Ukrainian Liberation Army
The Ukrainian Liberation Army ( Ukrainian Українське Визвольне Військо Ukraiinske Wyswolne Wijsko ; acronym УВВ UWW ) was the largest association of Ukrainian volunteers who fought on the German side against the Soviet Union and for an independent Ukraine . It consisted mainly of the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS (Galician No. 1) . It existed from 1943 to 1945.
prehistory
The western Ukrainian province of Galicia is mainly inhabited by Ukrainians of the Greek Catholic faith. Until 1918 this province belonged to Austria-Hungary , and even later the population felt more connected to the western than the eastern cultural area. During the Second World War , the Galician people were friendly to the German occupiers, and they viewed the Germans as their liberators from Stalinism . The Germans treated the Galicians with a little more courtesy than the population of the rest of Ukraine, and so there were partisan units in the eastern parts of Ukraine who fought the Germans, while there were practically no partisan movements in Galicia during the German occupation. It was only when the Soviet Union recaptured western Ukraine and thus Galicia that partisan groups were formed to fight the Soviets. This bloody partisan struggle lasted until the beginning of the 1950s and ended with the complete submission of the Galicians.
History of the army
During the Second World War, up to 300,000 Ukrainians fought in units of the German armed forces. The largest association with up to 80,000 men was the UWW. They came from all over Ukraine , but for the most part from Western Galicia . In the Galician province, however, there was again a special regulation. The Galician volunteers were called up from 1943 to the newly established 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS (Gal. No. 1, later Ukrainian No. 1). In July 1943, the order was also issued to senior SS and police commanders to set up the Galician SS Volunteer Regiments 4 and 5.
The operations of these regiments on the Eastern Front are controversial because of their violations of international law. The SS Volunteer Regiments 4 and 5 were reassigned to the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS after the Battle of Brody on July 20, 1944 for a refresher. In April 1945 this association of the Waffen-SS was renamed the 1st Division of the Ukrainian National Army under the command of Pawlo Schandruk , and it had a staff of 22,000 men. This former Waffen-SS unit was closely linked to the Greek Catholic Church and nine Greek Catholic pastors were in its service. They also wore the Ukrainian trident on their German uniforms, and they viewed themselves as fighters for an independent, free Ukraine. They wanted neither Stalin nor Hitler to be rulers in their homeland, but they had to choose the side from which they hoped the most concessions.
On May 10, 1945 the Ukrainian National Army, which comprised the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS and other Ukrainian units, surrendered to American-British troops near Tamsweg and Radstadt in Austria . However, there are different representations and figures about the exact process.
