Stalin's Nemesis

by Michael James Melnyk

  At the cemetery, the company commander delivers a funeral speech. Local civilians were present in force throughout the funeral, a further demonstration that relations between the Division’s soldiers and the local inhabitants were very good.

  Back at the barracks my six men were waiting to see what had happened because I had said that I was going to seek out the Slovak. I sliced the salami with my bayonet and soon my men were devouring large slices of it. That same afternoon our officers were summoned to gather waiting for commander Karl Wildner. We were to be issued fresh instructions. Waffen-Hauptsturmführer Tatarsky sat at the front waiting for ‘Papa’ Wildner. As Wildner entered the room we all greeted him with a hearty round of applause. He announced that we were entering, not our own, but the ‘Latin’ Christmas period. We would try to spend two weeks here in Zilina. However there was intelligence that 40 Russian tanks had broken out of Budapest heading for Retsag and Shahy on the Slovakian border. If they crossed the border and headed for Banska Stiavnica then we must assist the Wehrmacht to confront them. The Wehrmacht were aware that our Kampfgruppe was well armed and able to move if necessary. Wildner told us to enjoy what we could of Latin Christmas but to be as alert as possible.

  He left us again, accompanied by another round of applause. As we returned to our groups we informed the men of battle intentions but also said they should enjoy the Christmas celebrations. We instructed them to clean weapons etc and be as battle ready as possible, keeping in mind the situation that Soviet T34s could move swiftly and that meant we would have to be heading towards Banska Stiavnica to intercept them. In preparing weapons this time I made sure that we took a supply of tracer bullets for our machine guns as they were immensely helpful in ascertaining both position and distance when firing at the enemy.150

  Not for the first time however, other German units stationed in the same district ascribed some of their misdeeds to the Ukrainians, the main culprits being SS-Sonder-Regiment Dirlewanger the Osttürkischer Waffenverband der SS and elements of the Vlasov Army.151 These units stole goods and committed a number of outrages against the local inhabitants and later attempted to pass them off on the Galician Division.152

  Any isolated instances of mistreatment of Slovaks or serious breeches of discipline by the Ukrainian soldiers which did occur were referred to SS-Sturmbannführer Hans Ziegler who headed Section III (legal) of the Divisional staff. A few individuals were also found guilty of minor infractions such as petty theft of food or personal effects taken during house searches, being late for guard duty and drunkenness on duty. At all times the Division’s personnel both Ukrainian and German, were subject to the extraordinarily strict military law and proven cases were referred to Freitag who inevitably recommend capital punishment or transfer to a penal company, which in itself was an active deterrent.153 Later, as will be seen, Freitag requested special authority which would give him far reaching powers to punish those guilty of transgressions.

  Besides their other duties, all units continued with vigorous training which was progressing well, partly due to the gradual replacement of Reichsdeutsche and Volksdeutsche NCOs which with Ukrainians, which in turn made communication far easier (at this time the majority of Ukrainians had only the most rudimentary command of German);154 and familiarity as personnel began to settle into new units and get to know their comrades.

  Emphasis was placed on sharpshooting, weapons instruction and night exercises whilst specialist training was given and complementary courses held as available resources allowed. Correct and thorough training remained a high priority despite the rapidly deteriorating war situation and the opportunity for further development via NCO and officer courses for the soldiers of the Division continued to be available up until the last weeks of the war.155

  Assault exercises were conducted with live ammunition in areas where partisan units were known or suspected to be present as training for anti-partisan warfare. To a certain extent this combat experience compensated for the fact that given the physical characteristics of the district in which the Division was deployed, large scale training manoeuvres, were not a practical proposition as the deep and narrow valleys and irregular terrain were not conducive to the battle deployment involving regimental or battalion sized groups.

  As the partisan activity subsided and encounters became more and more infrequent, the Division settled down to garrison duty in a country which had almost completely escaped the ravages of war. In his memoirs Waffen-Grenadier Volodymyr Keczun wrote: ‘If it hadn’t been for the frequent air-raid alarms, life was idyllic’.156 Sunday concerts were given by the Divisional orchestra which toured the regiments in Slovakia regularly. Food was plentiful as there was no rationing. Ducks, geese and poultry could easily be bought from the locals, whilst patrols into the mountains chasing partisans produced the occasional deer to supplement military rations. The discovery of partisan bunkers by patrols occasionally unearthed stashes of canned food and cigarettes. Other provisions were available in the shops which offered all types of meat, cakes, wines, spirits, real coffee, sweets and other luxury consumer goods (such as watches). These were unknown in most occupied countries in late 1944 and inevitably many of the German personnel took full advantage of this sending large and unrestricted packages to their families in Germany.157

  The only restriction on the acquisition of many valued commodities, came about as the result of Freitag’s order to issue military pay half in Slovak Kronen and half in German Marks.158 Despite the considerable risk involved, some Ukrainian soldiers sold the civilian population military equipment and items such as blankets to generate the required local currency. Occasionally they also resorted to bartering military goods for food stuffs and other necessities.159

  When free from duty the Ukrainian soldiers were also permitted to visit cafés, bars or the cinema, where they socialised and mingled with the Slovak community with whom on the whole they quickly established excellent relations. The similarity in the Slovak and Ukrainian languages meant the young Ukrainian soldiers unlike the Germans, could communicate directly with the civilians and of equal import both Ukrainians and Slovaks shared common strong religious ties. The Ukrainian soldiers regularly attended mass along with Slovak civilians at local churches as Waffen-Grenadier Ostap Sokolsky serving with WGR 29 recalled: ‘Slovaks liked the Ukrainians and we liked them. They regularly invited us to their homes. We attended their church on Sundays. We met their young people and became very friendly’.160 That the Ukrainians were generally very well disposed towards the Slovaks is illustrated in the following account by Waffen-Grenadier Petro Pilkiv:

  Commander of III. Btl. Reserve Regiment SS Sturmbannführer Ewald Eduard Schramm overseeing training Slovakia.

  Group from 10./III.WGR 29 with machine gun position in Slovakia.

  Machine gun training 10./III.WGR 29 Slovakia.

  Men from the Division’s signals Abteilung. Third from right: Waffen-Grenadier Roman Kulynycz.

  Waffen-Sturmmann Mychailo Kormylo (left) 10.III/WGR 29 teaches a comrade how to fire his weapon from behind a tree, Slovakia winter 1944.

  Waffen-Sturmmann Mychailo Kormylo (kneeling) conducting training Slovakia winter 1944.

  Target practice for members of the Galician Division, Slovakia, winter 1944.

  Training continued as far as possible. Here rifle training on a bed of fir tree branches used for insulation against the snow.

  Two NCOs from 10./III./WGR 29 cross a small stream. Left: Waffen-Sturmmann Mychailo Kormylo.

  Waffen-Hauptscharführer Andrij Hawirko from the Artillery regiment with his horse Slovakia.

  Waffen-Untersturmführer Myron Scharko Ordonnanzoffizier WGR 30 in Slovakia on Skis.

  Waffen-Sturmmann Mychailo Kormylo in Slovakia.

  On the right: SS-Unterscharführer Erich Rommel staff company WGR 29.

  Two Ukrainians from 10./III.WGR 29 decorated with the EKII and a local civilian girl in Slovakia. The Division’s soldiers enjoyed excellent relations with the local civilians and many f
ound girlfriends during their stay.

  Unidentified group including two NCOs with civilians in Slovakia.

  I was serving with the Jagdzug in 1 battalion of WGR 30. The battalion commander was SS-Haupsturmfuhrer Siegfried Klocker. Our commander was Mykola Ohluk. Before him were the alternate commanders—the Standarten-Oberjunkers who came from officers school: Kornylo Medwid, Mykola Lepkaliuk, Ivan Bendyna. There were thirty eight soldiers in our platoon, most of the soldiers were youth who had been trained at the ‘Yunaky’161 camp at Malta.

  One day a boy riding a horse came to Povazska Bystrycia where we were stationed. He told us that the red partisans had come and were requisitioning all the food from his village of Dolka Makirova. They were taking the bread from the bakery, cows and livestock. The next day Klocker sent our Jagdzug to the village where my platoon was billeted in the school. While we were there a farmer came to the school asking us for help. The wedding of his daughter was due and he was worried that the partisans would come to his farm uninvited and take all the food and drink. Our commander Waffen-Ustuf. Ohluk said to me ‘we only have one platoon of thirty eight guys here and that is not enough’, so I said told him that I would talk to the boys. We held council and I told Ohluk that just a few of us would go to help. Ohluk replied ‘OK, but I don’t know anything about it’. We asked the farmer to draw a plan of his farm. There was the main farmhouse and an unfinished house which was being built beside it. We told the farmer we would come and help but he was not to tell anyone.

  Later, on the evening of the wedding day before midnight, five of us went and met our host and he lead us to the unfinished house with covered windows. We were well armed with Sturmgewehr 44s, (automatic assault rifles) and rifles fitted with grenade launchers. We placed two sentries outside while the others stayed in the house to surprise the partisans. During the night the girls in the farmhouse visited us and brought us food. All of sudden the dogs started barking and the sentries outside came in and told us something funny was going on. We grabbed our weapons and went outside and could see the partisans coming. We started shooting with our automatics guns. The reverberation from the forest in the mountain gave the impression that there were hundreds of us and the uninvited guests soon vanished.162

  The Ukrainian soldiers were often invited into the homes of the local inhabitants where they would eat, drink and dance with their hosts but this rapport with the population and the general decrease in partisan actions also had other less desirable side effects. Discipline was becoming lapse and there was an increasing danger of complacency amongst units which were inactive for prolonged periods. The senior German commanders were concerned by the level of fraternization, fearing that inebriated soldiers would talk about military affairs to the partisans who infiltrated the civilian population. Repeated warnings were issued to this effect by the Division’s command which stressed that ‘walls have ears’ and that Slovakia was full of ‘Bolshevik spies’. Nonetheless occasionally Soviet agents attempted to befriend the soldiers in the hopes of procuring useful intelligence about troop movements, unit strengths and other classified information. On the whole, their efforts were ineffective and civilians suspected of being enemy agents were arrested and handed over to section Ic (military intelligence) for interrogation.163 The effectively waged sustained propaganda campaign by both the Soviet and Slovak partisans, to encourage desertion was more efficacious. Safe conduct passes and leaflets which promised among other things that those who surrendered voluntarily would not be punished and would be allowed to return to their homes, were produced and distributed.

  Section VI of the Divisional staff (religion, entertainment, education and information) headed by SS-Sturmbannführer164 Karl Robert Zoglauer was responsible for counteracting the Soviet propaganda. A circular letter issued by this section emphasised the inconsistencies in the Bolshevik propaganda in the leaflets:

  14.Waffen-Gren.Div. der SS (galiz.Nr.1) div.St.Qu., d.6.11.44

  Reference: enemy propaganda (for use as teaching material)

  The Bolshevik agents have continued to distribute leaflets. The essence of the content remains the same. Of interest are the following points:

  In the leaflets neither Communism nor the USSR are mentioned. In their propaganda the Bolsheviks speak neither of Bolshevism nor the Bolshevik Army, instead they write about Russia and the Russian Army.

  Waffen-Unterscharführer Mychailo Prymak (12./III./WGR 29) with a civilian in Slovakia whom he later arrested after discovering he was an armed Soviet informer.

  This is their way of disguising themselves to people by suppressing their Communism. This is also directed at the local Slovak people. The Slovakians are very strong in their family and religious ties. The Slovakian community leaders are predominantly clerical. There are no large cities and no proletariat in the Bolshevik sense. In general a certain amount of prosperity prevails which has left the population in opposition to the Communist position. On these grounds the Bolsheviks have put their Communist propaganda in the background and spread their propaganda under the guise of Panslavism. The goal remains the same: establish Bolshevik rule over the land of Slovakia even over the [dead] bodies of its people, then concentrate on an advance into the rest of Europe.

  The Bolsheviks portray themselves as the liberators of the European people. ‘Russia fights the enemy shoulder to shoulder with the people of Europe and America’. It is sufficiently known to us, that by such means people are forced to fight against us. The Bolsheviks further believe that they can cheat the people of Europe in accepting them under their ‘Russian’ guise. The consequences are: Hunger, Chaos, Destruction.

  We know this well enough from the history of the Ukrainian people.

  This is why men joined the Ukrainian Army in the years 1919–1920, to find freedom from the ‘dominance of Moscow’. What came afterwards we have all experienced.

  In the leaflets and the Bolshevik agents explain that those who wish to return to their homes can do so [ without punishment].

  But what is the truth?

  All men in the age range 16–50 in the Bolshevik occupied territories have been pressed into service in the Red Army. All the men that the Red Army have pressed into service have been thrown into battle against us. According to recent reports these men were given only three days of training before being sent to the front.

  These leaflets and these agents offer us only the signature on our death sentences!165

  To reduce susceptibility and as a further disincentive, whenever possible units were rotated between different localities but many units remained billeted away from proper military barracks in small villages where they remained exposed to pro Soviet machinations. In conjunction with this, contact between the soldiers and the local population was officially restricted by confining it strictly to business matters—a policy which quickly proved to be unenforceable.

  Notwithstanding these measures, desertions were recorded by virtually every unit during the Division’s stay in Slovakia, the total number which included one officer reaching approximately two hundred,166 a figure which exceeded the number of fatalities estimated at one hundred and twenty six during the same period.167 It seems the majority sought to cross the Carpathian Mountains to join the UPA. Waffen-Grenadier Theo Andruszko wrote:

  I knew one soldier personally who deserted in Slovakia during our campaign in the Tatra Mountains near the Ukrainian border. His name was Ivan Kachmarsky. He was my neighbor at home. He was trained in Heidelager with 8 company and had survived Brody. He joined Kampfgruppe Wildner as a motorbike ‘melder’ or dispatch rider with Battalion HQ. I believe he was a Waffen-Sturmmann. He deserted sometime in January 1945 on his motorbike rather than on foot, taking with him two submachine guns. In 1992 when I returned to my home village I learned from friends he made it home through the Soviet frontlines and joined the UPA. Later he was arrested by the Soviet police and spent many years in Siberia.168

  Group from 10./III.WGR 29 outside their billets in Slovakia.

&n
bsp; Unidentified unit from the Galician Division relax in their billets.

  Men from 10./III,/WGR outside their billets. On the left: Waffen-Sturmmann Mychailo Kormylo.

  Zilina January 1945, three young Waffen-Untersturmführers from WGR 30 report at regimental HQ. All three are wearing the reversible winter parkers. On left is Waffen-Untersturmführer Bohdan Maciw.

  Unidentified group of NCOs from the Division in Slovakia, winter 1944.

  A group of Ukrainians at an unknown location in Slovakia, autumn 1944. Third from left: the author’s father, Petro Melnyk.

  Men from an unidentified unit of the Galician Division fooling around with a machine gun in a village in Slovakia, winter 1944.

  Portrait of an unidentified mounted Ukrainian officer from the Galician Division taken in Slovakia, winter 1944.

  Others deserted to avoid disciplinary measures, or found themselves a ‘sleczna’ (girlfriend) and often remained hidden in local villages having been provided with a suitable hiding place. It is estimated that around 50 changed sides and joined the partisans,169 but as a rule the matter of desertions was always kept quiet so as not to create unrest amongst the troops. Conscripts, Communist agents who had infiltrated, opportunists and those with divided loyalties also took the opportunity to leave.170 It is worth noting that the figure for total number of ‘deserters’ includes a small percentage of soldiers who were taken prisoner during active operations.

  Approximately thirty nine deserters who were later caught were publicly executed by firing squad in front of their assembled comrades.171 Waffen-Grenadier Jaroslav Wenger from 2./I/WRG 29, was present on one such occasion: