Thread by @RealLoriSpencer

How did Ukranian #Nazi collaborators and war criminals become regarded as “heroes” both in modern day #Ukraine and the entire Western world?

In this thread we will unpack the strange mythology Ukranians (and their Western intelligence handlers) created to cover-up their crimes.

This thread is sourced from a Graduate History Thesis published in October 2022 by Liam Hilferty, University of Vermont.

His thesis is 150 pages long. I will summarize it here with highlights and provide a link at the end for further reading.

Let us begin… 🧵

Hilferty’s interest in writing his Graduate Thesis on the #NazisInUkraine began when he saw this tweet from the Russian Embassy of #Canada 🇨🇦 in Oct. 2017:

Three images accompanied the tweet.

They included a bust of Roman Shukhevych (a Ukrainian nationalist leader), a slab of granite emblazoned with the Ukrainian trident, and a memorial to the Ukrainian-staffed Waffen-SS Galizien in #Edmonton, #Alberta.

The date of the post, October 14, is the anniversary of the foundation of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), a nationalist partisan group active during World War II.

Canadian state media dismissed the accusation, attributing it to the rise of “fake news” — but it was true.

Although it was dismissed as “misinformation,” the Russian Embassy’s tweet raised the pertinent question of why these #Nazi monuments were in Canada to begin with! 🤨

It failed to call attention to similar monuments dedicated to the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), a radical nationalist group, and UPA in the United States.

Apart from those in Canada, monuments are dedicated to these two groups at various sites in the US.

Accusations of #Nazi collaboration and war criminality directed at the OUN and UPA are often dismissed as misinformation or propaganda by the West and the Ukrainian diaspora.

These monuments represent a one-sided historical narrative, which was propagated in the diaspora and eventually became accepted as historical truth.

The sanitized Ukrainian narrative and the resulting monuments are the subject of this thesis.

One of the key findings of this thesis is that nationalist education of Ukrainian youth in Displaced Persons (DP) camps after the war was a central factor in popularizing the false heroic legacy of the OUN and UPA, whitewashing their dark past mass murder of Soviets, Jews & Poles

This story cannot be told without mention of the CIA.

The Agency played a key role in sanitizing and promoting a false mythological history of the Ukrainian nationalists, portraying them as heroic “freedom fighters” against the Soviet #communists during the Cold War.

The aforementioned Prolog Publishing Company was a CIA front run by Ukranian #Nazi war criminal Mykola Lebed, who was personally recruited by CIA Director Allen Dulles after #WWII and brought to the US.

I did an entire thread on Lebed’s dirty work with the CIA here. ⬇️

https://twitter.com/RealLoriSpencer/status/1608640760123129856

This thesis argues that the diasporas show a continued focus on raising young Ukrainian Americans in the nationalist tradition, a legacy of the nationalist indoctrination that took place in Displaced Persons camps after #WWII.

This continues in both the US and Canada today.

This thesis seeks to reevaluate the legacy of the OUN and UPA by using the most up-to-date historiography of these groups that highlight their problematic past despite their heroic reputation.

A quick note on sources:

The author uses primary sources
about former OUN members’ collaboration with Western intelligence agencies (relying heavily on declassified CIA documents available under the Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act), along with these cited sources:

Since the dissolution of the #USSR, more Soviet records are available for study that were previously inaccessible behind the Iron Curtain.

Dieter Pohl’s analysis of the Holocaust in Ukraine was the first to examine the role of local collaborators, and Tadeusz Piotrowski was among the first historians to recognize the crimes of the OUN and UPA.

Prof. Rossoliński-Liebe’s biography of Stepan #Bandera is cited often:

There were 3 waves of Ukrainian emigration to the Americas, with the 3rdcoming just after the end of World War II with the arrival of Displaced Persons. This 3rd wave of the Ukrainian diaspora was most involved in commemorating the OUN and UPA, their national “heroes of Ukraine.”

The work of Per Anders Rudling helps explain the OUN’s mythmaking and legacy in the modern day, focusing on the efforts to commemorate and rehabilitate Ukrainian nationalists in contemporary Ukraine 🇺🇦, calling it a “cult.”

Despite the reputation of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army as a resistance group that faced off against both totalitarian powers in Europe, evidence shows that the UPA was less involved in resisting the Nazi regime than it was in resisting the Red Army and massacring civilians!

These monuments dedicated to the OUN and UPA in the US & Canada present an interesting challenge to historians.

WHY there are monuments to Nazi collaborators in N. America?

Group identity is difficult to challenge and remains pervasive even when conflicting evidence emerges.

Chapter 1 of this thesis is about the origins of Ukranian nationalism prior to #WWI, and begins on page 22.

In 1917, the Ukranian nationalists were the Original Gangsters — the OG Nazis — (as some will proudly admit) before anyone ever heard of Adolf #Hitler.

#Nazi became a dirty word after #WWII, and the Ukrainians have since been more careful to distance themselves from #Nazis.

The belief in a “pure” national community is seen in publications denouncing “mixed marriages” between Ukrainians and any “non-Ukrainians” and reinforcing the superiority of Ukrainian blood.

Despite conflict over leadership the OUN embraced the Nazi concept of totalitarian rule.

This thesis compares the cult of personality that developed around Stepan Bandera before and after his death to that of Adolf #Hitler in Germany.

#Bandera is to Ukrainians what Hitler once was to Germany.

The Ukrainian Insurgent Army’s (UPA) violent ethnic cleansing campaign at the end of World War II illustrates the OUN’s belief that Ukrainians had the right to dominate others in a Darwinian struggle.

OUN embraced #Nazi fascism as an extension of an existing racial ideology.

Some significant developments took place while Bandera and Lebed were in prison. First, there was a brief period of self-proclaimed Ukrainian statehood in Carpatho-Ukraine before the dissolution of Czechoslovakia in March 1939. (This was quickly crushed by the Hungarian army!)

After Bandera and Lebed escaped from prison, the OUN split into two factions. Melnyk and his inner circle were moderate compared to the younger members of the OUN, and soon he lost control of the more radical elements of the group.

When the German military’s invasion of Poland freed #Bandera from prison, he was able to gain support from the radical youth with the aid of Yaroslav Stetsko.

Chapter II goes deeply into collaboration between the #Nazis and Ukrainians prior to the German invasion of #USSR in 1941, and early in #WWII.

Shortly before Operation Barbarossa began in June 1941, #Hitler declared that he would be creating a new office on the “Russian question.”

The real planning then began on how the #Nazi-conquered lands would be divided. #Ukraine was promised independence— after the war was won.

Of course, the Ukrainians should have known better than to trust any promise from #Hitler.

The Germans and the Ukrainians had different motivations for working with each other.

While the Germans needed Ukrainian manpower and information for the oncoming war against the Soviet Union, the Ukrainians needed military training and material support.

Chapter III: the OUN and Operation Barbarossa, starts on page 42 of the PDF.

On June 30, 1941, the OUN-B declared Ukranian independence, heiled #Hitler (“Slava Ukraini!”), and promptly launched a mass execution of Russians, Jews, and Poles the very next day.

Part II covers the Post #WWII period, from pages 65-88, and the recruitment of former #NazisInUkraine by the CIA and Britain’s MI6.

Pages 111-125 span the post-Soviet period of Ukranian independence, and the myth making around glorification of #Nazi collaborators as “heroes of #Ukraine” up to the present day.

This thesis was written during the current #RussiaUkraineWar and covers events through Sept. 2022.

Here’s a link to the full PDF of this thesis: “Glory To The Heroes!” (148 pages)

scholarworks.uvm.edu/cgi/viewconten…

If you enjoyed this thread, please consider buying me a book. 📕 (who knows? Your book just might inspire me to write another mega-thread!)

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Addendum: 5 years after the end of WW II, Ukrainian “refugees” (actual former Nazis) were already committing terrorist bombings against #communists in #Canada, like this one against a youth group in #Toronto. 🇨🇦

WW II never ended for these fanatics.

https://twitter.com/RealLoriSpencer/status/1658090535590981633