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Ukrainian national government (1941)

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1941 self-proclaimed government

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Ukrainian National GovernmentУкраїнське Державне Правління (Ukrainian)
Ukrainske Derzhavne Pravlinnia
1941
Flag of Ukrainian national government (1941) Flag
Seals (two versions)
StatusUnrecognized state
CapitalLviv
Official languagesUkrainian
GovernmentRepublican dictatorship
Prime Minister 
• 1941 Yaroslav Stetsko
Historical eraWorld War II
• Declared 30 June 1941
• Disestablished 11–12 July 1941
Preceded by Succeeded by
Nazi-occupied Ukraine
Reichskommissariat Ukraine
General Government
Government-in-exile
Today part ofUkraine
Part of a series on the
History of Ukraine
Topics
Early history
Middle Ages
Early Modern period
Modern history
Contemporary Ukraine

The Ukrainian national government (Ukrainian: Українське Державне Правління (УДП), romanized: Ukrainske Derzhavne Pravlinnia (UDP), lit. 'Ukrainian State Board') was a brief self-proclaimed Ukrainian government during the German invasion of the Soviet Union. The government was declared by the proclamation of the Ukrainian state on 30 June 1941, which also pledged to work with Nazi Germany. It was led by Stepan Bandera's faction of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, the OUN-B.

When German troops entered Lviv, the German authorities told the leadership of the Ukrainian nationalists to disband. However, it did not, and its leaders were arrested.

History

Nazi Germany launched Operation Barbarossa, its assault on the Soviet Union, on 22 June. That day, leaders of the OUN met in Kraków in occupied Poland, and established a Ukrainian National Committee (UNK), as step towards a Ukrainian state. General Vsevolod Petriv was elected head of the committee in absentia with Volodymyr Horbovy chosen as acting leader and Viktor Andriievsky as second deputy. It sent a memorandum to Adolf Hitler affirming the Ukrainian people's aspirations for independence, readiness to fight the USSR and hope that Germany would respect Ukrainian sovereignty. On 5 July, the German security police arrested the organizers of the committee, bringing its existence to an end.

The Germans occupied Lviv on 30 June. Henryk Szyper reported that "German and Ukrainian flags were hung out everywhere" to welcome German troops, and the population "expected that a Ukrainian state of fascist kind would be established". Many thought that they found a new ally in Nazi Germany.

On the first day of the German occupation of the city, one of the wings of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) declared restoration of the independent Ukrainian state. Yaroslav Stetsko proclaimed in Lviv the Government of an independent Ukraine that "will work closely with the National-Socialist Greater Germany, under the leadership of its leader Adolf Hitler, which is forming a new order in Europe and the world" – as stated in the text of the "Act of Proclamation of Ukrainian Statehood". This was done without pre-approval from the Germans. The Declaration of Independence took the German authorities completely by surprise, and they saw it as an attempted coup.

During the morning of 30 June, an ad hoc Ukrainian People's Militia was being formed in the city by the OUN. It included OUN activists who had moved in from Kraków with the Germans, OUN members who lived in Lviv, and former Soviet policemen who had either decided to switch sides or who were OUN members that had infiltrated the Soviet police. It initiated the first of two violent pogroms the following day.

On 5 July, OUN-B leader Bandera was placed under honorary arrest (Latin: custodia honesta) in Kraków, and transported to Berlin the next day. On 14 July, he was released, but required to stay in Berlin. On 12 July 1941 he was joined in Berlin by Stetsko, whom the Germans had moved from Lviv after an unsuccessful attempt by unknown persons to assassinate him. Bandera and Stetsko were held in the central Berlin prison at Spandau from 15 September 1941 until January 1942, when they were transferred to Sachsenhausen concentration camp's special barrack for high-profile political prisoners, Zellenbau. Some of the Ukrainian nationalists were driven underground, and from that time forward, they fought against the Nazis, while continuing also to fight against Poles and Soviet forces (see Ukrainian Insurgent Army).

Within two years of the declaration, the Germans had imprisoned or killed 80% of the leadership of the OUN-B.

Bandera and Stetsko themselves were released in 1944 by the Germans.

Government structure

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The government of 1941 was an attempt to include as many political parties in Ukraine as possible. The structure and nomenclature of the government functionaries were quite extensive. They included:

The Prime Minister was Yaroslav Stetsko

  1. Deputy Prime Minister and Secretary of the Ministry of Health – Marian Panchyshyn – no political affiliation
  2. Deputy Prime Minister – Lev Rebet (OUN)
  3. Minister of the Interior – Volodymyr Lysy (Socialist Radical Party)
  4. Minister of External Affairs – Volodymyr Stakhiv
  5. Minister of Defence – Vsevolod Petriv (Social Revolution Party)
  6. Minister of State Security – Mykola Lebed (OUN)
  7. Minister of Justice – Yulian Fedusevych
  8. Minister of Agriculture – Yevhen Khraplyvy
  9. Minister of Health Marian Panchyshyn (no political affiliation)
  10. Minister of Education Volodymyr Radzykevych (no political affiliation)
  11. Minister of Communication N. Moroz (no political affiliation)
  12. Minister of Information Oleksandr Hai-Holovko (no political affiliation)
  13. Minister of Political Coordination Ivan Klymiv-Lehenda (OUN)
  14. Deputy Minister of Interior Konstantyn Pankivsky (Socialist Radical Party)
  15. Deputy Minister of External Affairs Oleksandr Maritchak (Ukrainian National-Democratic Party)
  16. Deputy Minister of Defense Roman Shukhevych (OUN)
  17. Deputy Minister of Defense Oleksandr Hasyn (OUN)
  18. Deputy Minister of Justice Bohdan Dzerovych (no political affiliation)
  19. Deputy Minister of Agriculture Andriy Piasetsky (Front of National Unity)
  20. Deputy Minister of Health Roman Osinchuk

The government also featured a Council of Seniors, which was headed by Kost Levytsky.

References

  1. Magocsi, Robert Paul (2002). The Roots of Ukrainian Nationalism. University of Toronto Press. p. 33.
  2. "Ukrainian National Committee (Cracow)".
  3. Rossolinski-Liebe, Grzegorz (October 2014). Stepan Bandera: The Life and Afterlife of a Ukrainian Nationalist. BoD – Books on Demand. ISBN 9783838206042. Szyper noticed that, after German troops came to Lviv, German and Ukrainian flags were hung out everywhere, and the Ukrainians expected that a Ukrainian "state of fascist kind" would be established. He also heard a speech by the mayor of Lviv, Polians'kyi, in which the speaker expressed loyatly to Hitler.
  4. OUN-German Relations 1941-1945, Taras Hunczak. (1994). From German-Ukrainian relations in historical perspective. Hans-Joachim Torke, John-Paul Himka, eds. Edmonton, Alberta: Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies Press, University of Alberta. pg. 178
  5. Himka, John-Paul (2011). "The Lviv Pogrom of 1941: The Germans, Ukrainian Nationalists, and the Carnival Crowd". Canadian Slavonic Papers. 53 (2–4): 209–243. doi:10.1080/00085006.2011.11092673. ISSN 0008-5006. S2CID 159577084. Taylor & Francis.
  6. Himka 2011, p. 227–229.
  7. Після проголошення держави й уряду наложили на нього дня 5.7. почесний арешт (Еренгафт) та перевезли його до Берліна. Дня 14.7 провідника організації звільнено із забороною опускати Берлін. p.420 ОУН в 1941 році: документи: В 2-х ч Ін-т історії України НАН України К. 2006 ISBN 966-02-2535-0
  8. Berkhoff, K.C. and M. Carynnyk 'The Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and Its Attitude toward Germans and Jews: Iaroslav Stets'ko's 1941 Zhyttiepys' in: Harvard Ukrainian Studies, vol. 23 (1999), nr. 3/4, pp. 149–184.
  9. Timothy Snyder. The Causes of Ukrainian-Polish Ethnic Cleansing 1943. Past & Present, No. 179 (May, 2003), pp. 207
  10. Організація українських націоналістів і Українська повстанська армія. Інститут історії НАН України.2004р Організація українських націоналістів і Українська повстанська армія,
  11. І.К. Патриляк. Військова діяльність ОУН(Б) у 1940–1942 роках. — Університет імені Шевченко \Ін-т історії України НАН України Київ, 2004
  12. ОУН в 1941 році: документи: В 2-х ч Ін-т історії України НАН України К. 2006 ISBN 966-02-2535-0
  13. Breitman, Richard (2012). Hitler's shadow : Nazi war criminals, U.S. intelligence, and the Cold War. National Archives. p. 76. ISBN 978-1300347354.
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