Cleansing Campaign Against the Poles During World War II . MacFarland, ISBN 0-7864-0773-5 , p. 227.
10. ↑ Чайківський Б. «Фама». Рекламна фірма Романа Шухевича / Науковий редактор і упорядник В. Кук, М. Посівнич. - Львів: Медицина світу, 2005. - С. 39 - 65. (Chaikivsky B. "Fama". The advertising agency of Roman Shukhevych. Edited and collected by V. Kuk, M. Posivnych, Lviv: Medical World, 2005 P. 39-65)
11. ↑ Ivan Kazymyrovych Patryliak, Viis'kova diial'nist 'OUN (b) u 1940–1942 rokakh (Kyiv: NAN Ukraїny, 2004)
12. ↑ Die Welt : Between all fronts. Collaborators or Freedom Fighters? Ukraine struggles for the correct interpretation of its partisans between the Red Army and the Wehrmacht on July 19, 2007.
13. ↑ Christoph Dieckmann, Babette Quinkert, Tatjana Tönsmeyer (eds.): The collaboration in the Ukraine. Cooperation and crime. Forms of “collaboration” in Eastern Europe 1939–1945. Wallstein, Göttingen 2003, p. 176.
14. ↑ Організація українських націоналістів і Українська повстанська армія. Інститут історії НАН України.2004р Організація українських націоналістів і Українська повстанська армія , Раздел 1 http://www.history.org.ua/LiberUA/Book/Upa/1.pdf стр. 17-30
15. ↑ bbc.co.uk: Євреї в УПА?
16. ↑ Phillip Friedman. (1980). "Ukrainian-Jewish Relations During the Occupatio", Roads to Extinction: Essays on the Holocaust, New York: Conference on Jewish Social Studies, p. 203.
17. ↑ Björn Jungius: Condemned to watch. (PDF) In: “Held des Westens - Feinbild des Ostens.” N-ost Network for Eastern Europe Reporting, Berlin, September 2009, p. 24 , accessed on December 18, 2015 (topic: Stepan Bandera). 
18. ↑ Biography Yuri Shukhevych on Lb.ua , accessed on November 20, 2015
19. ↑ NewsRu.ua : Львовский горсовет присвоил звание почётного гражданина города Шухевичу и Бандере ( Memento of the original April 13, 2014 Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link is automatically inserted and not yet tested. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
20. ↑ http://ukranews.com/ru/news/ukraine/2011/10/14/55489
21. ↑ Ukrainian Heroes ( Memento of the original from October 20, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed November 20, 2015 
22. ↑ Higher Administrative Court rules Shukhevych's Hero of Ukraine title illegal ( Memento of August 3, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
23. ↑ В столице проспект Ватутина переименовали в Шухевича ( In the capital, the Watutin Prospect was renamed Shuchewytsch Prospect )