GERMANS AND BOLSHEVIKS IN THE UKRAINIAN-POLISH CONFLICT OF 1939 – 1945 IN THE DOCUMENTS OF THE UKRAINIAN NATIONALIST UNDERGROUND

Abstract

In this article, with the help of a detailed analysis of the documents of the Ukrainian nationalist underground, which were issued during the Second World War, the topic of the involvement of the "third forces", namely the Third Reich and the Soviet Union, in the Ukrainian-Polish conflict of 1939 – 1945 is raised. Based on the analyzed reports , social and political reviews, etc., the methods used by the Germans and Bolsheviks to incite mutual hatred between Ukrainians and Poles are singled out. It was found out that the Germans created special police departments for their own purposes, where they recruited both Poles and Ukrainians, provided them with weapons, encouraged the Poles to rob the Ukrainian population, and often practiced handing over Ukrainian jobs or farms to Poles, and vice versa. It has been investigated that the Soviets, in turn, contributed to the creation of Polish partisan units, in some places transferred the responsibility for the murders of Poles committed by them to Ukrainians and gave Poles ammunition to fight against Ukrainians. Particular attention is paid to the contemporary phenomenon of informants by Poles against Ukrainians, to which the Ukrainian nationalist underground reacted by distributing warning leaflets addressed to Poles. The article also analyzes those documents in which the Germans and the Soviets are called the enemies of the Ukrainian and Polish peoples and in which the awareness of Ukrainian nationalists that the German and Bolshevik regimes were interested in the Ukrainian-Polish confrontation is traced at the same time. It has been suggested that the strengthening of enmity between Ukrainians and Poles on the part of the Germans and the Soviets could be based in some places on the fear of the deployment of Ukrainian and Polish liberation movements with the aim of creating their own independent states. It was concluded that the documents of the Ukrainian nationalist underground are an informative and noteworthy source in the context of the Ukrainian-Polish struggle during the Second World War. Scientific works related to the specified topic were involved in writing the article. It was found that until now there is no comprehensive scientific work devoted to the issues raised in the article. This requires further research on the impact of the Third Reich on the USSR on the Ukrainian-Polish inter-ethnic conflict of 1939 – 1945.