5fish
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One of Hitler's missed opportunities in WW2 was not embracing the Ukrainians as allies. When the German army enter Ukraine in 1941, they were greeted as liberators, but soon after, Hitler began his genocide towards Jews ang Slavs in Ukraine. The Ukrainians ended up serving in the millions in the Russian army after Germany's violence against the Ukrainian people. If Hitler would have embraced the Ukrainians, he would have had millions more willing to fight the Russians. Instead, he allow his racist motivates get the best of him and helped in defeating him against the Russians and the world.
https://www.britannica.com/place/Ukraine/The-Nazi-occupation-of-Soviet-Ukraine...
Initially, the Germans were greeted as liberators by some of the Ukrainian populace. In Galicia especially, there had long been a widespread belief that Germany, as the avowed enemy of Poland and the U.S.S.R., was the Ukrainians’ natural ally for the attainment of their independence. The illusion was quickly shattered. The Germans were accompanied on their entry into Lviv on June 30 by members of OUN-B, who that same day proclaimed the restoration of Ukrainian statehood and the formation of a provisional state administration; within days the organizers of this action were arrested and interned in concentration camps (as were both Bandera and, later, Melnyk). Far from supporting Ukrainian political aspirations, the Nazis in August attached Galicia administratively to Poland, returned Bukovina to Romania, and gave Romania control over the area between the Dniester and Southern Buh rivers as the province of Transnistria, with its capital at Odessa. The remainder was organized as the Reichskommissariat Ukraine.
This is the Ukrainian organization that supported Hitler at first... OUN
Both factions expected that in the impending conflict between Germany and the USSR they would establish an independent Ukrainian state. Hence, each sought a tactical alliance with the Germans. Adolf Hitler's abandonment of Carpatho-Ukraine (where younger OUN members had helped create a defense force) to the Hungarians in 1939 aroused misgivings about the German alliance but did not discourage either faction. With German approval the OUN(B) formed two battalions of about 600 men, Nachtigall and Roland, which were intended as the nucleus of a future army (see Legion of Ukrainian Nationalists). Following the German invasion of the USSR the OUN(B) proclaimed Ukrainian independence in Lviv on 30 June 1941, with Yaroslav Stetsko as premier (see Proclamation of Ukrainian statehood, 1941). The Germans, needing Ukrainian assistance against Soviet Russia, were expected to acquiesce in the fait accompli. Although elements of the German military were inclined to do so, they were overruled by Hitler, whose racial prejudice against Ukrainians precluded co-operation. Stepan Bandera and some of his associates were arrested and imprisoned by the Gestapo. Many OUN(B) members were killed outright, or perished in jails and concentration camps. Mykola Lebed assumed control of the organization and in May 1943 transferred his powers to Roman Shukhevych. Determined to build an independent state, both factions sent clandestine OUN expeditionary groups into Ukraine to set up local administrations with nationally conscious Ukrainians. Estimated at 2,000 men (mostly OUN(B) members), the groups were active in the larger cities. An OUN(M) group, which reached Kyiv in September 1941, published the newspaper Ukraïns’ke slovo and formed the Ukrainian National Council (Kyiv), consisting mostly of eastern Ukrainians and headed by Mykola Velychkivsky. Its members were arrested in December 1941, and over 40 of them, including Olena Teliha and their leader, Oleh Olzhych, were killed immediately or later, some of them in Babyn Yar. Andrii Melnyk was kept under house arrest in Berlin until January 1944, when he and other principal OUN(M) figures were arrested and taken to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp.
https://www.britannica.com/place/Ukraine/The-Nazi-occupation-of-Soviet-Ukraine...
Initially, the Germans were greeted as liberators by some of the Ukrainian populace. In Galicia especially, there had long been a widespread belief that Germany, as the avowed enemy of Poland and the U.S.S.R., was the Ukrainians’ natural ally for the attainment of their independence. The illusion was quickly shattered. The Germans were accompanied on their entry into Lviv on June 30 by members of OUN-B, who that same day proclaimed the restoration of Ukrainian statehood and the formation of a provisional state administration; within days the organizers of this action were arrested and interned in concentration camps (as were both Bandera and, later, Melnyk). Far from supporting Ukrainian political aspirations, the Nazis in August attached Galicia administratively to Poland, returned Bukovina to Romania, and gave Romania control over the area between the Dniester and Southern Buh rivers as the province of Transnistria, with its capital at Odessa. The remainder was organized as the Reichskommissariat Ukraine.
This is the Ukrainian organization that supported Hitler at first... OUN
Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists
www.encyclopediaofukraine.com
Both factions expected that in the impending conflict between Germany and the USSR they would establish an independent Ukrainian state. Hence, each sought a tactical alliance with the Germans. Adolf Hitler's abandonment of Carpatho-Ukraine (where younger OUN members had helped create a defense force) to the Hungarians in 1939 aroused misgivings about the German alliance but did not discourage either faction. With German approval the OUN(B) formed two battalions of about 600 men, Nachtigall and Roland, which were intended as the nucleus of a future army (see Legion of Ukrainian Nationalists). Following the German invasion of the USSR the OUN(B) proclaimed Ukrainian independence in Lviv on 30 June 1941, with Yaroslav Stetsko as premier (see Proclamation of Ukrainian statehood, 1941). The Germans, needing Ukrainian assistance against Soviet Russia, were expected to acquiesce in the fait accompli. Although elements of the German military were inclined to do so, they were overruled by Hitler, whose racial prejudice against Ukrainians precluded co-operation. Stepan Bandera and some of his associates were arrested and imprisoned by the Gestapo. Many OUN(B) members were killed outright, or perished in jails and concentration camps. Mykola Lebed assumed control of the organization and in May 1943 transferred his powers to Roman Shukhevych. Determined to build an independent state, both factions sent clandestine OUN expeditionary groups into Ukraine to set up local administrations with nationally conscious Ukrainians. Estimated at 2,000 men (mostly OUN(B) members), the groups were active in the larger cities. An OUN(M) group, which reached Kyiv in September 1941, published the newspaper Ukraïns’ke slovo and formed the Ukrainian National Council (Kyiv), consisting mostly of eastern Ukrainians and headed by Mykola Velychkivsky. Its members were arrested in December 1941, and over 40 of them, including Olena Teliha and their leader, Oleh Olzhych, were killed immediately or later, some of them in Babyn Yar. Andrii Melnyk was kept under house arrest in Berlin until January 1944, when he and other principal OUN(M) figures were arrested and taken to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp.
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