before they knew enough to shut up about their nazi worship
Traditional Ukrainian nationalism
ukrainiancrusade.blogspot.com
Who Was Stepan Bandera?
Bandera became a Nazi collaborator who lived with his deputies under German protection after World War II began. In preparation for the attack on the USSR, the Nazis recruited Bandera’s followers to act as Ukrainian-speaking policemen and to serve in two Ukrainian volunteer army battalions. By working with the Nazis, Bandera hoped to free Ukraine from Soviet rule and establish his own government there. An independent Ukraine, Bandera promised, would remain friendly to Germany.
Historian Karel Berkhoff, among others, has shown that Bandera, his deputies, and the Nazis shared a key obsession, namely the notion that the Jews in Ukraine were behind Communism and Stalinist imperialism and must be destroyed. “The Jews of the Soviet Union,” read a Banderist statement, “are the most loyal supporters of the Bolshevik Regime and the vanguard of Muscovite imperialism in the Ukraine.” When the Germans invaded the USSR in June 1941 and captured the East Galician capital of Lvov, Bandera’s lieutenants issued a declaration of independence in his name. They further promised to work closely with Hitler, then helped to launch a pogrom that killed four thousand Lvov Jews in a few days, using weapons ranging from guns to metal poles. “We will lay your heads at Hitler’s feet,” a Banderist pamphlet proclaimed to Ukrainian Jews.
historynewsnetwork.org