ПРОТИНАЦИСТСЬКА ДІЯЛЬНІСТЬ СБ ОУН(Б) (1941 – 1944)

Abstract

The act of restoration of the Ukrainian state on June 30, 1941, in Lviv became the turning point in the relationship between «banderivtsi» and Germans. The Nazis reacted to it with the repression of the OUN members and putting a halt to the numerous institutions established by the OUN. Without any opportunity to openly oppose the enemy, the SB OUN had been extending its network, leading staff trainings and acquiring agent positions in the occupation administration. The SB employees achieved a particularly significant success in the last mentioned activity. In the autumn of 1942, the coercive actions of taking the «Reichskommissariat Ukraine» territory’s population for a forced labor in Germany began. The SB OUN tried to prevent it: they warned, provided documents and helped the Ukrainians to become the underground members. At the same time, the SB members had been releasing the OUN underground leaders arrested by the Germans from the prisons, as well as accumulating weapons. In the spring of 1943, the SB participated in the operation of helping the Ukrainian police in Volyn and Polissya to go underground. They ensured the secrecy of the preparational work. With the help of their agents they created an appropriate atmosphere in the police environment. They sought for the most suitable moment and put pressure on policemen who did not want to go underground. Immediately after that, the SB boivkas joined the armed struggle against the Germans. Their main tasks were to carry out sabotage on strategic enemy objects:  they destructed the telephone and telegraph communication lines, bridges and railways. They ambushed the German cars and small military groups. The underground members executed some part of the captives right away, the other part they recruited to the insurgent detachments, and all the others were disarmed and released. The SB counter-intelligence focused on preventing the German agents from penetrating into their insurgent divisions. The detected spies were interrogated and executed. Sometimes those executions were exemplary cruel. Moreover, the SB detected and executed the German agents among officers of the occupation administration, clergy and members of the legal Ukrainian organizations. The military field gendarmerie (VPZh) investigated all cases of failures in battles with the Germans. The underground commanders who committed gross misconduct could have been accused of deliberate harm in favor of the Germans. To a large extent, the SB struggle against the Poles had an anti-German character, due to the fact, that the Poles replaced the Ukrainian police and carried out punitive operations against the the people who were the OUN supporters. On the General Government territory, the SB detected the Gestapo agents among the OUN leaders, tried to disrupt recruitment of the Ukrainians to the SS «Galicia»  division, as well as to interrupt the departure of the population to Germany for the forced labor. In the autumn of 1943, the SB fight against the Germans spread even to the southern and eastern regions of Ukraine. At the end of 1943 – early 1944, the SB agents ventured to perform attacks on the German cells in the district centers. Their purpose was to seize material resources, weapons and ammunition. The negotiations with the German allies (Hungarians, Romanians, Lithuanians and others) were held on the neutrality and the exchange of weapons for products. Simultaneously, any contacts with the Germans were strictly forbidden, and violators of that prohibition were severely punished.