14th SS Grenadier Division

The 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS (1st Galician) (; ), commonly referred to as the Galicia Division, was a World War II infantry division of the Waffen-SS, the military wing of the German Nazi Party, made up predominantly of volunteers with Ukrainian ethnic background from the area of Galicia, later also with some Slovaks.

Formed in 1943, it was mainly deployed in the Eastern Front of World War II in combat against the Red Army and in the repression of Soviet, Polish, and Yugoslav guerrilla partisans. Parts of the division were said to have taken part in several massacres, such as at Huta Pieniacka, Pidkamin, and Palikrowy. It was largely destroyed in the Lvov–Sandomierz offensive, reformed, and saw action in Slovakia, Yugoslavia, and Austria before being transferred to the command of the Ukrainian National Committee on 14 April 1945, a change that was only partially implemented amidst the collapse of Germany, and surrendering to the Western Allies by 10 May 1945.

The unit went by several names during its existence. It was originally known as the SS-Volunteer Division "Galicia" (, ) from its creation until October 1943. It then became the 14th Galician SS-Volunteer Division, before being renamed again in June 1944 as the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division (1st Galician) until November 1944, when its designation was changed to 1st Ukrainian (). In late April 1945 its name was changed to the 1st Division of the Ukrainian National Army for the rest of the war.

In 1946, the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg declared all members of all SS divisions "to be criminal within the meaning of the Charter." In 1985, the Canadian Deschênes Commission concluded that the Galicia division should not be indicted as a group. Polish and German commissions in the 2000s found it guilty of war crimes. In 2003, the Chief Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation found that the 4th battalion of the 14th division was guilty of war crimes. In 2005, the Institute of History at the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences confirmed the Polish findings of war crimes committed by the 4th battalion of the 14th division.

The division is honored by the far-right in Ukraine and by some organizations of the Ukrainian diaspora in Canada. In 2020, the Ukrainian Supreme Court ruled that symbols of SS Division Galicia do not belong to the Nazis and were not banned in the country. In 2021, after a public march that prominently displayed the symbols of the division, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy condemned the march. The division's insignia is classified as a Nazi and hate symbol by Freedom House and the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union.

Background

Status of Galicia

The region of Galicia, in modern-day southern Poland and western Ukraine, was part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth until 1772 and then the Austrian Empire until 1918. It was briefly involved in Ukrainian efforts for national independence in the chaos that followed World War I, between 1918 and 1920, before being made part of Poland. During World War I many volunteers from Galicia joined the Ukrainian Sich Riflemen units of the Austro-Hungarian Army, and they formed a part of the Ukrainian Galician Army from 1918 to 1919. The Sich Riflemen were later seen as an inspiration by members of the SS Division Galicia.

The Ukrainian population of Galicia developed a strong national consciousness while the region was an Austrian province, more so than people in the rest of Ukraine, which during that same time period was part of the Russian Empire and then the Soviet Union. The eastern half of Galicia in particular had a majority Ukrainian population along with Polish and Jewish minorities. Regardless, in early 1920 the leaders of the Ukrainian People's Republic, which was being overrun by the Red Army, signed a treaty that gave Poland the entirety of Galicia in exchange for military support against the Soviets. After Polish military victories during the ensuing Polish–Soviet War, another treaty that Poland concluded with the Soviets in 1921 recognized Polish sovereignty in western Ukraine, including all of Galicia. In 1922 the Polish parliament granted autonomy to Eastern Galicia, which led the League of Nations to recognize Poland's control over the region in 1923. The whole area remained part of Poland until the Soviet Union annexed Eastern Galicia in September 1939 under the conditions of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact signed with Nazi Germany.

The majority of the western Ukrainian intelligentsia and clergy supported the Ukrainian National Democratic Alliance (OUN), seeing its violent actions as counterproductive. After the Soviet annexation the NKVD secret police began mass arrests, murders, and deportations to other parts of the Soviet Union of the Ukrainian intelligentsia in Galicia and other members of the population. These measures lasted for the entire period of Soviet control over the region between 1939 and 1941. The leaders of the Ukrainian National Democratic Alliance were among those arrested and deported, and the party's dissolution by the Soviets left the OUN as the only functional Ukrainian political organization remaining in Galicia, since it was already an underground movement because of its conflict with the Polish government in the 1920s and 1930s.

German invasion and occupation

There was cooperation between members of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists living in Germany and the ''Abwehr'', the German military intelligence service led by Wilhelm Canaris, starting before the German invasion of Poland. The willingness of the German military to work with Ukrainian nationalists led them to believe that Germany would recognize Ukrainian independence in the future in exchange for their assistance. An OUN battalion accompanied German forces into Poland in September 1939, but when Germany allowed the Soviet Union to occupy Eastern Galicia, the battalion was withdrawn by its leadership. The OUN itself was led by Andriy Melnyk from August 1939, though part of its local branch in Galicia had disagreements with him, and in February 1940 that faction broke away under the leadership of Stepan Bandera. Bandera's faction, the OUN-B, started working with the Germans in the spring of 1941 and established two battalions, known as " Nachtigall" and " Roland Battalion." They were used by the Wehrmacht, though the OUN was responsible for their training and political leadership. Melnyk's faction, the OUN-M, also formed its own unit with the Germans. Both had the intent to eventually participate in a German invasion of Soviet Ukraine and seize power.

Germany launched its invasion of the Soviet Union, Operation Barbarossa, on 22 June 1941. Adolf Hitler decided to invade to destroy Communism and to obtain ''Lebensraum'', living space, for Germany in the east, as well as to gain access to more natural resources. The Nazi Party regarded Ukrainians and other Slavs as subhumans, and therefore when the OUN-B leaders reached the Galician capital Lviv on 30 June 1941 and declared an independent government of Ukraine, they were arrested by the security service of the SS. The same happened to Melnyk and his faction before they could declare a government in Kiev. Both Melnyk and Bandera were kept under arrest by the Germans until 1944, and the Germans spent the summer and fall of 1941 detaining OUN leaders and members of the Ukrainian intelligentsia. The OUN units with the Wehrmacht became fully integrated as ''Schutzmannschaft'' Battalion 201 and were sent to occupied Belarus for anti-partisan operations until late 1942, before disagreements between them and the Germans led the battalion to be dissolved. Its leader, Roman Shukhevych, and several other members founded the underground Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) in January 1943 after returning to Ukraine. The OUN and the UPA declared their opposition to both Germany and the Soviet Union.

Formation and support

The idea of recruiting Ukrainians into the Waffen-SS was first proposed by Gottlob Berger, the head of the SS Main Office, as early as April 1941. His request was rejected by ''Reichsführer-SS'' Heinrich Himmler for racial reasons.

It was not brought up again until 1942 by Otto Wächter, who had been appointed as the second German governor of Galicia in August 1941. Wächter sympathized with the Ukrainian population, many of whom initially saw the Germans as liberators after the previous years of Soviet oppression, and believed that Germany could work with them against the Soviets. Wächter's governance of Galicia, which was part of the General Government (occupied Poland), was more lenient than Erich Koch, who led the rest of Ukrainian territory as the head of Reichskommissariat Ukraine. As a former part of the Austrian empire, Galicia was governed separately from the rest of Ukraine, and was also the only region where Ukrainians were allowed to participate in its administration in a significant way. Wächter wanted to make the region an example for changing German policy toward Ukraine. In early 1943 Wächter discussed the matter of a Ukrainian SS division with Himmler, and received Himmler's approval for the basic idea on 28 March 1943.

At a conference of SS officials held by Wächter on 12 April 1943, they came to an agreement regarding the details of the new division. He proposed the name of the unit to be SS-Volunteer Division "Galicia" (Himmler insisted against using "Ukrainian" in the name), and that it be given standard Waffen-SS field-grey uniforms with the addition of a patch on the right arm sleeve bearing the Galician regional symbol. The Galician lion was used as the division insignia instead of the Ukrainian trident. He added that the division would also have chaplains from the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church because Galicia's population was very religious. Various logistical matters related to the unit were discussed, as well as methods of recruitment and propaganda. A recruitment committee was established along with a military board consisting of Ukrainian military veterans and other Ukrainian advisors. A ceremony was held in Lviv on 28 April 1943 where Wächter announced the creation of the Galicia Division. He received Himmler's final approval shortly after that, despite the opposition of Erich Koch to any Ukrainian military units being formed. Himmler also believed that Galician Ukrainians were more Germanized because they had been part of the Austrian empire, and that the Galicians were more "Aryan-like." Thus it became the second non- Germanic division in the Waffen-SS, after the 13th Division.

In July 1943, Wächter argued with Himmler about his order forbidding the use of "Ukrainian" in the name to discourage Ukrainian statehood, but Himmler stood firm and insisted on calling the division members "Galicians" instead of Ukrainians. The regional symbol of Galicia was used as the division insignia because it was not seen as associated with Ukrainian nationalism. The SS sig runes were not worn, which is why in Melnyk's studies of the Division he has published dozens of pictures of Ukrainian wearing them, because non-Germanic members of the Waffen-SS wore their division insignia instead.

Besides obtaining the approval of Himmler and the SS hierarchy, Wächter also worked with Ukrainian community leaders in Galicia, finding widespread support for the division among them. One of these figures was Volodymyr Kubiyovych, the head of the Ukrainian Central Committee. The Ukrainian Central Committee was established in June 1940 in German-occupied Western Galicia with the approval of the German authorities. It had no political status and was meant to organize social and welfare services for the western Ukrainian population, including by cooperating with the International Red Cross, and throughout the occupation it appealed to German officials to minimize or prevent brutal policies from being imposed. The organization's motivation for supporting the Galicia Division included the desire to create a Ukrainian military force, and given that Ukrainians were already being used by Germany, it would be better if they were concentrated in a single Ukrainian unit.

In return for his support, Kubiyovych obtained assurances from Wächter that the division would be allowed to have chaplains of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, that it would only be used against communist forces on the Eastern Front (and not for Germany's internal security), have Ukrainian officers, and its soldiers would be given the same benefits as other Wehrmacht and SS personnel. Kubiyovych said after the war that the Germans largely met his demands. The Germans also made another concession, by adding the phrase to the division's oath of loyalty to Adolf Hitler that it was in his role as "the Commander-in-Chief of the German Armed Forces in the struggle against Bolshevism."

Kubiyovych made a proclamation calling on Ukrainians to join the Galicia Division in order to "destroy the Red monster." The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church supported its creation. The head of the Church, Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky, reportedly told Kubiyovych that "there is virtually no price which should not be paid for the creation of a Ukrainian army." The Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church was also in favor. At the same time, it was met with a mixed reaction from the underground Ukrainian nationalist movement. The Galicia Division was supported by Andriy Melnyk's moderate faction of the OUN, who saw it as a counterweight to the extremist Banderite-dominated UPA, and by some officers of the former Ukrainian People's Republic, such as General Mykhailo Omelianovych-Pavlenko.

The unit was initially opposed by the OUN-B and the UPA. A bulletin published by them in May 1943 criticized the creation of a German-led Ukrainian division, as it would deprive their nationalist movement of potential recruits by using them as cannon fodder, and went on to say that it represented colonialism, comparing the idea to the British Indian Army. The bulletin also said the creation of the Galicia Division would undermine the prestige of the idea of a Ukrainian state. The OUN-B was not in contact with the Ukrainian Central Committee and had no involvement in the division's creation. Roman Shukhevych's UPA discouraged young men in Galicia from joining it and instead tried to recruit them for their guerilla army. But the UPA later changed its position out of pragmatism. The organization lacked trained recruits and had a shortage of resources that prevent it from becoming a significant force. Therefore, Shukhevych secretly met with a Ukrainian member of Wächter's military board in early October 1943. In the meeting they arranged to send UPA volunteers into the division to receive training, weapons, and intelligence, taking advantage of the Galicia Division as much as they could for the movement's benefit, before having them desert and rejoin the UPA. Shukhevych also said he respected the decision of anyone who joined the Galicia Division and considered them to be Ukrainian patriots.

Recruitment and composition

In early May 1943 the recruitment process slowly began. Rallies were held across cities and towns in Galicia for two months, and by mid-1943, as the division received support from retired Ukrainian officers and the UPA, recruitment picked up. After the first three months of the recruitment drive, there were 80,000 men had been enrolled for the SS Division Galicia, of whom 53,000 were admitted because thousands had been enrolled who could never possibly qualify to serve such as men with terminal illnesses, men in reserved occupations (forestry workers, miners etc) boys under the age of 18, and men over the age of 60. About 25,000 were deemed fit for service and 13,245 passed the medical examination. They were sent to training; 1,487 were dropped during the training period, leaving the division with 11,758 personnel. Those volunteers were mostly between the ages of 18 and 30, many from a middle class professional background or from farming families. Most of the soldiers in the division were Ukrainian Greek Catholics, with the exception of a small number of Ukrainian Orthodox. The archpriest Vasyl Laba, a close associate of Greek Catholic Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky, became the head chaplain of the division, and it initially had a total of twelve chaplains.

Ukrainians with previous experience as officers or NCOs were conscripted into the Galicia Division when it was established. These Ukrainian officers had previously served in the Russian Imperial Army, the army of the Ukrainian People's Republic, the Polish Army, the Red Army, the Wehrmacht (including the former Nachtigall and Roland battalions), or the Austro-Hungarian Army. In addition to these, 1,000 of the Ukrainian recruits who enlisted in 1943 who had had higher education were sent to officer or NCO training schools. Most of the Ukrainian officers remained at the company level or below. Dmytro Paliiv, who was a veteran of the Sich Riflemen, was appointed the Ukrainian political advisor to the Galicia Division's German commander.

The division was led by a German commander and a staff of German officers at the senior levels. All of them except the chief of staff were brought over from the SS police division of the Waffen-SS. The longest serving division commander, '' SS-Brigadeführer'' and Major General of Waffen-SS Fritz Freitag, was reluctant to give more authority to Ukrainian officers since they did not have recent combat experience, which caused tensions between the Germans and the Ukrainians. Freitag was a committed National Socialist and was focused on instilling the Ukrainians with "the Prussian spirit" to turn the Galicia Division into an effective fighting force. The division's chief of staff from January 1944 until the end of the war, Wehrmacht Major Wolf-Dietrich Heike, noted that there was a shortage of German officers and NCOs, and that many of them were unsuited for working with the Ukrainians because of cultural differences.

Based on postwar studies and veteran accounts after the war, the most common motivation for Ukrainian volunteers in the division was the idea that at some point it would become part of a Ukrainian national army established for the purpose of achieving Ukraine's independence. During the Interwar period much of the population of Galicia and its political class wanted to have their own army, ever since the existence of Ukrainian Sich Riflemen in World War I and the later Ukrainian People's Republic.

Four police regiments were also formed from some of those who volunteered for the Galicia Division but did not meet the basic military requirements; they were given the name Galician SS Volunteer Regiments 4 through 7 (German: ''Galizische SS-Freiwilligen Regiment''). These were completely separate from the division and were under the ''Ordnungspolizei'' (Order Police) of the SS. In the spring of 1944 the police regiments were dissolved and their personnel were combined into the Galicia Division.

Training

The recruits began leaving for training on 18 July 1943, and they were seen off by a rally of over 50,000 people in Lviv. Around this time the division received its first commanding officer, ''SS-Brigadeführer'' and Major General of Waffen-SS Walter Schimana, who for the entirety of his tenure was away on training courses and whose command was only on paper.
The training was initially done at the Heidelager camp in the General Government. They were given instruction in combat tactics, rifle, and heavy weapons training. Personnel who required specialized training in different fields (such as anti-tank warfare, communications, animal equipment maintenance, or combat engineering), and those who were selected to become officers, NCOs, or chaplains, were sent to various other locations throughout Europe before returning to the rest of the division. The German instructors noted that the Ukrainian recruits were enthusiastic and dedicated. During their training the recruits also received two hours per week of political education by company commanders in National Socialism, which aimed to instill in them the belief in the victory of the Third Reich.

In September 1943 part of the division's headquarters staff was established under the command of Walter Schimana, before Fritz Freitag succeeded Schimana as the division commander on 20 October 1943. Also in October the division was renamed and its units were renumbered in accordance with a reorganization of Waffen-SS units. Now the 14th Galician SS-Volunteer Division, it consisted of three 'grenadier' (infantry) regiments and an assortment of specialized units, though they were not yet at full strength. In the last months of 1943 and early 1944 the division received additional troops from disbanded police regiments and from new volunteers. In January 1944, Freitag left for several weeks to attend a training course for division commanders, and in his absence the commanding officer was '' SS-Standartenführer'' and Colonel of Waffen-SS Friedrich Beyersdorff, who was normally the commander of the divisional artillery. In early February, the division sent a company to Lviv to serve as an honor guard at the funeral of two of the Galicia governor's senior staff members who had been assassinated.

Shortly after Freitag departed, in mid-February 1944 the division received an order to form a ''Kampfgruppe'' (battlegroup) of one infantry regiment and one detachment each of artillery, sappers, anti-tank grenadiers to go into combat against Sydir Kovpak's Soviet partisan group, which entered Poland from Belarus. Beyersdorff believed the division was unprepared, but complied with the order, because it came from the Higher SS and Police Leader in Kraków, Wilhelm Koppe.

In the final phase of its training and assembling the division was sent to the Neuhammer training camp in Lower Silesia, in April 1944. The ''Kampfgruppe Beyersdorff'' detachment rejoined the rest of the division in Neuhammer in mid-March 1944. At this time the division reportedly had 12,901 members. At the new location the division was joined by Ukrainian officers and NCOs who had completed their training elsewhere, along with new recruits from Galicia, and completed its assembling. In mid-May 1944, Heinrich Himmler visited Neuhammer to inspect the division. During that time he gave a speech to the Galicia Division's officers in which he acknowledged them as Ukrainian (as opposed to Galician), saying that he should have designated the division Ukrainian from the beginning, and that the German and Ukrainian members must be treated as equals. After his inspection, Himmler informed the commander of Army Group North Ukraine that the Galicia Division was ready to be sent into battle. In mid-June they were also visited by the leaders of the Ukrainian Central Committee. Towards the end of the month, it was decided that the division would be deployed to the area of western Ukraine being held by the 4th Panzer Army. On 27 June 1944, it was renamed the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS (1st Galician). They departed from Neuhammer towards western Ukraine on the following day, 28 June 1944.

First combat deployment

Anti-partisan actions

About 2,000 Galicia Division soldiers were deployed as ''Kampfgruppe Beyersdorff'' to the Biłgoraj–Zamość area in southeast Poland. The formation was divided into two smaller groups, with one of them being sent to Lviv, and commenced anti-partisan operations against Soviet guerilla fighters from 28 February until 27 March 1944. They attacked a partisan group, inflicting casualties, and discovered hidden weapons caches. About 20 to 25 Galicia Division soldiers were killed. The ''Kampfgruppe Beyersdorff'' performed its duty well enough that it earned the rare praise of German Field Marshal Walter Model.

Brody

By the summer of 1944 the Soviets were on the offensive across the Eastern Front while Germany attempted to hold on to the territory it still had. Most of Ukraine had been retaken by the Red Army, but the majority of Belarus and the Baltic states remained under German control. In the spring the Soviets began pushing into the regions of western Ukraine that had been part of Poland before the war.

On 15 May 1944, the 1st Ukrainian Front was established under Soviet Marshal Ivan Konev for the purpose of breaking through German lines in Galicia and western Ukraine. It was opposed by Germany's Army Group North Ukraine, which was tasked with holding the area between the Pripyat Marshes and the Carpathian Mountains. Although the German army group consisted of over 40 divisions, they were under-strength, and its best armored units had been redeployed in June 1944 to France, where the Western Allies had landed that same month. The 1st Ukrainian Front vastly outnumbered Army Group North Ukraine in infantry, tanks, and artillery. The Galicia Division was ordered to reinforce them, joining the XIII Army Corps, which was transferred from the 4th Panzer Army to the 1st Panzer Army around that time.

In July 1944, together with six German infantry divisions, the Galicia Division was responsible for holding a front of approximately near the town of Brody. When the Soviets launched their offensive, the division was initially in reserve. Deployed at Brody were the division's 29th, 30th, 31st Waffen-Grenadier regiments, a fusilier and an engineering battalion, along with its artillery regiment. The Field Replacement Battalion was deployed behind the other units.

On 13 July, the Soviet forces launched their attack. By the next day, they had routed a German division (the 291st) to the north of the XIII Corps and swept back an attempted German counterattack. On 15 July, the 1st and 8th Panzer Divisions along with a single regiment from the Galicia Division (the 30th) were deployed in a counterattack against the Soviet penetration in the Koltiv area, while the Soviet 2nd Air Army flew aircraft sorties and bombed them as they attempted their counterattack. On 18 July, the division's Field Replacement Battalion largely escaped the encirclement and were reported as having fled west, whilst the remainder of XIII Corps, consisting of over 30,000 German and Ukrainian soldiers, was surrounded by the Soviets within the Brody pocket.

Within the pocket, the Galician troops were tasked with defending the eastern perimeter near the Pidhirtsi Castle and Olesko. The Soviets wanted to collapse the Brody pocket by focusing their attack at what they perceived to be its weakest point; this was not the Galicia Division but the 349th Infantry Division, which suffered heavy losses in the initial Soviet offensive, causing the Galicia Division to be sent to reinforce its sector of the front. The 29th and 30th regiments of the Galicia Division, supported by the division's artillery regiment, put up unexpectedly fierce resistance. Pidhirtsy changed hands several times before the Galicians were finally overwhelmed by the late afternoon, and at Olesko a major Soviet attack using T-34 tanks was repulsed by the division's Fusilier and Engineer battalions.

On 20 July, the German divisions within the pocket attempted a breakout which failed partly because rain on the previous day had made the roads impassable for the armour of III Panzer Corps which was striking north to relieve the entrapped forces, despite early successes. By this point the Division's 30th and 31st regiments had been destroyed. A second German breakout attempt that began on 21 July ended in failure, but to the west of the pocket, the 8th Panzer Division broke through Soviet lines and briefly established contact with the Brody pocket. They sent a message on 21 July to the 1st Panzer Army headquarters that thousands of men from the pocket were rescued before they were repulsed.

By the end of that day, in the face of overwhelming Soviet attacks, the 14th Galician Division as a whole disintegrated. Late on 19 July its German commander, Fritz Freitag, resigned his command and was called in for service with XIII Corps staff. Command of all remaining units was then given to General Gerhard Lindemann. Freitag remained with the Corps staff while Lindemann organized the withdrawal of the Galicia Division remnants to the south. Some Ukrainian assault groups remained intact, others joined German units, and others fled or melted away. The Ukrainian 14th SS Fusilier battalion, which at this point had also largely disintegrated, came to form the rearguard of what was left of the entire XIII Corps. Holding the town of Bilyi Kamin, it enabled units or stragglers to escape to the south and was able to withstand several Soviet attempts to overwhelm it. By the evening of 21 July, it remained the only intact unit north of the Bug River

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