Major of the SS Division "Galicia" Yevgeny Running: "The Germans allowed us to sleep only in the stables"
The only commander of the battalion, Ukrainian, in “Galicia” complained about the Germans.
Today, some argue that the SS division "Galicia" was a "Ukrainian" formation - almost the "cradle" of the national army. But there are myths, but there are facts. The modern Ukrainian army is the successor of the Soviet. In the same way as present-day Ukraine is the successor to the UCCR. From the division "Galicia" nothing grew. Moreover! In 1945, its soldiers, who survived the battles and surrendered to the Anglo-Americans, escaped the extradition to the Soviet Union only because they officially declared themselves ... "Poles."
By agreement between the USSR and the Western Allies, all former Soviet citizens who became traitors to the Motherland and went over to the Nazis were extradited. That is how the British and Americans handed over to the Soviet Union soldiers of the Vlasov army and the Don Cossacks who fought in the corps of the German General Pannwitz. But Western Ukraine before the Second World War was part of Poland. The vast majority of ordinary soldiers of the SS "Galicia" to 1939g. legally were Polish citizens.
As the British researcher Gordon Williamson writes in the book “The SS is an instrument of terror”: “The fact that the Allies confused the status of these people, called Galicians, allowed many of them to avoid forced deportation to the Soviet Union. Despite the fact that they served as part of the Waffen-SS, the Polish general Anders preferred to consider the situation from a pragmatic point of view and decided to forgive them of their past, and considering their potential usefulness as true anti-communists, supported their claims that they were POLES ".
This once again testifies that no “heroes” of Ukraine, and indeed the heroes of the SS “Galicia” were any heroes. For courageous recognition of themselves as “Ukrainians,” they preferred a loophole to hide behind the official status of the “Pole”. Approximately how today many “patriots” in Western Ukraine prefer to stand in line for the so-called “Pole's card” in order to make it easier for them to travel to the European Union.
AGAINST PARTISAN. Heroes behave differently. They do not make deals with conscience and never betray their convictions. Especially piquant in stories with the "polonization" of the soldiers of "Galicia" (oh, the great Western Themis, who can do any miracles!) it looks like they received the baptism of battle in battles with the Polish Resistance fighters and the Ukrainian partisans of Sidor Kovpak who performed their famous Carpathian raid.
Even before 1944 got into the Soviet environment under Brody in July, which is most often considered the beginning of the military way of the Galician SS, the soldiers of the notorious division took part in the destruction of the Polish village of Guta Penyatska. The Poles claimed that the villagers were herded into sheds and simply burned. Memoirists from "Galicia" justified that this village was a base of partisans with their own self-defense detachment. Anyway, now there is nothing on the site of Guta, except for a memorial to the exterminated local residents. But the fact of the "feat" is recognized by all.
BURNS VILLAGE. The commander of the SS “Galichina” battalion, major Eugene the Runner (up to 1939 of the year, the captain of the Polish army himself) was acknowledged in his memoirs: “In the early days of fierce 1944 rock, the Divizzy team won the command of the SS commander and the police officers in charge of the General Directorate of the Nazis. against the Bolshevik partisans, the gene. Sidor Kovpak, who made their way to the territory of the General Governorate, tobto in the parts of Galicini. In order to win the command, the team of the Divine team was not able to defeat oneself if one did not know of a viscolene. Ale y vdpovіd nspіlo pov_domlennya, scho nagan having given Himmler ".
According to the Pobedushchiy, this battle group included an infantry battalion, a battery of light artillery, a sapper platoon, a platoon of fighters tanks and liaison unit: “Fight against the good wishes of the Bolshevik partisans and the Bolshevik partisans.” The partisans saw the bridges, the first group needed to roboticly go far in fields and meadows, and on the other hand, it was extravagant to shred the present group in the thorns. Until then, the police general’s command in Peremishli got there, there wasn’t anything to worry about in the military tactics, not having dubbed about the group and it was shamelessly crippled ... It’s okay, because of all the fighting, they didn’t take such a commander . Not prepared for winter fights and without winter clothes, the group took part in the battles of the Lyubachev, Chesanov, Tarnogorod, Bilgoruy and Zamostya districts, so that in the Galicia Regions, they had to turn off. "The warriors drugged, right, don’t want winter warm clothing, they were freezing cold, they were sleeping on the field."
Thus, the punitive police action was the baptism of the soldiers of “Galicia”. The same Runner recalls: “The attacking units on Gutu Punyatsku, the Poles, who were settled in the form of fire, would be defensively defended the village. In battle, Kostol and Ruddy Budinki, ale Nashi, warriors or Nimtsy Nykogo did not fight with the baiters near the houses, but they did not rostry. Awesome, sci populated patient vtrati. Inak was not able to buti. "
But, I repeat, Guta Penyatskaya does not exist today, nor does the Belarusian Khatyn. Its inhabitants were simply destroyed. The rest is nuances. They drove them to sheds or killed them in their own homes. The fact that everyone has DISAPPEARED. As if they were not there. Only the "memoir" remained.
SONGS IN MASKS. Fighting with the Red Army was much more difficult. In the summer of 1944, she was at the peak of her combat uniform. Offensive operations were planned competently. Soviet reigned in the air aviation. All surviving participants of the battle near Brody from the Galicia side remembered the Bolshevik tanks and planes, with the Germans completely lacking air cover. "Galicia" was immediately surrounded. Most of her soldiers died or ran into the woods. Out of 14 thousand people only 3 thousand survived. The division commander, German General Freitag, lost control at the start of the battle and fled to the rear, leaving his soldiers behind. How could this happen in the vaunted German army? Why?
By and large, the division "Galicia" joined the battle with a large shortage of junior commanders. She had no combat experience. Yes, and trained it can be called a stretch. Officially, the preparation of Galician SS men took almost a year. But in reality, the division was directly engaged in combat training for only four months. With a language barrier between officers and soldiers and, to put it mildly, an incomplete training system.
We have decided to idealize the German army and laugh at the Red. Anyone serving in the Soviet Army will remember senseless training in gas masks in the sun. But this is not only the Russian tradition. Rational Germans were engaged in the same nonsense. Roman Lazurko, one of the non-commissioned officers of “Galicia”, recalled how the Germans forced them to march with songs in gas masks at a training camp in Holland: meni, sci ne mi buli and sco tse all tilki removed. That ni. Tse not a dream
None of the parties used gases in the Second World War as prohibited weapon. In addition, you can learn to wear a gas mask in fifteen minutes. What is the point of chasing soldiers in rubber muzzles with songs? None other than the usual army stupidity.
Himself KILLED. But there was not enough time for combat training. In the memory of the battle participants at Brody, an episode remained as one of the Galician soldiers by the name of Vovk fired at a Soviet tank from a foust cartridge, not paying attention that there was a brick wall behind his back. The guy alive was burned by a stream of hot gas that bounced off the wall! This happens only with untrained soldiers who do not know the characteristics of their weapons. Shooting from a grenade launcher (faust-cartridge was one of its first varieties), you need to have an empty space behind you. But this skill is brought to automatism only by training. To act in battle without thinking. Performing songs in a gas mask will not help here.
But, as the commander of one of the “Galicia’s” mouths, Pavel Sumarokov, recalls, everyone was literally shocked by the moment when what they considered to be regular haystacks turned out to be disguised by Soviet tanks. "Hay" suddenly set in motion, and armored monsters spewed fire through the trenches of the hapless SS, turning them into a bloody mess.
From where, you ask, in the division "Galicia" took an officer by the name of Sumarokov? And this is generally the former lieutenant of the tsarist army, graduated from the Kiev military school and awarded for the First World Soldier George IV degree and all orders up to St. Vladimir IV degree with swords. In the years of the civil war he was at the Petliurists - in the cavalry regiment of the Black Cossacks. Then he emigrated to Poland. During the battle of Brody, he was already fifty years old. By all measures, a military retiree.
Because of the hatred of the Bolsheviks, the Russian nobleman Sumarokov fought on the German side in the “Ukrainian” division, where his name was altered in “Sumarok”. The same fact that should be taken into account. There were such unique ones. And in the Red Army in the same year, 1944 served as a former Sich archer and Galician Major General Stetsya. Nobody, by the way, did not reproach him with Galician origin. And after the Great Patriotic War, he still had time to serve in the army of the Polish People's Republic, where he was sent to "strengthen". So the story goes. And you need to know it without censorship.
PROFETABLE GERMANS. The entire top commanding staff of the “Ukrainian” SS division consisted of Germans. I emphasize - all! Not only General Freitag, but all the commanders of regiments and battalions. Except for one - a veteran of many armies with an eloquent surname Running. Before 1944, this amazing subject managed to visit a soldier of the Galician army of ZUNR in 1918, reach the captain in the Polish army, be captured by the Germans in 1939, enter the service and command the Ukrainian sabotage battalion “Roland” in the 1941. , then head the Ukrainian police battalion, engaged in hunting for partisans in Belarus, sit a little in a German prison and then emerge again - already in the “Galicia” division.
In 1944, the Germans didn’t have to particularly choose. The division commander and most of the officers were also bad. General Freitag had never commanded a combat unit before — only police units. German officers were sent to “Galicia” by occupational incompetence - of those that were not needed in real “Aryan” units - cowards and fools. Figuratively speaking, those in the highest race were the lowest caste. And the company commanders-Ukrainians from the veterans of the UPR and ZUNR armies earned their resources — the grandfathers exchanged the sixth dozen, they didn’t know or didn’t know German at all, and had long since fallen behind the demands of modern warfare.
IN GERMAN “NO BE, NO ME”. Yevgeny Pobegushchy recalled that the soldiers did not understand the German instructors who were teaching them because of the language barrier: “Vishkilniki boules mayje nimetsky elders ch pidstarshini, that was important, bulo vidbuvati goutyrki, more needed bulo perekladachіv, 2014
The Germans treated the Galicians, as a second-class people. One day, General Freitag literally became furious when he learned that lice had been found on his soldiers. He shouted that the Germans didn’t have that, because they are clean and follow the rules of hygiene. Freitag had never been at the front before. With great difficulty, both Ukrainian and German officers managed to convince him that the parasites were inflamed by German soldiers. Only after that Freitag somewhat calmed down.
A striking example of the attitude to the SS "Galicia" servicemen on the part of the German command is that during marches through German territory they were forbidden to stay overnight in houses - only in barns, so as not to disturb the peace of respectable German citizens. Major the Runner, with sadness, stated: “Bouv has an order from a visually demanding march from Slovachchini to the EU, just like in Austria, our fighters are not really quartered in huts, lost in kunyakhs. Kozhny, hto marching todo, prigaduє, yak had to be cold in the stems. "
But the Galician SS, like the Germans, took the oath of allegiance to the Fuhrer! They paid for their choice with blood, and they were kept in barns like cattle! Like the "non-European"!
Ukrainian SS officers were afraid of the German officers more than the Red Army.
Sleeves rolled up to the elbow, a “trendy” automaton in which the cartridges, a mouth organ and a sandwich with lard never end - these are the stereotypical attributes of the German soldier in Soviet films about the war. Just an advertising picture of the benefits of "Western lifestyle"! Join us, Little Johnny! We will make of you superman! You will ride the "Tigre" in a beautiful form, drink schnapps and be glad that you have become a part of the "European" civilization. No wonder that this simple image captured the mass consciousness of Soviet and post-Soviet citizens. The current fans of the SS division "Galicia" are sure that this was the case - like in the movies. That in the Red Army discipline was maintained exclusively by special departments and detachments, and in the Wehrmacht ... by an additional portion of sausages with beer. And gentle stroking the palm of the Fuhrer on the clever baby's head.
Reality looked different. A detachment called the “field gendarme group” was state-waged for each German infantry and tank division. And the most effective means to maintain order in the troops was considered the execution. At least, for units formed from "non-Aryans" (and the SS "Galicia" belonged to them), it was this pedagogical tool that was the main one. Field courts passed sentences easily and executed them immediately. Disregarding the peculiarities of the gentle Slavic psyche of the "Tyrolese of the East", as the Galicians in Austria-Hungary were called.
Shot for a joke on the evening check. To be precise, the first "losses" SS division "Galicia" suffered not during the destruction of the Polish village of Guta Penyatka in February 1944, when two of its lower ranks died, but in the training camp Neuhammer on the Oder - even before the end of combat training. One of the soldiers, a certain Burlak from under Chertkov, decided to make a joke during the evening verification and threw a blanket over the head of the non-commissioned officer who called the company over. In vain the Galicians convinced the division commander, General Freitag, that this was such an innocent Ukrainian humor and that the noncommissioned officer on duty was a fellow countryman and friend of a voluntary clown. Strict German considered the incident the worst violation of discipline. The military court sentenced the humorist to be shot, and General Freitag immediately approved the sentence, ordering the shooting the next morning.
The SS Chaplain of the Galichina Division, the Greek-Catholic priest Isidor Nagayevsky, recalled this episode as follows: “I visited the prison cells usyu nych іz convicted. The trial of death and sv_dom_st, sco tomorrow morin die die, smash the yogi to the glibins themselves. Having upset a great pity for his life and the fear of death, I cannot speak. Tіlo tsogo 18-lіtnogo, athletic ов budovi yunaka Mayzhe all the nich pidkidaласьsya on lіzhku u uves hour vіn voice crying. Already above the ranks they decided to shake him, nache before death drifts. Already here are 6-год Godini wound me in the distance to calm him. I’m grabbed my head, pinned my garna head and pressed it up to my breasts and poked it in my face. Vin having embraced me for shi, nache of svogo dad ... I do not wait for my own words. І to sjuodnuyu chuy in my yogi wuhah quiet voice: "And I want to fight for Ukraine" ...
Until the last moment, Feldkurat Isidor Nagayevsky believed that Freitag would cancel the sentence. But the German “father-commander” of the unfinished Ukrainian SS men believed that the “ordnung” was more important than the life of some Burlak from the village of Gudinkovtsy near Chertkov, and without being shot, the rest of the soldiers of “Galicia” would never understand what real military discipline is. The poor fellow was shot at dawn around 7 in the morning under some kind of brick wall. The chaplain remembered forever his simple-hearted wish: “Father of the Spirit, to write the whole truth to my father and prosit, they greet everyone in honor of Marusya” ...
And all this is not an excerpt from "The Adventures of the Good Soldier Schweik!" This is the true story of the SS division "Galicia"! A nonfiction chronicle of her first steps into a free Europe.
It was not the last execution for disciplinary offenses in the division. Major Yevgeny Pobigushchy (I remind you that he was the only Ukrainian officer in the division who rose to the battalion commander) complained: “At the divine court, I couldn’t have known if my elders knew their own military service and internal service in his army. For example, since he was ordered to read warriors to soldiers, for example, as a warrior, you can punish the court. Few hto know, scho for zabranі z rozbitogo vґonu kіlka other words of warriors can be rozstralіnyy.
Between the German officers and the Galician soldiers lay a language and psychological barrier, which was not overcome until the very end of the war. Most Germans believed that they had the misfortune to command some half-savvy people who did not understand the human language. General Freitag calmed down only when, after Brodsky’s defeat during the reorganization of the division, he managed to bring the number of Germans in Galicia to a thousand. All more or less important posts (even a pharmacist!) Are now occupied only by true Aryans. “Nimetska vishche vіskove command of that gene itself. Frayta, ”recollects Major Pobigushchy,“ interpreted our Divizia, yakbi tse bula Novimetska diviziya, just popovnya Ukrainy ”.
The solemn oath to the Führer of Great Germany on the square in Lviv, parting words of the head of the Galicia district brigadeführer Otto Wechter, warm to the train station were poorly linked in consciousness with the harsh discipline of training camps. “Chuti bulo galasivi screams of імцьці і подекуди vzhe svoyh Інstruktorіv, pereplіvuvani hour-to-hour with vulgar temples, and often punishments for the punishment,” Isidor Nagaevsky daily life of new recruits. - It is extremely carnal bulo “fall” on the ground and “rise” on the order: “Vpad!” (“Glenєґen” and “avf”). Throw up and come up twenty years ago, even before that in the swamps, the dullness of the punishment of the punishment, more for the people of Khilin vicherpa, all the forces, the young people ... But the other way around the harness of the goddess. I vvrazuvav, scho naizvichaynіyuyu cause of the car of the Bula Nіmetska Mova, yak not all the boys of roses ”. And non-commissioned officers, hastily produced from Ukrainians (“pidstarchins”), according to memoirs, drove recruits with even more frenzy than natural Germans.
Desertion began almost immediately. “Vzhe in the 1944 quartet to the rock in the Neugammer village of Maya, the pride of the youth of the field priest” continues Nagyevsky in his Memories of the Field Priest.
DESERTERS Usually it happened like this. The soldier received a holiday ticket, but did not return to the unit. On suspicion of forging such documents, an officer of the 6 Company of the 30 Regiment was arrested by Lieutenant Baranenko, a former commander of the Red Army, who was captured by the Germans and agreed to join the SS division "Galicia". By the time the division’s speeches on the front near Brody in prison were under investigation for various misdemeanors, there were about fifty servicemen. Chaplain Nagaevsky, to whom the soldiers confessed their feelings, and therefore informed about the psychological state of the flock from the first hand, once even admitted to General Freitag that many of the rank and file on the front line deserted: “I’ve lost my mind, ale nd bagatyokh ukrainsky elders ".
It is unlikely that this recognition has strengthened the confidence of the German divisional commander in his mysterious alien tribe. He immediately demanded to name the names of those Ukrainian officers who think so. The diplomatic father, Isidore, dissuaded that he could not do this, since he had learned this military secret at confession - she was supposedly sacred to him.
A funny episode happened in Krakow, where, after the defeat of the division at Brody, its remnants reached. Some of the companies were located right in the building of the Ukrainian Central Committee - a collaborationist organization that collaborated with the Nazis. Galician-SS men, who escaped from the front-line hell, went on a spree and started singing drunken songs. Then a nasty shriek in glasses put his nose through the door of the hall and declared that he, himself, Kubiyovich, himself, was the head of the UCC and the initiator of the creation of the Galichina division: “It's worth it! You know, hto me? I am a prof. Kubiyovich, schobw by one of the creators of the divine, and now we are klopit ”... Someone from the“ Heroes of Brod ”immediately repulsed:“ You’ve given us a task, and now you have to take it away from the recruit .. Smell trohi powder dima on the front "... But the cunning professor instantly disappeared, fearing that he would really be taken away with him - after the war he, despite all the borders, surfaced ... in Paris!
IF YOU CAN, RUN! After the defeat at Brody, where Galichina lost about 80 percent of personnel, the division was used mainly for anti-partisan actions. First in Slovakia. Then - in Yugoslavia. General Freitag still maintained discipline by draconian methods. In the Slovak city of Zilina, two officers-Ukrainians who did not have enough apartments for permanent residence (one of them, Vladimir Murovich, is a lawyer of the divisional court!) Foolishly broke the seal on someone else's apartment without paying attention that it was sealed by the Gestapo.
Both were put under arrest and sentenced to death. Murovich ran away, as in a joke: waiting for the changing of the guard, he told the guards that he had "already talked to the prisoner" and wanted to leave. Those who did not suspect anything, released a clever lawyer. Murovich first went to Vienna. Then he moved to Munich. And in the mess of the decaying Reich survived. But his less fortunate friend, remaining under lock and key, was, as usual, shot for disregard for discipline.
The same fate fell to eight SS deserters who hit the run while they were patrolling the area. Before the divisional court, the cunning ones made excuses that they were “caught by the Slovak partisans”, from whom they allegedly fled and just returned to the disposition of their native unit. But General Freitag did not believe the Galician storytellers - the execution became for them the finale of earthly torments. According to Nagaevsky, who, as usual, accompanied his fellow countrymen on his last journey, this sentence was “to destroy the hostile enemy in all parts of Diviziya.”
SOLDIER SHOULD BE AFRAID. The awareness of the “volunteers” of the glorious SS unit should not be exaggerated. In the summer of 1943, the young people of the Galicia district had little choice: to be taken out to forced labor in Germany and get under the bombardment of Anglo-American aviation, go to the forest to the UPA, which most didn’t entice, hide or wait for the arrival of the Red Army or respond to the call of the UCC and Professor Kubiyovich and enlist in the SS division. Many literally did not know where to go. They were torn between all options and deserted at the earliest opportunity.
The same Nagaevsky recalls how, having arrived in Lviv in 1943 for the party from 400 recruits, he took only two hundred - the rest disappeared somewhere, never reaching the station. And this despite the fact that the Germans treated the Galicians in a completely different way than the real Ukrainians. Yevgeny Pobigushchy, having been on vacation at home in Ternopil region in March 1942, noted this difference in his memoirs: moreover, it was lagged on the central and central lands of Ukraine, de TRUEWORK NIMETSKY TEROR and de Ukraїnciі traktuvali brunatni okupanti yak "Untermenshіv". Let them take note of this recognition of the former major of the SS division of the current Ukrainian "admirers" of Hitler. One cannot suspect him of “Bolshevik propaganda.”
The foot crossing from Slovakia through Austria to Yugoslavia in the winter of 1945 was remembered by Galician SS men with frosts, lice, overnight stays in barns (it was forbidden to enter German houses) and another execution of the marauder. One of the soldiers of the SS division “Galichina” stole a bicycle from a Slovak, the field gendarmerie drew up a protocol. Court, sentence - cover! It was necessary to march at night - in daylight English fighters flew in the air, watering the retreating columns of machine guns.
FOR A PIECE OF SAUSAGE. In order not to fall discipline, General Freitag, on arrival in Slovenia, ordered to shoot 17-year-old SS officer Kulbabu from Borschowitsy village near Lviv. Kulbaba got hungry on the march and ate his NZ without the permission of the command - in the German army this was called the “iron portion”. It consisted of biscuits (Galicians called them "palanichki"), vitamins, sugar and other "delicacies" weighing about 200 g. A noncommissioned officer was spotted by Kulbabu at the time of the crime, the villain was immediately arrested and tied with a cord to a carriage.
“Ale famine was so much annoying to his campaign,” recalled Chaplain Nagaevsky, “having found the marina and ryv, who had been caught on the wicked one at a time, was raised to the side of a marry ryin phovfunt. For the price trial, having condemned you to death, and in the hour of a short service, people in the regiment called to her regiment to prepare him for death.
We offended to the closest churches-chapels, de vіn shchiro reprimanded and received St. Maspasvyattya. Turn your head to the hundreds of people, say yakby to yourself: “And I’ll think, I’m just like Divyaзa, then I will help my dad, I’m boredy, I st ... now I’m driving in peace ... I’m so xotic їIsty і not thinking, just for those Palanichka will memeni streli "...
- Chi ti mash yke bazhannya? - I fed yogo.
- I want so much.
Yomu brought Khlib and Kovbas. Win troch z'їv, and reshtu viddav.
After the volley the poor fellow was still breathing. The doctor, at the request of the priest, confirmed this fact, and “the Dijurni First Sergeant, having given your Yomu“ Kulya affection, ”did not suffer from the scob”. A cross was placed over the grave, on which a German helmet was hung.
That was a wonderful discipline in the German army! And neither the field priest, nor the comrades of the Kulbaba even dared to utter a word in protest against the decision of the court! After all, they all took the oath, where there were such words: “I swear to the German Leader and the Supreme Commander of the German Army Adolf Hitler in constant loyalty and obedience. I solemnly pledge to execute all orders and orders of the chiefs ... It is clear to me that after my oath I am subject to all German military disciplinary actions. ”
You can tell a lot about the Red Army. But they didn’t shoot 17-year-old boys for the eaten NZ. For comparison - an excerpt from the memories of the Soviet tanker Nikolai Popov: “There was always a four-person tank in the NZ tank. But hunger is not an aunt, if the stomach is empty, then the NC also ate. ” And not a single tribunal arranged a circus with executions from this, like German commanders in the SS “Galicia”.
The last shot in this insane division was General Freitag. He made the sentence himself, putting a bullet in the head of 10 of May 1945 of the year - the day after OUR Victory.
Between the two banks. To escape from the issuance of the USSR, the Galician SS men called themselves "Poles"
Today, some argue that the SS division "Galicia" was a "Ukrainian" formation - almost the "cradle" of the national army. But there are myths, but there are facts. The modern Ukrainian army is the successor of the Soviet. In the same way as present-day Ukraine is the successor to the UCCR. From the division "Galicia" nothing grew. Moreover! In 1945, its soldiers, who survived the battles and surrendered to the Anglo-Americans, escaped the extradition to the Soviet Union only because they officially declared themselves ... "Poles."
By agreement between the USSR and the Western Allies, all former Soviet citizens who became traitors to the Motherland and went over to the Nazis were extradited. That is how the British and Americans handed over to the Soviet Union soldiers of the Vlasov army and the Don Cossacks who fought in the corps of the German General Pannwitz. But Western Ukraine before the Second World War was part of Poland. The vast majority of ordinary soldiers of the SS "Galicia" to 1939g. legally were Polish citizens.
As the British researcher Gordon Williamson writes in the book “The SS is an instrument of terror”: “The fact that the Allies confused the status of these people, called Galicians, allowed many of them to avoid forced deportation to the Soviet Union. Despite the fact that they served as part of the Waffen-SS, the Polish general Anders preferred to consider the situation from a pragmatic point of view and decided to forgive them of their past, and considering their potential usefulness as true anti-communists, supported their claims that they were POLES ".
This once again testifies that no “heroes” of Ukraine, and indeed the heroes of the SS “Galicia” were any heroes. For courageous recognition of themselves as “Ukrainians,” they preferred a loophole to hide behind the official status of the “Pole”. Approximately how today many “patriots” in Western Ukraine prefer to stand in line for the so-called “Pole's card” in order to make it easier for them to travel to the European Union.
AGAINST PARTISAN. Heroes behave differently. They do not make deals with conscience and never betray their convictions. Especially piquant in stories with the "polonization" of the soldiers of "Galicia" (oh, the great Western Themis, who can do any miracles!) it looks like they received the baptism of battle in battles with the Polish Resistance fighters and the Ukrainian partisans of Sidor Kovpak who performed their famous Carpathian raid.
Guta Penyatska. Plaque on the site of the burnt village
Even before 1944 got into the Soviet environment under Brody in July, which is most often considered the beginning of the military way of the Galician SS, the soldiers of the notorious division took part in the destruction of the Polish village of Guta Penyatska. The Poles claimed that the villagers were herded into sheds and simply burned. Memoirists from "Galicia" justified that this village was a base of partisans with their own self-defense detachment. Anyway, now there is nothing on the site of Guta, except for a memorial to the exterminated local residents. But the fact of the "feat" is recognized by all.
After the burning of Guta. SS "Galicia" buries its two dead
BURNS VILLAGE. The commander of the SS “Galichina” battalion, major Eugene the Runner (up to 1939 of the year, the captain of the Polish army himself) was acknowledged in his memoirs: “In the early days of fierce 1944 rock, the Divizzy team won the command of the SS commander and the police officers in charge of the General Directorate of the Nazis. against the Bolshevik partisans, the gene. Sidor Kovpak, who made their way to the territory of the General Governorate, tobto in the parts of Galicini. In order to win the command, the team of the Divine team was not able to defeat oneself if one did not know of a viscolene. Ale y vdpovіd nspіlo pov_domlennya, scho nagan having given Himmler ".
Yevgeny Running: "Kozhny, hto marching todo, prigadu при, yak had to freeze in the steaks"
According to the Pobedushchiy, this battle group included an infantry battalion, a battery of light artillery, a sapper platoon, a platoon of fighters tanks and liaison unit: “Fight against the good wishes of the Bolshevik partisans and the Bolshevik partisans.” The partisans saw the bridges, the first group needed to roboticly go far in fields and meadows, and on the other hand, it was extravagant to shred the present group in the thorns. Until then, the police general’s command in Peremishli got there, there wasn’t anything to worry about in the military tactics, not having dubbed about the group and it was shamelessly crippled ... It’s okay, because of all the fighting, they didn’t take such a commander . Not prepared for winter fights and without winter clothes, the group took part in the battles of the Lyubachev, Chesanov, Tarnogorod, Bilgoruy and Zamostya districts, so that in the Galicia Regions, they had to turn off. "The warriors drugged, right, don’t want winter warm clothing, they were freezing cold, they were sleeping on the field."
Thus, the punitive police action was the baptism of the soldiers of “Galicia”. The same Runner recalls: “The attacking units on Gutu Punyatsku, the Poles, who were settled in the form of fire, would be defensively defended the village. In battle, Kostol and Ruddy Budinki, ale Nashi, warriors or Nimtsy Nykogo did not fight with the baiters near the houses, but they did not rostry. Awesome, sci populated patient vtrati. Inak was not able to buti. "
But, I repeat, Guta Penyatskaya does not exist today, nor does the Belarusian Khatyn. Its inhabitants were simply destroyed. The rest is nuances. They drove them to sheds or killed them in their own homes. The fact that everyone has DISAPPEARED. As if they were not there. Only the "memoir" remained.
Summer xnum th. Somewhere in Western Ukraine
SONGS IN MASKS. Fighting with the Red Army was much more difficult. In the summer of 1944, she was at the peak of her combat uniform. Offensive operations were planned competently. Soviet reigned in the air aviation. All surviving participants of the battle near Brody from the Galicia side remembered the Bolshevik tanks and planes, with the Germans completely lacking air cover. "Galicia" was immediately surrounded. Most of her soldiers died or ran into the woods. Out of 14 thousand people only 3 thousand survived. The division commander, German General Freitag, lost control at the start of the battle and fled to the rear, leaving his soldiers behind. How could this happen in the vaunted German army? Why?
By and large, the division "Galicia" joined the battle with a large shortage of junior commanders. She had no combat experience. Yes, and trained it can be called a stretch. Officially, the preparation of Galician SS men took almost a year. But in reality, the division was directly engaged in combat training for only four months. With a language barrier between officers and soldiers and, to put it mildly, an incomplete training system.
Calculation of anti-aircraft guns. In the sky over Brody in July, the 1944-th was fully reigned by Soviet aviation.
We have decided to idealize the German army and laugh at the Red. Anyone serving in the Soviet Army will remember senseless training in gas masks in the sun. But this is not only the Russian tradition. Rational Germans were engaged in the same nonsense. Roman Lazurko, one of the non-commissioned officers of “Galicia”, recalled how the Germans forced them to march with songs in gas masks at a training camp in Holland: meni, sci ne mi buli and sco tse all tilki removed. That ni. Tse not a dream
None of the parties used gases in the Second World War as prohibited weapon. In addition, you can learn to wear a gas mask in fifteen minutes. What is the point of chasing soldiers in rubber muzzles with songs? None other than the usual army stupidity.
Himself KILLED. But there was not enough time for combat training. In the memory of the battle participants at Brody, an episode remained as one of the Galician soldiers by the name of Vovk fired at a Soviet tank from a foust cartridge, not paying attention that there was a brick wall behind his back. The guy alive was burned by a stream of hot gas that bounced off the wall! This happens only with untrained soldiers who do not know the characteristics of their weapons. Shooting from a grenade launcher (faust-cartridge was one of its first varieties), you need to have an empty space behind you. But this skill is brought to automatism only by training. To act in battle without thinking. Performing songs in a gas mask will not help here.
But, as the commander of one of the “Galicia’s” mouths, Pavel Sumarokov, recalls, everyone was literally shocked by the moment when what they considered to be regular haystacks turned out to be disguised by Soviet tanks. "Hay" suddenly set in motion, and armored monsters spewed fire through the trenches of the hapless SS, turning them into a bloody mess.
From where, you ask, in the division "Galicia" took an officer by the name of Sumarokov? And this is generally the former lieutenant of the tsarist army, graduated from the Kiev military school and awarded for the First World Soldier George IV degree and all orders up to St. Vladimir IV degree with swords. In the years of the civil war he was at the Petliurists - in the cavalry regiment of the Black Cossacks. Then he emigrated to Poland. During the battle of Brody, he was already fifty years old. By all measures, a military retiree.
Because of the hatred of the Bolsheviks, the Russian nobleman Sumarokov fought on the German side in the “Ukrainian” division, where his name was altered in “Sumarok”. The same fact that should be taken into account. There were such unique ones. And in the Red Army in the same year, 1944 served as a former Sich archer and Galician Major General Stetsya. Nobody, by the way, did not reproach him with Galician origin. And after the Great Patriotic War, he still had time to serve in the army of the Polish People's Republic, where he was sent to "strengthen". So the story goes. And you need to know it without censorship.
General Freitag was very upset to find ordinary lice in the SS "Galicia"
PROFETABLE GERMANS. The entire top commanding staff of the “Ukrainian” SS division consisted of Germans. I emphasize - all! Not only General Freitag, but all the commanders of regiments and battalions. Except for one - a veteran of many armies with an eloquent surname Running. Before 1944, this amazing subject managed to visit a soldier of the Galician army of ZUNR in 1918, reach the captain in the Polish army, be captured by the Germans in 1939, enter the service and command the Ukrainian sabotage battalion “Roland” in the 1941. , then head the Ukrainian police battalion, engaged in hunting for partisans in Belarus, sit a little in a German prison and then emerge again - already in the “Galicia” division.
In 1944, the Germans didn’t have to particularly choose. The division commander and most of the officers were also bad. General Freitag had never commanded a combat unit before — only police units. German officers were sent to “Galicia” by occupational incompetence - of those that were not needed in real “Aryan” units - cowards and fools. Figuratively speaking, those in the highest race were the lowest caste. And the company commanders-Ukrainians from the veterans of the UPR and ZUNR armies earned their resources — the grandfathers exchanged the sixth dozen, they didn’t know or didn’t know German at all, and had long since fallen behind the demands of modern warfare.
German need to listen! Instruct Galician SS
IN GERMAN “NO BE, NO ME”. Yevgeny Pobegushchy recalled that the soldiers did not understand the German instructors who were teaching them because of the language barrier: “Vishkilniki boules mayje nimetsky elders ch pidstarshini, that was important, bulo vidbuvati goutyrki, more needed bulo perekladachіv, 2014
The Germans treated the Galicians, as a second-class people. One day, General Freitag literally became furious when he learned that lice had been found on his soldiers. He shouted that the Germans didn’t have that, because they are clean and follow the rules of hygiene. Freitag had never been at the front before. With great difficulty, both Ukrainian and German officers managed to convince him that the parasites were inflamed by German soldiers. Only after that Freitag somewhat calmed down.
A striking example of the attitude to the SS "Galicia" servicemen on the part of the German command is that during marches through German territory they were forbidden to stay overnight in houses - only in barns, so as not to disturb the peace of respectable German citizens. Major the Runner, with sadness, stated: “Bouv has an order from a visually demanding march from Slovachchini to the EU, just like in Austria, our fighters are not really quartered in huts, lost in kunyakhs. Kozhny, hto marching todo, prigaduє, yak had to be cold in the stems. "
But the Galician SS, like the Germans, took the oath of allegiance to the Fuhrer! They paid for their choice with blood, and they were kept in barns like cattle! Like the "non-European"!
Ukrainian SS officers were afraid of the German officers more than the Red Army.
Lviv, summer of 1943. Major of the SS division “Galicia” Yevgeny The Runner salutes volunteers on the wires
Sleeves rolled up to the elbow, a “trendy” automaton in which the cartridges, a mouth organ and a sandwich with lard never end - these are the stereotypical attributes of the German soldier in Soviet films about the war. Just an advertising picture of the benefits of "Western lifestyle"! Join us, Little Johnny! We will make of you superman! You will ride the "Tigre" in a beautiful form, drink schnapps and be glad that you have become a part of the "European" civilization. No wonder that this simple image captured the mass consciousness of Soviet and post-Soviet citizens. The current fans of the SS division "Galicia" are sure that this was the case - like in the movies. That in the Red Army discipline was maintained exclusively by special departments and detachments, and in the Wehrmacht ... by an additional portion of sausages with beer. And gentle stroking the palm of the Fuhrer on the clever baby's head.
Reality looked different. A detachment called the “field gendarme group” was state-waged for each German infantry and tank division. And the most effective means to maintain order in the troops was considered the execution. At least, for units formed from "non-Aryans" (and the SS "Galicia" belonged to them), it was this pedagogical tool that was the main one. Field courts passed sentences easily and executed them immediately. Disregarding the peculiarities of the gentle Slavic psyche of the "Tyrolese of the East", as the Galicians in Austria-Hungary were called.
September 1943. Departure to the SS division in Drohobych. Where is the enthusiasm?
Shot for a joke on the evening check. To be precise, the first "losses" SS division "Galicia" suffered not during the destruction of the Polish village of Guta Penyatka in February 1944, when two of its lower ranks died, but in the training camp Neuhammer on the Oder - even before the end of combat training. One of the soldiers, a certain Burlak from under Chertkov, decided to make a joke during the evening verification and threw a blanket over the head of the non-commissioned officer who called the company over. In vain the Galicians convinced the division commander, General Freitag, that this was such an innocent Ukrainian humor and that the noncommissioned officer on duty was a fellow countryman and friend of a voluntary clown. Strict German considered the incident the worst violation of discipline. The military court sentenced the humorist to be shot, and General Freitag immediately approved the sentence, ordering the shooting the next morning.
The SS Chaplain of the Galichina Division, the Greek-Catholic priest Isidor Nagayevsky, recalled this episode as follows: “I visited the prison cells usyu nych іz convicted. The trial of death and sv_dom_st, sco tomorrow morin die die, smash the yogi to the glibins themselves. Having upset a great pity for his life and the fear of death, I cannot speak. Tіlo tsogo 18-lіtnogo, athletic ов budovi yunaka Mayzhe all the nich pidkidaласьsya on lіzhku u uves hour vіn voice crying. Already above the ranks they decided to shake him, nache before death drifts. Already here are 6-год Godini wound me in the distance to calm him. I’m grabbed my head, pinned my garna head and pressed it up to my breasts and poked it in my face. Vin having embraced me for shi, nache of svogo dad ... I do not wait for my own words. І to sjuodnuyu chuy in my yogi wuhah quiet voice: "And I want to fight for Ukraine" ...
Until the last moment, Feldkurat Isidor Nagayevsky believed that Freitag would cancel the sentence. But the German “father-commander” of the unfinished Ukrainian SS men believed that the “ordnung” was more important than the life of some Burlak from the village of Gudinkovtsy near Chertkov, and without being shot, the rest of the soldiers of “Galicia” would never understand what real military discipline is. The poor fellow was shot at dawn around 7 in the morning under some kind of brick wall. The chaplain remembered forever his simple-hearted wish: “Father of the Spirit, to write the whole truth to my father and prosit, they greet everyone in honor of Marusya” ...
Chaplain Nagayevsky was present at every execution in “Galicia” for breaching discipline
And all this is not an excerpt from "The Adventures of the Good Soldier Schweik!" This is the true story of the SS division "Galicia"! A nonfiction chronicle of her first steps into a free Europe.
It was not the last execution for disciplinary offenses in the division. Major Yevgeny Pobigushchy (I remind you that he was the only Ukrainian officer in the division who rose to the battalion commander) complained: “At the divine court, I couldn’t have known if my elders knew their own military service and internal service in his army. For example, since he was ordered to read warriors to soldiers, for example, as a warrior, you can punish the court. Few hto know, scho for zabranі z rozbitogo vґonu kіlka other words of warriors can be rozstralіnyy.
Between the German officers and the Galician soldiers lay a language and psychological barrier, which was not overcome until the very end of the war. Most Germans believed that they had the misfortune to command some half-savvy people who did not understand the human language. General Freitag calmed down only when, after Brodsky’s defeat during the reorganization of the division, he managed to bring the number of Germans in Galicia to a thousand. All more or less important posts (even a pharmacist!) Are now occupied only by true Aryans. “Nimetska vishche vіskove command of that gene itself. Frayta, ”recollects Major Pobigushchy,“ interpreted our Divizia, yakbi tse bula Novimetska diviziya, just popovnya Ukrainy ”.
The solemn oath to the Führer of Great Germany on the square in Lviv, parting words of the head of the Galicia district brigadeführer Otto Wechter, warm to the train station were poorly linked in consciousness with the harsh discipline of training camps. “Chuti bulo galasivi screams of імцьці і подекуди vzhe svoyh Інstruktorіv, pereplіvuvani hour-to-hour with vulgar temples, and often punishments for the punishment,” Isidor Nagaevsky daily life of new recruits. - It is extremely carnal bulo “fall” on the ground and “rise” on the order: “Vpad!” (“Glenєґen” and “avf”). Throw up and come up twenty years ago, even before that in the swamps, the dullness of the punishment of the punishment, more for the people of Khilin vicherpa, all the forces, the young people ... But the other way around the harness of the goddess. I vvrazuvav, scho naizvichaynіyuyu cause of the car of the Bula Nіmetska Mova, yak not all the boys of roses ”. And non-commissioned officers, hastily produced from Ukrainians (“pidstarchins”), according to memoirs, drove recruits with even more frenzy than natural Germans.
Desertion began almost immediately. “Vzhe in the 1944 quartet to the rock in the Neugammer village of Maya, the pride of the youth of the field priest” continues Nagyevsky in his Memories of the Field Priest.
In German form. One of the training camps "Galicia", where they prepared "podstarshin" - non-commissioned officers
DESERTERS Usually it happened like this. The soldier received a holiday ticket, but did not return to the unit. On suspicion of forging such documents, an officer of the 6 Company of the 30 Regiment was arrested by Lieutenant Baranenko, a former commander of the Red Army, who was captured by the Germans and agreed to join the SS division "Galicia". By the time the division’s speeches on the front near Brody in prison were under investigation for various misdemeanors, there were about fifty servicemen. Chaplain Nagaevsky, to whom the soldiers confessed their feelings, and therefore informed about the psychological state of the flock from the first hand, once even admitted to General Freitag that many of the rank and file on the front line deserted: “I’ve lost my mind, ale nd bagatyokh ukrainsky elders ".
It is unlikely that this recognition has strengthened the confidence of the German divisional commander in his mysterious alien tribe. He immediately demanded to name the names of those Ukrainian officers who think so. The diplomatic father, Isidore, dissuaded that he could not do this, since he had learned this military secret at confession - she was supposedly sacred to him.
A funny episode happened in Krakow, where, after the defeat of the division at Brody, its remnants reached. Some of the companies were located right in the building of the Ukrainian Central Committee - a collaborationist organization that collaborated with the Nazis. Galician-SS men, who escaped from the front-line hell, went on a spree and started singing drunken songs. Then a nasty shriek in glasses put his nose through the door of the hall and declared that he, himself, Kubiyovich, himself, was the head of the UCC and the initiator of the creation of the Galichina division: “It's worth it! You know, hto me? I am a prof. Kubiyovich, schobw by one of the creators of the divine, and now we are klopit ”... Someone from the“ Heroes of Brod ”immediately repulsed:“ You’ve given us a task, and now you have to take it away from the recruit .. Smell trohi powder dima on the front "... But the cunning professor instantly disappeared, fearing that he would really be taken away with him - after the war he, despite all the borders, surfaced ... in Paris!
Departure They still do not know what real German discipline is.
IF YOU CAN, RUN! After the defeat at Brody, where Galichina lost about 80 percent of personnel, the division was used mainly for anti-partisan actions. First in Slovakia. Then - in Yugoslavia. General Freitag still maintained discipline by draconian methods. In the Slovak city of Zilina, two officers-Ukrainians who did not have enough apartments for permanent residence (one of them, Vladimir Murovich, is a lawyer of the divisional court!) Foolishly broke the seal on someone else's apartment without paying attention that it was sealed by the Gestapo.
Both were put under arrest and sentenced to death. Murovich ran away, as in a joke: waiting for the changing of the guard, he told the guards that he had "already talked to the prisoner" and wanted to leave. Those who did not suspect anything, released a clever lawyer. Murovich first went to Vienna. Then he moved to Munich. And in the mess of the decaying Reich survived. But his less fortunate friend, remaining under lock and key, was, as usual, shot for disregard for discipline.
The same fate fell to eight SS deserters who hit the run while they were patrolling the area. Before the divisional court, the cunning ones made excuses that they were “caught by the Slovak partisans”, from whom they allegedly fled and just returned to the disposition of their native unit. But General Freitag did not believe the Galician storytellers - the execution became for them the finale of earthly torments. According to Nagaevsky, who, as usual, accompanied his fellow countrymen on his last journey, this sentence was “to destroy the hostile enemy in all parts of Diviziya.”
SOLDIER SHOULD BE AFRAID. The awareness of the “volunteers” of the glorious SS unit should not be exaggerated. In the summer of 1943, the young people of the Galicia district had little choice: to be taken out to forced labor in Germany and get under the bombardment of Anglo-American aviation, go to the forest to the UPA, which most didn’t entice, hide or wait for the arrival of the Red Army or respond to the call of the UCC and Professor Kubiyovich and enlist in the SS division. Many literally did not know where to go. They were torn between all options and deserted at the earliest opportunity.
General Freitag believed that Ukrainian soldiers were best influenced by terror.
The same Nagaevsky recalls how, having arrived in Lviv in 1943 for the party from 400 recruits, he took only two hundred - the rest disappeared somewhere, never reaching the station. And this despite the fact that the Germans treated the Galicians in a completely different way than the real Ukrainians. Yevgeny Pobigushchy, having been on vacation at home in Ternopil region in March 1942, noted this difference in his memoirs: moreover, it was lagged on the central and central lands of Ukraine, de TRUEWORK NIMETSKY TEROR and de Ukraїnciі traktuvali brunatni okupanti yak "Untermenshіv". Let them take note of this recognition of the former major of the SS division of the current Ukrainian "admirers" of Hitler. One cannot suspect him of “Bolshevik propaganda.”
The foot crossing from Slovakia through Austria to Yugoslavia in the winter of 1945 was remembered by Galician SS men with frosts, lice, overnight stays in barns (it was forbidden to enter German houses) and another execution of the marauder. One of the soldiers of the SS division “Galichina” stole a bicycle from a Slovak, the field gendarmerie drew up a protocol. Court, sentence - cover! It was necessary to march at night - in daylight English fighters flew in the air, watering the retreating columns of machine guns.
FOR A PIECE OF SAUSAGE. In order not to fall discipline, General Freitag, on arrival in Slovenia, ordered to shoot 17-year-old SS officer Kulbabu from Borschowitsy village near Lviv. Kulbaba got hungry on the march and ate his NZ without the permission of the command - in the German army this was called the “iron portion”. It consisted of biscuits (Galicians called them "palanichki"), vitamins, sugar and other "delicacies" weighing about 200 g. A noncommissioned officer was spotted by Kulbabu at the time of the crime, the villain was immediately arrested and tied with a cord to a carriage.
“Ale famine was so much annoying to his campaign,” recalled Chaplain Nagaevsky, “having found the marina and ryv, who had been caught on the wicked one at a time, was raised to the side of a marry ryin phovfunt. For the price trial, having condemned you to death, and in the hour of a short service, people in the regiment called to her regiment to prepare him for death.
We offended to the closest churches-chapels, de vіn shchiro reprimanded and received St. Maspasvyattya. Turn your head to the hundreds of people, say yakby to yourself: “And I’ll think, I’m just like Divyaзa, then I will help my dad, I’m boredy, I st ... now I’m driving in peace ... I’m so xotic їIsty і not thinking, just for those Palanichka will memeni streli "...
- Chi ti mash yke bazhannya? - I fed yogo.
- I want so much.
Yomu brought Khlib and Kovbas. Win troch z'їv, and reshtu viddav.
After the volley the poor fellow was still breathing. The doctor, at the request of the priest, confirmed this fact, and “the Dijurni First Sergeant, having given your Yomu“ Kulya affection, ”did not suffer from the scob”. A cross was placed over the grave, on which a German helmet was hung.
That was a wonderful discipline in the German army! And neither the field priest, nor the comrades of the Kulbaba even dared to utter a word in protest against the decision of the court! After all, they all took the oath, where there were such words: “I swear to the German Leader and the Supreme Commander of the German Army Adolf Hitler in constant loyalty and obedience. I solemnly pledge to execute all orders and orders of the chiefs ... It is clear to me that after my oath I am subject to all German military disciplinary actions. ”
You can tell a lot about the Red Army. But they didn’t shoot 17-year-old boys for the eaten NZ. For comparison - an excerpt from the memories of the Soviet tanker Nikolai Popov: “There was always a four-person tank in the NZ tank. But hunger is not an aunt, if the stomach is empty, then the NC also ate. ” And not a single tribunal arranged a circus with executions from this, like German commanders in the SS “Galicia”.
The last shot in this insane division was General Freitag. He made the sentence himself, putting a bullet in the head of 10 of May 1945 of the year - the day after OUR Victory.
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