As part of the Waffen-SS, several dozen smaller and larger allied troops were created, consisting of representatives of almost all European nations. The establishment of the Ukrainian division "Galizien" has always been the most controversial. Were the Germans so desperate to recruit the Slavs they hated? Or maybe they just ... did not consider Ukrainians to be Slavs?
During the course of the war, as the Nazi empire gradually expanded its borders, the Germans faced ever greater population problems. The Reich itself had less than 70 million inhabitants. Far too little to ensure complete control of the entire continent. Fortunately, the Nazi ideology allowed the use of other Aryans for the German needs.
It was easy to prove - according to German pseudoscience - that the Aryans were Norwegians, Swedes, Danes or Swiss. There were also no major problems with including the French into the Germanic family. However, it did not end there. The SS recruitment office, headed by Gottlob Berger, was tasked to search for Germanic blood throughout Europe !
This is what the experts employed in it recognized Estonians for the Germanized people and Latvians for partially Germanic (although Lithuanians have already been labeled "polonized" subhumans). Also the Bosnians were described as "gothic" people descended from the Persians . Such conclusions allowed the formation of Latvian, Estonian and Bosnian Waffen-SS units. From the perspective of the SS men themselves, all these were Germanic units, not foreign ones. It was very similar with the Ukrainians.
A recruitment poster encouraging to join the Waffen-SS division "Galizien".
The main architect of the creation of the Ukrainian Waffen-SS division was Otto von Wächter - a Nazi apparatchik of Austrian nationality, who from February 1942 served as the governor of the Galician district of the General Government. The very fact of establishing such a district reflected the opinion popular among the Nazis about Galicia and its inhabitants.
Poles regarded Galicia as an artificial creation created as a justification for the partitions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth at the end of the 18th century. The Nazis looked at this point quite differently. As Christopher Hale explains in his book, Hitler's Executioners. Europe's dirty secret ", experts from the SS Main Race and Settlement Office were convinced that about 25 percent of the Ruthenian population (i.e. Ukrainians) had a significant amount of Germanic blood .
Te 25 percent were supposed to live in Galicia :the former crown country of Austria, which, in the opinion of the Nazis, enjoyed "German" statehood since the Middle Ages. As a result, Galicia could be considered an area where only had to be awakened the real German identity of the population who mistakenly considered themselves Ukrainians .
This is what the "Aryan" Ukrainians from Stanisławów looked like.
The head of the SS, Heinrich Himmler, supported such a vision and even managed to persuade Hitler to follow it. The latter also agreed with her as to the idea - after all, he was an Austrian and as such he saw a lost province in Galicia.
In the Galician District of the General Government, recruitment could be started, but under one strict condition. Himmler and Hitler agreed to create a Galician division, but not a Ukrainian . And contrary to popular belief, the SS-Galizien was such a division. Himmler even banned the use of terms such as "Ukrainian division" or "Ukrainian nation" - in both conversations and documents.
In the name of the new division, the formation of which began in the first months of 1943, there was no mention of Ukraine, its members were referred to as Galicians and even the symbol of the division was completely different from Ukrainian traditions. As Christopher Hale writes, Governor Wächter decided that the division would use the old Austrian symbol of Galicia, the golden lion, and not the Ukrainian national emblem - tryzub.
Otto von Wächter with an ordinary Ukrainian family. In his spare time, this Lord planned how to liquidate the Ukrainian nation and murder thousands of Jews ...
Surprisingly, the Ukrainians themselves did not notice that the proposed "own" division was intended to accelerate the liquidation of the Ukrainian nation, and not strengthen its position within the Nazi empire . Himmler admitted that the task of the 14th SS Grenadier Division "Galizien" was to familiarize the Ukrainian people with the concept of being Germans.
Despite this, during the monthly recruitment, 81,999 Ukrainians applied - a trifle. Boys ready to give their lives for Hitler and for… Galicia.
Source:
Trivia is the essence of our website. Short materials devoted to interesting anecdotes, surprising details from the past, strange news from the old press. Reading that will take you no more than 3 minutes, based on single sources. This particular material is based on:
- Christopher Hale, Hitler's Executioners. Europe's dirty secret, 2012 mark.