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Ultimately, to tackle this cult, we have to tackle the root cause, and look at how the inspiration for all these modern far-right groups in Ukraine, the original Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists, has been reinvented in Ukraine’s mainstream since the Euromaidan.
Where Bandera was originally a highly controversial figure in Ukraine, he became an accepted hero, lauded as a role model by the country’s parliament and even its commander-in-chief, with prominent Ukrainian outlets and even diplomats acting as representatives for the Ukrainian government promoting Bandera apologism.
Here we can show you a specific example, on June 29th 2022 Andrij Melnyk, the Ukrainian Ambassador to Germany, was invited to the “Jung & Naiv” Podcast, a live streamed political discussion show with a spin, in which the host Tilo Jung adopts the persona of the average teen that is generally disinterested about politics. His questioning however is highly critical and before a discussion even starts, Tilo researches his subjects and isn’t afraid to take on an adversarial style, asking questions in a blunt and direct manner and expecting clear answers in return, which in this case led to a fascinating 20 minute discussion which can only be described as an unstoppable force hitting an immovable object.
After about an hour and forty minutes of discussing Melnyk’s role as a diplomat and getting into various topics such as him being a de-facto “Weapons Dealer” and “Putin’s Fascism”, the last topic Tilo introduced, the legacy of Bandera, led to a 20 minute long argument, which we’re going to discuss with quotes translated from the original German, with the timestamps of the video listed in case you want to follow along.
[Starting @ 02:43:44,833]
Tilo: Then we’ll come back to you. You have… visited Bandera’s grave as a diplomat. You said you worship him. Let us begin here, since when do you worship Stepan Bandera? And why?
Melnyk: No, I didn’t say that I was worshipping him-
Tilo: Yes, several times.”
This interview went on to make a splash throughout Europe for reasons we are about to explore, specifically in Poland as well as Germany, which is unusual for a long form non-english talk show such as this one.
Melnyk goes on to paint a heroic picture of Bandera, depicting him as a freedom fighter and a liberator for the Ukrainian nation, which he would continue to do throughout the conversation, going as far as to compare Bandera to a certain fictional benevolent outlaw:
[Starting @ 02:45:30,000]
Melnyk: I mean, Robin Hood is revered by everyone, but even he did not act according to the law, that was valid at the time.
Tilo: True, however-
Melnyk: -I can understand that it is difficult for you to comprehend, i.e. why people like Bandera-
Tilo: That is why I am asking you right now, we have to talk about this.
Melnyk: Yes, and I am grateful. I am someone who is in favor of openness to… Because what pains me is that when the word Bandera falls, and not only in Russia, in Russia it is quasi…
Tilo: Yeah, we don’t need to talk about Russian propaganda.
Melnyk: But also here, in Germany. So I want to talk about Germany, too, for sure.
Tilo: Yes, let’s talk about that in a moment.
Melnyk: Yes, in Germany the word Bandera falls, then that immediately means, “as bad as Hitler” Bandera is almost so, so… Or he is a Nazi collaborator and so on, there is immediately quasi a… Set of synonyms that are used.
Tilo: We can only stick to the facts after all.
Melnyk: Sure!
Tilo: He was of course the ultimate anti-Soviet hero.
Melnyk: Yes.
Tilo: Because he was opposed to the Soviets… HOWEVER-
Melnyk: But also fought against the Germans?
And there’s something very important we need to point out here, the difference between Robin Hood and Stepan Bandera is… And this is a ridiculous sentence for us to have to say, Robin Hood didn’t instigate ethnic cleansing, just keep that in mind!
Melnyk’s message was essentially that the world had gotten Bandera wrong, and that he was actually just a vigilante freedom fighter, in response to this suggestion, Tilo decided to delve directly into the OUN’s ties to Fascist ideology and the Axis powers of World War 2.
[Starting @ 02:46:36,208]
Tilo: Look look, I’ll get started. He was closely associated with Mussolini and Hitler Germany in the 1920s, 1930s. He wanted to create a transnational fascism, he wanted to erect his own Ukrainian fascism. He was part of the OUN, as we already established, he was part of the leading body, he then at some point split off. There was the OUN-B, that is Bandera, they were radical nationalist, i.e. what we now call right-wing extremist, and they also were explicitly anti-Semitic. The main enemies of his were Jews, Poles and Russians. After all, he was also responsible for the assassination of the Polish Interior Minister at that time he also was sentenced for it. He has, as the Wehrmacht marched into in Lviv, so in your hometown, he welcomed them with his troops. He has organized pogroms with them together against the Jews. The Nazis together with Bandera People killed a total of 800,000 Jews in Ukraine. His people committed the massacre of Poles in western Ukraine, 1943-44, 100,000 Polish civilians killed.
Melnyk: Yes, that is one side of it and…
Tilo: But those are facts, correct?
What Melnyk sat through was a concise rundown on Stepan Bandera and the OUN’s involvement in the Holocaust, the OUN’s role in ethnic cleansing against Jews and Poles, naming massacres the OUN was responsible for and when exactly they happened and the OUN’s ties to the Axis, and this is where Melnyk offered the whitewashing perspective that has become disturbingly common in Ukraine:
[Starting @ 02:47:50,750]
Melnyk: No, no. We can…
Tilo: The majority-
Melnyk: Let’s go over-
Tilo: Those are undeniable historical facts!
Melnyk: Let’s go over it point by point, so Mussolini, you said he was with Mussolini or with Nazis?
Tilo: He was in contact with Mussolini Italy and Hitler Germany. He wanted transnational fascism…
Melnyk: No, that’s not true.
Tilo: He is considered by historians to be… a fascist.
Melnyk: Can you give me the quote? You said he was for fascism. Where Bandera said he is for fascism. I can’t imagine him saying that.
[Starting @ 02:48:46,375]
Tilo: But what the OUN and the like did, they have made resolutions when he was the boss, there you could not distinguish when you read through this: Is this now Nazi rhetoric from the NSDAP, or is that Bandera? I mean, we can just read it out! Before the German invasion, they have dealt a resolution at their congress. I quote “The Jews are the most devoted pillars of the Bolshevik regime and the avant-garde of Moscow imperialism in Ukraine. OUN fights against the Jews because they are the pillar of the Moscow-Bolshevik regime.” At the same time, the popular masses declared that Moscow is the main enemy. And then in May it says in the Instruction to fight and the activity of the OUN during the war, quote “That Jews unlike Poles and Russians, even in the phase after the war aren’t able to assimilate, so they would have to be destroyed or forcibly resettled.”
Melnyk: What is this? Can you present where you got that from?
Tilo: This comes from the OUN Congress in April 1941, one month before the German invasion, where he was boss. This is his resolution.
Melnyk: And where did you get that? Because I am hearing this for the first time.
Tilo: This is from the Jewish community of Berlin.
Melnyk: [chuckles] Ah, okay.
Denial, questioning the sources and intentionally misinterpreting what Tilo has said, setting a precedent for what the rest of the conversation would look like. Later on Melnyk would be faced with more “inconvenient” truths.
The diplomat would go on to explain his view of the OUN’s Nazi ties, remarking that Bandera intended to exploit the Nazis for the greater good, establishing an independent Ukraine, he insisted that this alliance wasn’t the same as collaborationism, an explanation Tilo, let’s say… Did not find convincing.
[02:49:54,208 ⇒ 02:49:56,583]
Melnyk: So here’s what I want to say. So Bandera of course wanted to exploit Nazi Germany, for this fight, so for a Ukrainian state. He hoped that when…
Tilo: So he collaborated?
Melnyk: What do you mean collaborate? I mean, collaborators existed all over Europe, in France, in Belgium, that is, in every state.
Tilo: For sure, but he collaborated.
Melnyk: He wanted, he wanted…
Tilo: And he has.
The discussion then shifted towards the topic of Bandera’s imprisonment in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, when the Nazis punished him for attempting to proclaim an independent Ukraine.
Then the interview took a turn for the worse, when an incredulous Melnyk decided to start engaging in holocaust revisionism, and bringing up the Nuremberg Trials.
Tilo: But you- you surely don’t deny that he was anti-Semitic.
Melnyk: No, well, I…
Tilo: You also acknowledge, don’t you…
Melnyk: I’m not aware of any statements from him personally…
Tilo: That he participated with his people in the murder of 800,000 Jews, you do recognize that.
Melnyk: No, no.
Tilo: No?!
Melnyk: He was not involved. So if Bandera would have been involved in any massacre he was accused of.
Tilo: It is undeniable!
Melnyk: Then he would have been convicted in Nuremberg at the court martial tribunal but he was not sentenced. He was able to live in Germany up until 15 years after the war. And that’s why, that’s the difference. Because I mean, if he alone commited any crimes or if any evidence existed that he-
Tilo: Israel wanted to try him in court for warcrimes, Poland, Russia, none of them were given the chance to.
Melnyk: If Stalin had any evidence in Nuremberg then him with all the other war criminals would have been condemned, but that was not the case, because there is no order, there is no evidence-
Tilo: Those were his troops though. His troops have…
Melnyk: There were…
Tilo: There is no doubt about it.
Melnyk: I mean, you say “doubtless”, but there is no evidence. So he was not convicted.
Tilo: There is no evidence that he himself killed a Jew. That is true, but his people…
Melnyk: He has…
Tilo: He commanded that. He has also commanded the killing of 100,000 civilians
Melnyk: He did not give an order. He did not give an order to exterminate Jews.
So, we have quite a bit to unpack here.
Firstly, the idea that Bandera is innocent because there’s no written order from him commanding the extermination of the Jews is blatantly absurd, because there’s no written order from Hitler to instigate the final solution either, a point that Holocaust deniers frequently refer to, yet we still know that these deaths happened as a matter of fact.
[02:54:11,958]
Melnyk: He did not give an order to exterminate Jews. And that’s why, I understand that, and that’s why-
Tilo: But I just read you what his program was. The Jews were the greatest enemies of him, even before Russians and Poles and Germans. You doubt that?
Melnyk: I doubt that he gave orders to kill Jews.
Second, the idea that Bandera and the OUN were innocent because they weren’t judged in the Nuremberg trials is a paper thin defence:
Not only were various Axis collaborators able to escape justice after the war thanks to their usefulness, whether that’s the Nazi rocket scientists who went on to join NASA or the Japanese war criminals from Unit-731 who were given freedom in exchange for their research, if you watched the first episode of this series, you know the real reason Bandera didn’t end up in Nuremberg, its because the CIA protecting him, and used him as an asset against the Soviets during the Cold War.
In fact the Soviets knew this full well, as we found in another CIA document that the Soviets wrote to the US authorities in 1946 on their desire to bring Bandera to trial, but that “this can only be done with your assistance because of the fact that he is now hiding in the American Zone of Occupation”. As we previously discussed in our history episode, because the Americans refused to cooperate, the Soviets resorted to assassinating Bandera.
After addressing the Banderites antisemitism, the conversation briefly shifted to the topic of their actions against the Poles:
[Starting @ 02:55:32,666]
Melnyk: The reason, therefore, for this hostility between Poland and Ukraine was that Ukraine, they were the largest group, so the largest Minority group in the Polish state. A quarter of the population of Poland after the First World War were Ukraine. And they were suppressed in a way that can hardly be imagined. And that was the reason for which Ukrainians opposed Poland, so the Polish were enemies just like Nazi Germany and the Soviets at the time.
Tilo: Sure, but that doesn’t excuse the murder of civilians.
Melnyk: There was, there was no, there was, there was- that what you are…
Tilo: There were several massacres of Poles in west Ukraine which were carried out by Bandera troops.
Melnyk: Yes, and there were also, in the same way the same massacres, from Poles against Ukrainians. Also tens of thousands of Ukrainians…
Tilo: Does not make anything better.
Melnyk: …tens of thousands of Ukrainians were, that was a war and that’s why the Polish want to politicize this story. We are against it…
Tilo: But is Israel wrong, Israel, the state Israel, that 800,000 Jews were killed by Banderas-
Melnyk: So, Israel… Israel…
Tilo: Are they making it up?
Melnyk: I do not know what they are making up but we are talking about Bandera.
Melnyk explains that for the Ukrainians at the time, the Polish were considered enemies just like the Nazis and the Soviets, stating that the massacres committed against the Polish were retaliatory in nature, after experiencing oppression that is difficult to imagine, mentioning that tens of thousands of Ukrainians were killed by the Polish. Tens of thousands of Ukrainians killed? Is what Melnyk is saying true?
Here’s the thing, while the Polish state did occupy a significant portion of Ukrainian land until the end of the World Wars, when we talk about the events of the Second World War, there’s no comparison.
Poland had a low collaboration rate in World War 2, with most collaborators being from the country’s ethnic German minority, or former Polish police officers who were threatened with “severe punishment” if they didn’t return to their jobs, as well as some Polish citizens who were drafted into the Wehrmacht.
In comparison, Ukrainian collaborators formed multiple volunteer units that supported the Third Reich, whether that was the Banderites, the SS Galicia units, or later the so-called “Ukrainian National Army”.
And when we look at these instances of ethnic cleansing, the acts of aggression do not seem to be neatly balanced, as part of the Galicia and Volhynia massacres it has been estimated that approximately 60,000 to 100,000 Poles were killed by the OUN-B and its paramilitary, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, the Poles by contrast are reported to have killed far less in reprisals, with the entire total of Ukrainian deaths tallied to between 10 and 20,000, although the total counts are still highly debated to this day.
Now it’s important to note that this isn’t some sort of casualty competition on which side had more victims, or an attempt at creating nationalistic guilt, many Ukrainians resisted the Banderites and their actions, in fact Poland’s National Remembrance Institute even has a list of what it calls the “Ukrainian Righteous” on its website, commemorating merciful Ukrainians who saved Polish lives (similar to Israel’s commemoration of the “Righteous Among the Nations” who saved the lives of Jews), so this isn’t a contest between whether the Poles or Ukrainians are more evil or bloodthirsty or anything like that, this was a wave of terror that torched the entire region.
But Ambassador Melnyk’s account of the OUN-B’s record was nothing short of an attempt to distort history, beginning with attempts to whitewash their killings using the memory of pre-war discrimination under Polish rule, then denying the murders, then dismissing them as the products of war and a “politicising” of the conflict, all for the sake of maintaining a fraudulent “heroic” image for Bandera.
Remember that despite Melnyk’s representation, we’re not just talking about a war against an enemy here, we’re talking about wholesale ethnic cleansing, calculated murders carried out with the intention of destroying an entire population.
But, believe it or not, Melnyk even went further with a more outrageous remark:
[Starting @ 02:56:45,333]
Tilo: I’m not shitting you, the whole world recognizes that Bandera was involved in the murder of hundreds of thousands of Jews except for Ukraine…
Melnyk: No, that’s not true. There is no evidence that Bandera troops have murdered hundreds of thousands of the Jews. There is no evidence. There are… That’s this narrative that the Russians keep up to this day and that finds support in Germany and also in Poland and Israel as well.
Tilo: Are the Jewish communities making it all up?
Melnyk: I do not know where they get this data from but I am ready to approach the Jewish communities to talk about this in a factual manner, if they don’t just parrot what we have been hearing for decades.
So Melnyk stated that he was only willing to talk to the Jewish community about the Holocaust in Ukraine only if they agreed to avoid the narratives he didn’t like, a rather shocking proposal, to lecture communities ravaged by genocide about their own destruction, Tilo of course was not tolerant of this attitude, and informed Melnyk on another piece of the puzzle regarding the OUN’s ideology, leaflets that were distributed in Lviv containing a message signed by Bandera himself.
[Starting @ 02:57:26,166]
Tilo: There were leaflets when the Germans entered Lviv. It read “Populace, here is what you need to know Muscovites, Poles, Hungarians and Jews. They are your enemies. Destroy them. Here’s what you need to know. Your guidance. Your leader, Stepan Bandera.”
Melnyk: What kind of leaflets are those?
Tilo: When the Germans just invaded they basically handed those out amongst the populace which were still there under other rulers. After all, they fraternized with the Germans. But that is completely clear!
And at this point, Melnyk’s mask truly slipped:
Melnyk: I. Will. Not. Tell. You. Today… That I will distance myself from this. And that’s it.
“And that’s it!”, with that Melnyk gave a surprisingly honest answer, he has no interest in seriously debating the topic, coming up with any evidence that could refute the reputation of the OUN-B, instead he simply admits that he’s simply not going to budge, he wants Bandera to be a hero.
[Starting @ 02:58:11,833]
Tilo: No, I don’t understand how one can call someone a hero, who at the same time was a mass murderer of Jews and Poles.
Melnyk: Bandera was not a mass murderer of Jews and Poles.
Although much of this conversation can be described as a cycle of Tilo bringing up historical facts and Melnyk responding with denialism and paper thin defences of Bandera, there are a few more notable portions of the interview we want to point out, where Melnyk actually tried to victimise Bandera.
For one, according to Melnyk Bandera was made out to be a villain by Stalin himself, as part of some sort of conspiracy which the Israelis, Poles and Germans went along with…
[02:59:06,208 ⇒ 02:59:17,958]
Melnyk: You know, Stalin had a huge selection of people to make them the enemy of the Soviet Union. He has chosen Bandera. And all this Bandera related research, which was also conducted in Germany since the end of the war They were…
Tilo: Polish research, Israeli research…
Melnyk: Yes, also, also.
Tilo: They are ALL getting it wrong.
Melnyk: I don’t know…
Tilo: They are spreading propaganda about…
Melnyk: I can’t say if they are getting it wrong, but I can only say that, even for the German historiography, it was favorable to go along with it. Also because Germany lost the war and they basically wanted to make peace with the Soviet Union at the time. And one would just… One simply kept silent or participated.
But for what reason would the Western allies go along with Soviet propaganda, even after all this time?
Melnyk: I do not know what reason.
Ah, gotcha.
Unlike his adversary, Melnyk is unable to explain why he believes what he believes, despite his adamant defence of Bandera, Melnyk is hesitant to explain what exactly Polish, German and Israeli researchers are getting wrong.
Which leaves us with 2 different ways we could explain Melnyk’s behaviour:
Is it that he knows of Bandera’s track record, and maintains these obviously unreliable denials to save face for Ukraine, given Bandera’s new role as a historical patriotic figure? Or does he genuinely believe what he’s saying? Buying into the Bandera myth making without having any evidence to defend his arguments?
Another strange instance of victimisation, is when Tilo and Melnyk address the topic of Bandera’s imprisonment:
[03:00:34,958 ⇒ 03:00:36,541]
Melnyk: He was in prison.
Tilo: But not all the time.
Melnyk: He was… So how can he… He was arrested in the year ‘41 and was let go in ‘44. And all these crimes in the Ukraine, even towards Jews and this…
Tilo: He was the charismatic leader of his Troops, they called themselves “Bandera troops” and before he was arrested, he still wrote the pogroms himself.
Melnyk: How can he… How… How can he issue orders out of prison? Can you explain that?
Tilo: Oh, you can’t? It even is still possible today.
Melnyk: I don’t know. I have not been to prison, thank God. But I can not understand how someone who was in prison, arrested by the Nazis.
Tilo: As an honorary inmate, yes.
Melnyk: And then… Whatever, then he is made guilty for everything people want to accuse him of. So I’m against it. Because it’s not true.
And this is a topic that came up multiple times during the conversation, with Melnyk attempting to emphasise Bandera’s time in the the concentration camp, versus Tilo trying to explain the nature of that time, you see, not all victims of the camps were treated equally:
[Starting @ 02:51:11,583]
Melnyk: I want to explain to you why I find it wrong to automatically turn Bandera into an anti-Semite, collaborationist, and all that is the epitome of evil. So he was arrested by the Germans.
Till: Well…
Melnyk: Right after this resolution. That is, right after…
Tilo: Because he did not want German rule over Ukraine, but wanted to proclaim its own Ukrainian independence and then the Germans sent them to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp-
Melnyk: Yes, yes. Where he spent his time for the entirety of the war!
Tilo: No… No, no. He was a special prisoner in the concentration camp, an honorary prisoner.
Melnyk: But that doesn’t matter. Have you been to Sachsenhausen?
Tilo: Yes.
Melnyk: I was there! I have also- I have also learned and experienced all this myself. I have visited this memorial to really experience how it was. So, what does that mean “special inmate?”
Tilo: There is Günther Morsch, who is the Director of the memorial in Sachsenhausen. He has said, quote “The cell building is been a special area in the concentration camp. Walls were torn down between cells and a bedroom and livingroom were furnished with furniture. Even Pictures were hung on the walls and on the floor there was a carpet. While this didn’t change the fact that one was imprisoned, for honorary inmates special conditions were set.” And he was also one of the very, very few concentration camp prisoners in the Nazi era, who was released that would be in 1944.
Melnyk: And do you know why?
Tilo: Yes, because the Soviets came.
Melnyk: Yes, because the Germans wanted to exploit him for their war.
Tilo: The Wehrmacht then united with them… they collaborated again! Yes, brothers in spirit.
Melnyk: No, what do you mean brothers in spirit?
Let us talk about Bandera’s imprisonment. While it is true that he was sent to KZ Sachsenhausen and it is true that he was serving time for daring to declare an independent Ukraine, Stepan certainly didn’t suffer in the same way as the other inmates of that concentration camp.
When we think of concentration camp victims, we imagine visceral images of starved civilians, people on the brink of death who look like husks, but a lesser known part of the concentration camps was the phenomenon of “honorary inmates”, who received a very different kind of treatment.
For example, one of these “honorary” inmates was Polish commander Stefan Rowecki, who was imprisoned at Sachsenhausen in 1943 and 44, his luxuries included better general care, the right to wear his own clothes and the ability to send and receive letters and packages, these inmates were essentially VIPs, and Bandera was one of them.
And as we know, Bandera was actually treated better than Rowecki, because while Rowecki was eventually killed, most likely on the orders of Himmler, Bandera was actually released and survived the war.
These inmates were also able to go to weekly mass and spend their time with their loved ones, with conditions being so comfortable that one wouldn’t even have thought about escaping or otherwise “ending things”.
Surprisingly, Nazis took care of their VIP’s to the point where they even responded to suicidal ideation and concerns of depression. An example here would be the Austrian chancellor Kurt Schuschnigg, who was arrested after the Germans annexed Austria in 1938 and later sent to Sachsenhausen in 1941, situating his special little cell right next to the camps Killzone.
His wife and daughter ended up moving in with him and when they were relocated to KZ Flossenbürg in 1945, Schuschnigg recalled his daughter asking to go back to Sachsenhausen as it was “prettier there!” Even though the Nazis granted him this luxury, it did come at a price, Schuschnigg paid for his relocation to the concentration camp, and got his monthly allowance taken from his confiscated fortunes.
Long story short, yes Bandera was a prisoner, but unlike his unfortunate peers he lived in a cosy cell, likely had contact with the outside world, and had the ability to invite family or mistresses to live with him if he wanted to; So unfortunately for Melnyk, Bandera wasn’t the victim he was implied to be.
[Starting @ 03:01:21,041]
Tilo: But you acknowledge that due to their ideology their archenemies were Jews, Poles and Russians. And that is written in black and white.
Melnyk: The ideology of the people who fought for freedom in the Second World War, was that they wanted to establish an Independent Ukraine.
Tilo: Ethnic cleansing, namely an Independent Ukraine, free from Jews, Poles and Russians. That was Bandera’s dream. And that’s the guy you worship?
Melnyk: I do not worship someone who is anti-Semitic. However, Bandera isn’t a personality to whom one can pin all the crimes of the world onto.
Tilo: We are not doing that.
Melnyk: Yes you are! Many are just too comfortable- -Even in Germany- Many historians in Germany
Tilo: He was part of the Holocaust. That’s what it’s about.
Melnyk: He was not part of Holocaust. Bandera was not part of Holocaust. That is the view that some share. We don’t share that opinion. Period. 1,5 Million Ukranians were-
Tilo: You. You aren’t of that opinion. Does Zelensky share that opinion? Are you sure about that? As a Jewish president?
Melnyk: I…
Tilo: That he perceives Bandera just like you do?
Melnyk: You ask me and I’ll tell you what I have to say about it.
Tilo: Did you talk to someone about it?
Melnyk: With whom?
Tilo: With Zelensky.
Melnyk: No, I do not talk about such topics with Zelensky.
Tilo: Andrij, despite everything, I thank you: My time is over. I hope you’ll come back again sometime.
Melnyk: Yes, with pleasure.
Tilo: And now Hans comes with the audience questions.
Melnyk: Okay.
And that concludes this bizarre interview with a Ukrainian diplomat.
This isn’t even all of the wild nonsense he had to say, we’ve decided to narrow it down to the Bandera debate, but his denialism around Ukraine’s encounters with Nazism didn’t end there, he was also asked about Azov and their Nazi runic symbolism and stated that these were only isolated incidents that were thoroughly investigated, even bafflingly claiming that an official had inspected units with a magnifying glass to try and find the symbolism, with the rare few instances where it was found being reported to the unit command.
Presumably nobody bothered to point that magnifying glass at Azov’s logo that they show on their shoulders and their social media pages. It’s such a stupid argument it seems like it was ripped out of a sketch, but it’s a very illustrative example of how historical denialism feeds into denialism around the modern day “Nazi problem”.
It makes one wonder, what actually happened to the ambassador after his appearance on “Jung & Naiv”? Well, let’s put it this way, many were not happy with his remarks. The Israeli Embassy condemned Melnyk for insulting Bandera’s victims, trivialising the Holocaust, distorting facts and undermining Ukraine’s struggle as a result.
Due to the backlash resulting from this scandal, Zelensky removed Melnyk from his post as ambassador to Germany shortly after the interview, and even later participated in a ceremony commemorating the victims of the Banderite massacres, earning the thanks of the Polish foreign minister, who commended the Ukrainian government for their “quick public intervention” against Melnyk’s “false statements of history”, but make no mistake, this wasn’t a serious shift.
Melnyk was actually kicked upstairs, to a position as Deputy Foreign Minister, before receiving another ambassador post, and since then the Bandera apologia has continued in elements of Ukrainian society.
Take for example this article from the Kyiv Independent called “How nationalist movements paved Ukraine’s way to freedom”, which purports to offer the “true history” of Ukraine. It blames the link between Bandera’s independence struggle and World War 2 Nazi atrocities on “Soviet propaganda”, despite the fact that (as we reported previously), Bandera’s declaration of Ukrainian independence explicitly aligned the country with Hitler and the Nazi Reich.
Other explanations include, “Ukraine isn’t a Nazi country anymore, so who cares if a Nazi collaborator is treated as their hero?” and “maybe the Banderites did massacre Jews, but there’s no proof Bandera supported ethnic cleansing”, despite the fact that Bandera’s anti semitic attitudes are well known.
And the last even more baffling excuse provided is, “well, maybe the Banderites did carry out anti semitic pogroms, but it wasn’t because they were racist, it was just politics!”. Essentially, because the OUN-B carried out ethnic cleansing against the Jews because they saw them as enemies of the country, rather than because of pure racial hatred, it’s “crudely generalistic” to refer to them as antisemites.
This is completely insane logic when we remember that this same “enemy” mentality was used by the Nazis themselves, with SS leaders instructing that Jews should be treated as partisans and many of the killings of the Holocaust being carried out under the guise of “anti-partisan” actions called Bandenbekämpfung - “Bandit Fighting”.
The article concludes with a more honest explanation of the Bandera apologism, admitting that the new image of Bandera comes from a desire to have Ukrainian “warrior heroes” to look up to as part of their national cause.
And it’s understandable to want these kinds of national heroes, especially when Ukraine is in such a time of crisis as it is right now, but if you don’t want your national cause to be associated with Nazism, pick a hero that didn’t explicitly align himself with the Nazis.
The depressing thing is, this article acknowledges that Ukrainian nationalism had many sides, including liberals, socialists and Communists that fought for Ukraine, that Ukraine already has nationalists that aren’t tied to toxic far-right ideology, yet it still dedicates much of its time to trying to promote apologia for the Banderites and their leader.
It’s important to note that Ukrainian historians have a point when they argue that World War 2 wasn’t purely black and white, and that there were independence fighters that joined the Axis cause in World War 2 for their own sakes, rather than because of a sympathy with Nazism.
An example of this is Finland, which joined the German war effort after being forced to surrender territory to the Soviet Union, despite being on the Axis side Finland never embraced dictatorship and treated Jewish Finns as its own people, refusing to hand them over to the Nazis, Jewish Finnish soldiers even ended up fighting alongside German troops because of this; This “lighter” form of collaborationism allowed the Finns to exit the war on much softer terms than most of the other Axis powers, which ended up under Allied occupation or were swallowed up into the Eastern Bloc.
But Bandera and the OUN-B weren’t that kind of collaborator, they had more in common with the Nazis than a shared enemy in the USSR, the Banderites shared their authoritarian, anti semitic mentality as well, clearly aligning themselves with the Nazi new order, which is why the Soviets kept hunting Bandera until they caught him, 14 years after the war had ended.
The fact of the matter is, Bandera and his followers aren’t Ukrainian heroes, they were a group of Fascists that tried to collaborate with Nazi Germany and were rejected because the Nazis saw their people as subhuman, the OUN’s efforts didn’t bring Ukraine closer to statehood, they simply aided another occupation of Ukraine, by a foreign power that saw Ukraine’s people as worth less than their own. Bandera was a bootlicker for a boot that kicked him in the face, and all of Ukraine suffered for it.
And while most of the spotlight on this controversy goes to the OUN-B and Bandera, because they were the largest OUN faction, it’s important to remember that its rival faction, the OUN-M, deserves just as much infamy.
Although Andriy Melnyk (the OUN leader not the diplomat) has been labelled by some as a “moderate”, he was only moderate in comparison to Bandera, although Melnyk’s wing of the movement are said to have initially condemned Nazism, they identified with Fascist tenants and Melnyk himself was considered the “vozhd” of the OUN, their equivalent of the Führer, a dictatorial figure.
A book by Grzegorz Rossolinski, a researcher of Fascism, describes in detail the Fascist tendencies of the OUN under Melnyk, which were outlined by his ideologist Mykola Stsiborskyi:
After Germany attacked Poland on 1 September 1939, Mel’nyk asked Stsibors’kyi to write a constitution for a Ukrainian state. […] According to the draft constitution, the Ukrainian state was to be based on the totalitarian dictatorship of a nation that would be defined in a nationalist and racial sense and would therefore guarantee rights to ethnic Ukrainians alone. Other than the OUN, all political groups, parties, and other such organizations would be forbidden. […] the leader of the OUN would be the “Head of the State—The Leader of the Nation [Holova Derzhavy-Vozhd’ Natsi’i],” whose period of office would be unlimited. In this sense, all aspects of political, social, and cultural life would be controlled by the OUN, the only legal party and organization in the state.
According to the OUN’s concept of fascism, the nation would be represented by and subordinated to the leader (Vozhd’ or Providnyk), who would be the head of the OUN. This was the same absolute authority of the leader that the Nazis called Fuhrerprinzip. Within the OUN, the Fuhrerprinzip concept was officially introduced at the Second Great Congress of the Ukrainian Nationalists on 27 August 1939 in Rome, but the idea had already manifested itself previously”
- Stepan Bandera: The Life And Afterlife Of A Ukrainian Nationalist - Chapter 1: Heterogeneity, Modernity, and the Turn to the Right
And when the Germans plotted to invade the Soviet Union, Melnyk revised his view of them, with the OUN-M supporting the Nazis just as the OUN-B did. Melnyk himself proclaimed in a letter to German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop that the OUN’s worldview was especially similar to “National Socialism in Germany”.
In fact, the “Melnykites” were more loyal supporters of the Nazis than the “Banderites”, when Bandera made his declaration of Ukrainian statehood, OUN-M refused to endorse it, and while both OUN factions were caught in the crackdown after the declaration was released, Melnyk was given a much more lax treatment than Bandera, he wasn’t sent to Sachsenhausen until 1944, and not long after that he was released just as Bandera was.
And during the Nazi occupation of Ukraine, the “Melnykites” offered their support for the formation of the SS Galicia Division, so even after the Nazis had blatantly rejected Ukrainian statehood, with their highest leadership condemning their people as just as subhuman as the rest of the Soviet population, the OUN-M was still willing to collaborate, sacrificing Ukrainians for the German cause.
[Editor’s Note: The source for this is on Page 170 of this hyperlinked book, it can be borrowed via Archive.org’s Open Library to check the citation, I couldn’t include a link to the book in the sources as it is still under copyright, I had the same issue with Bandera Afterlife of a Nationalist, which was the source for the quote and for Melnyk’s letter.
I found these sources from Wikipedia and checked both books myself to make sure they support the claims, they reference Melnyk’s letter directly and Melnykite newspapers from the time as their sources.]
While the “Melnykites” also endorsed the “Ukrainian People’s Revolutionary Army” and its leader Taras Borovets, who opposed the Banderite purges of the Poles, saying that the Ukrainians were doing the the SS a favour and “present[ing] themselves in the eyes of the world as barbarians” the troops under Borovets had less sympathy for the Jews.
The Polissian Sich, supporting the nationalist faction under Taras Bulba-Borovets, was active until November 1941 in the “cleansing” of the Pripjet marshlands. According to Karel Berkhoff’s research, one 15-year-old-member of the Sich recalled, “we did everything they asked. I went everywhere, rode everywhere, fought and shot Jews who had treated me badly.” The Sich had its own newspaper, in which it announced at the end of 1941, “now the parasitical Jewish nation has been destroyed.”
Jared McBride also documented Sich pogroms north of Zhytomyr at Olevs’k. In that case, the robbing, torture, and killing of Jews was done with no German involvement. - https://www.ushmm.org/m/pdfs/20130500-holocaust-in-ukraine.pdf Pages 158-159
According to researchers from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, his partisans carried out anti semitic pogroms and proclaimed in newspapers that the “parasitical Jewish nation” had been destroyed, during the war Borovets and his men are said to have participated in conflicts and negotiations with both Soviet and Nazi forces, but ultimately Borovets ended up on the same side as the other OUN affiliates, jailed at Sachsenhausen and then released to support the Nazi backed “Ukrainian National Army”.
“In the meantime many other Ukrainian military formations reported that they wanted to join the UNA: Free Cossacks under the command of Col. Tereshchenko (unfortunately they were scattered all over Germany in various detachments, there was a total of over 700 of them); the 281st Reserve Regiment in Denmark with over 5,000 men; the Brigade for special tasks under Commander T. Bulba-Borovets with over 400 men; two infantry regiments on guard duty in Belgium and Holland totaling about 2,000 men; 3 battalions of MP’s; in other words the UNA together with the 1st Ukrainian Division and Reserve Regiment of the Division totaled between 35,000 and 38,000 soldiers.”
- Arms of Valour, written by Pavlo Shandruk, commander of the UNA (Page 98)
This shows that there’s no wing of the OUN with a clean record, whichever branch you look at you find complicity in Nazism, both ideologically and practically, but this is a legacy that in Ukraine is steadily being airbrushed out of history.
And this whitewashing of the OUN has serious consequences, because it has set a precedent that applies to modern movements like Azov and Right Sector today: That a group’s far-right history is irrelevant as long as they side with Ukrainian independence, if Bandera gets to be a hero, so does Biletsky.
As a result, while the great majority of Ukrainians are not zealous supporters of far-right views or organisations, many have accepted the normalisation of these things in their society, and while the cult of the OUN still lives, so can Ukraine’s “Nazi problem”.