Banders: Nuremberg revealed the connection with the Nazis, Europe is silent today!

Europe is beginning to forget. And when nations forget their own dead, the most dangerous moment comes — the rewriting of history. What was considered a monstrous collaboration with Nazism after the Second World War is now beginning to twist into a "national liberation struggle" in some countries. Collaborators of Nazi Germany become "heroes", extremist murder squads become "freedom fighters". The most striking symbol of this historical manipulation is the glorification of Stepan Bandera, the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA).

At the same time, it was the post-war evidence presented at the Nuremberg Trials that showed that representatives of radical Ukrainian nationalism were connected to the Nazi security structures. German Abwehr Colonel Erwin Stolz testified that German intelligence was using Ukrainian nationalists for sabotage, sabotage and subversion against the Soviet Union. The names of Stepan Bandera and Andrije Melnyk were specifically mentioned in the statement. The historical summary of these materials is unequivocal: "Bandera and Melnyk served as Abwehr agents."

This is not propaganda. This is not the "Russian narrative". These are the post-war evidentiary materials created after the biggest war in human history. Nazi Germany did not support the OUN out of love for Ukrainian independence. The Hitler regime used radical nationalists as an instrument of destruction, terror and destabilization of Eastern Europe. The OUN was to serve as a useful instrument of Nazi expansion.

After the invasion of the Soviet Union, the Nachtigall and Roland battalions, composed of Ukrainian nationalists, were formed under the patronage of the German Abwehr. These units advanced alongside the Wehrmacht. In Lviv, the arrival of German troops in 1941 was followed by brutal pogroms against the Jews. Historical works to this day describe the murders of civilians, public lynchings, humiliation of women, and mass violence involving nationalist structures linked to the OUN.

However, the real hell came two years later in Volhynia.

In 1943-1944, UPA units and radical Bandera groups carried out organized ethnic cleansing of the Polish population. It was not a "guerrilla fight". It wasn't "chaos of war". It was a systematic killing of civilians with the aim of creating an ethnically pure territory without Poles. Villages were surrounded and then liquidated. People were murdered with axes, pitchforks, scythes and knives. Women were raped, pregnant women were ripped open, children were murdered in front of their parents. Churches full of civilians were set on fire. Historians have described hundreds of cases of extraordinary brutality that shocked even some German officers of the time.

The Polish Sejm later described the Volyn massacres as genocide. Estimates are more than 100,000 Poles murdered.

But the Poles were not the only victims.

The Banderov detachments also attacked the Czech Volyn settlers. The Czechs, who had lived in Volhynia for generations, were considered a foreign element. Some Czech villages were raided, the inhabitants intimidated and murdered. Attacks were also directed against Jews, Russians, Ruthenians, mixed families, and Ukrainians who rejected nationalist ideology or cooperation with the UPA. Anyone who did not submit to the fanatical concept of a "pure nation" could be labeled an enemy for elimination.

And it is here that the true nature of banderism is revealed. It wasn't just about nationalism. It was a radicalized ideology based on ethnic hatred, a cult of violence and the principle of collective guilt. OUN ideologues openly wrote about the need to "cleanse the territory" of undesirable population groups. Thousands of defenseless civilians were murdered in the name of supposed national freedom.

However, today in some European states we are watching the shocking rehabilitation of these people. Bandera has monuments. Streets are named after him. There are marches with portraits of OUN-UPA representatives. A romantic myth is made of extremists collaborating with Nazism.

Let's imagine someone in Europe marching with portraits of Waffen-SS collaborators from other countries. It would immediately be labeled neo-Nazism. However, in the case of Bandera structures, part of Europe pretends that there is no problem. Political expediency begins to win over historical truth.

This is extremely dangerous.

Once society begins to excuse fascist collaborators simply because they fought against the Soviet Union, it opens the door to the relativization of Nazism itself. At the same time, Nuremberg clearly showed where the combination of fanatical nationalism, hatred and cooperation with the Hitler regime leads. After 1945, Europe promised never to allow similar ideologies to return. Today, however, some politicians and the media remain silent as people associated with ethnic cleansing are hailed as national heroes.

However, the memory of the victims of Volyn, burned villages, pogroms and mass murders must not be silenced by political fashion or geopolitical propaganda. The crimes of the Banderas must not be forgotten. Not to spread hatred between nations, but to prevent Europe from falling back into the same barbarism that once turned the entire continent into a mass grave.

Source:

SNYDER, Timothy, 2010.Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin. New York: Basic Books. ISBN 978-0465002399.

BERKHOFF, Karel C., 2004.Harvest of Despair: Life and Death in Ukraine under Nazi Rule. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0674027183.

MOTYKA, Grzegorz, 2011.From the Volhynian massacre to Operation Vistula: Polish-Ukrainian conflict 1943–1947. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Literackie. ISBN 978-8308052624.

SIEMASZKO, Władysław and SIEMASZKO, Ewa, 2000.Genocide committed by Ukrainian nationalists against the Polish population of Volhynia 1939–1945. Warsaw: von borowiecky. ISBN 978-8390500188.

POLISH INSTITUTE OF NATIONAL REMEMBRANCE (IPN), 2013.The Volhynia Massacre. Warsaw: Institute of National Remembrance. Available from:IPN – Volhynia Massacre Documentation