Prosvita society.
Both his parents died prematurely of
tuberculosis
Tuberculosis (TB), also known colloquially as the "white death", or historically as consumption, is a contagious disease usually caused by ''Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can al ...
, leaving him to be raised by his remarried father's widow who paid for two surgeries relating to his own struggle with the disease, removing two ribs.
Between 1912 and 1914 he studied
forestry
Forestry is the science and craft of creating, managing, planting, using, conserving and repairing forests and woodlands for associated resources for human and Natural environment, environmental benefits. Forestry is practiced in plantations and ...
at the Higher School of Agriculture in
Vienna
Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...
, though his studies were interrupted by the outbreak of the
First World War
World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...
.
First World War (1914-1917)
In 1914, Melnyk volunteered as an officer in the
Austro-Hungarian army
The Austro-Hungarian Army, also known as the Imperial and Royal Army,; was the principal ground force of Austria-Hungary from 1867 to 1918. It consisted of three organisations: the Common Army (, recruited from all parts of Austria-Hungary), ...
commanding a company of the
Legion of Ukrainian Sich Riflemen. Due to his kind demeanor, he was referred to affectionately as "Lord Melnyk" by fellow Ukrainian and Austrian officers, who felt that he embodied the English concept of a
gentleman
''Gentleman'' (Old French: ''gentilz hom'', gentle + man; abbreviated ''gent.'') is a term for a chivalrous, courteous, or honorable man. Originally, ''gentleman'' was the lowest rank of the landed gentry of England, ranking below an esquire ...
, which at that time had been an ideal in Central Europe.
[John Armstrong (1963). ''Ukrainian Nationalism''. New York: Columbia University Press, pp. 36-39]
Fighting on the Austro-Russian front in the
Carpathian Mountains
The Carpathian Mountains or Carpathians () are a range of mountains forming an arc across Central Europe and Southeast Europe. Roughly long, it is the third-longest European mountain range after the Ural Mountains, Urals at and the Scandinav ...
in the battles of
Makivka and Lysonia, he was awarded a
Medal for Bravery during a visit to the front by
Archduke Karl.
In September 1916, he was wounded and taken prisoner by the
Russians
Russians ( ) are an East Slavs, East Slavic ethnic group native to Eastern Europe. Their mother tongue is Russian language, Russian, the most spoken Slavic languages, Slavic language. The majority of Russians adhere to Eastern Orthodox Church ...
, along with most of the Sich Riflemen unit, towards the end of the
Brusilov Offensive.
In captivity, Melnyk became a close associate of
Yevhen Konovalets, a Ukrainian
second lieutenant captured in 1915, subsequently joining the Ukrainian independence movement and escaping with Konovalets and his fellow prisoners of war to Kyiv in late 1917 amid the chaos of the
Russian Civil War
The Russian Civil War () was a multi-party civil war in the former Russian Empire sparked by the 1917 overthrowing of the Russian Provisional Government in the October Revolution, as many factions vied to determine Russia's political future. I ...
.
Ukrainian War of Independence (1917-1919)
In the midst of the
Ukrainian War of Independence of 1917–1921 and together with Konovalets, who commanded the unit, Melnyk, his chief of staff, organised the
Sich Riflemen and assumed the rank of
Colonel
Colonel ( ; abbreviated as Col., Col, or COL) is a senior military Officer (armed forces), officer rank used in many countries. It is also used in some police forces and paramilitary organizations.
In the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, a colon ...
under the
Ukrainian People's Republic (UPR), playing a key role in quelling the 1918
Kyiv Arsenal January Uprising before the city was captured in February by the
Bolsheviks
The Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, were a radical Faction (political), faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) which split with the Mensheviks at the 2nd Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, ...
, themselves dislocated by the
German army in March, following the collapse of the frontlines, which installed the
Second Hetmanate and started to withdraw from Ukraine after the
Treaty of Brest-Litovsk
The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was a separate peace treaty signed on 3 March 1918 between Soviet Russia and the Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire, and Bulgaria), by which Russia withdrew from World War I. The treaty, whi ...
, thus leaving the new government in a precarious position.
Melnyk subsequently supported
Symon Petliura in the November 1918
Anti-Hetman Uprising incited by proposed compromises on Ukrainian sovereignty with the aim of appeasing the
Entente powers that in turn initially wanted to restore the Russian Empire to its pre-treaty borders, being awarded the position of otaman of the
Ukrainian People's Army
The Ukrainian People's Army (), also known as the Ukrainian National Army (UNA) or by the derogatory term Petliurivtsi (, ), was the army of the Ukrainian People's Republic (1917–1921). They were often quickly reorganized units of the former I ...
(UNA).
With the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire that same month, the
Polish-Ukrainian War simultaneously broke out for control of Western Ukraine. Amid the intensification of
anti-Jewish pogroms in January 1919, Melnyk, briefly acting as commander of the siege corps, issued an order to court martial anyone caught agitating for or spreading rumours about the possibility of pogroms, though historians generally agree that such orders typically achieved little in the way of restoring discipline among Petliura's forces.
Days later and following the re-establishment of the UPR in Kyiv the preceding December, Petliura, Konovalets, and Melnyk proposed that they reform the government into a '
Triumvirate
A triumvirate () or a triarchy is a political institution ruled or dominated by three individuals, known as triumvirs (). The arrangement can be formal or informal. Though the three leaders in a triumvirate are notionally equal, the actual distr ...
' military dictatorship to unify command, though this was rejected by the
UPR Directorate and the Sich Riflemen subsequently withdrew their political representation, the Rifle Council, with Melnyk becoming chief of staff of the UNA until the regular army was liquidated in December 1919 upon the switch to partisan warfare amid a
bleak strategic position.
That month, Melnyk fell ill from a
typhus
Typhus, also known as typhus fever, is a group of infectious diseases that include epidemic typhus, scrub typhus, and murine typhus. Common symptoms include fever, headache, and a rash. Typically these begin one to two weeks after exposu ...
epidemic at the start of the guerilla-fought
First Winter Campaign, whereby he was taken to a hospital in
Rivne
Rivne ( ; , ) is a city in western Ukraine. The city is the administrative center of Rivne Oblast (province), as well as the Rivne Raion (district) within the oblast. and ended up in a Polish internment camp.
The 1920
Treaty of Warsaw saw
Polish and UPR forces agree to partake in the
Kyiv offensive against the Bolsheviks. Following a
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Republic and, from 1922, the Soviet Union. The army was established in January 1918 by a decree of the Council of People ...
counteroffensive and the
Battle of Warsaw, the polyfactional conflict, that had also seen Ukraine contested by the
Whites
White is a racial classification of people generally used for those of predominantly European ancestry. It is also a skin color specifier, although the definition can vary depending on context, nationality, ethnicity and point of view.
De ...
,
Greens, and
Anarchists among others, culminated in the 1921
Peace of Riga
The Treaty of Riga was signed in Riga, Latvia, on between Poland on one side and Soviet Russia (acting also on behalf of Soviet Belarus) and Soviet Ukraine on the other, ending the Polish–Soviet War (1919–1921). The chief negotiators o ...
that partitioned Ukrainian territory, placing much of Ukraine in the hands of the Bolsheviks, who would go on to effectively repress Ukrainian nationalist and cultural movements, and the west under Polish control.
Early activities (1919-1938)
Having been a Polish prisoner of war only briefly, Melnyk moved to
Prague
Prague ( ; ) is the capital and List of cities and towns in the Czech Republic, largest city of the Czech Republic and the historical capital of Bohemia. Prague, located on the Vltava River, has a population of about 1.4 million, while its P ...
and Vienna where he would complete his forestry studies.
Alongside Konovalets and former Sich Riflemen in 1920, Melnyk was a founding member and co-leader of the
Ukrainian Military Organisation (UVO), an underground militant group that engaged in acts of terrorism and assassinations, becoming primarily centered around preventing a
rapprochement between Polish and Ukrainian authorities with Melnyk assuming home command of the organisation in 1922.
Between 1924 and 1928, Melnyk was imprisoned in
Lviv
Lviv ( or ; ; ; see #Names and symbols, below for other names) is the largest city in western Ukraine, as well as the List of cities in Ukraine, fifth-largest city in Ukraine, with a population of It serves as the administrative centre of ...
for terrorist activities against the Polish state.
Following his release from prison, Melnyk largely stepped back from active engagement in UVO operations and married Sofiya Fedak (who's sister had married Konovalets) in February 1929, with the organisation going on to merge with several far-right nationalist student movements to form the
Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists later that month with Yevhen Konovalets at its head. For much of the 1930s, Melnyk chaired the OUN Senate, an ancillary consultative body within the organisation that sought to provide ideological guidance.
During this time, he worked as the director of forests on the large estates of the Metropolitan of the
Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church
The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC) is a Major archiepiscopal church, major archiepiscopal ''sui iuris'' ("autonomous") Eastern Catholic Churches, Eastern Catholic church that is based in Ukraine. As a particular church of the Cathol ...
. A devout Catholic, he went on to become chairman of Orly ('Eagles') in 1933, a Galician Catholic Youth organisation that was considered to be anti-nationalist by many OUN members.
[John Armstrong (1963). ''Ukrainian Nationalism''. New York: Columbia University Press, pp. 36-39.]
Leader of the OUN (1938-1940)
In the aftermath of Konovalets's assassination by the
NKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (, ), abbreviated as NKVD (; ), was the interior ministry and secret police of the Soviet Union from 1934 to 1946. The agency was formed to succeed the Joint State Political Directorate (OGPU) se ...
in a
Rotterdam
Rotterdam ( , ; ; ) is the second-largest List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city in the Netherlands after the national capital of Amsterdam. It is in the Provinces of the Netherlands, province of South Holland, part of the North S ...
cafe in May 1938, the principal OUN leadership abroad could not agree on a leader from amongst themselves and therefore asked Melnyk to become leader of the OUN, who had claimed to have received a letter from Konovalets naming him as his preferred successor.
He was chosen by the leadership in part because of the hope for more moderate and pragmatic leadership and due to a desire to repair strained ties with the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, the head of which had sharply denounced the OUN for inciting acts of violence against Ukrainians that disapproved of its methods and its radical nationalism and had charged the organisation with morally corrupting the youth.
Melnyk took over the leadership in the midst of the
Sudetenland Crisis and the OUN's opportunistic support of
Carpatho-Ukraine with the organisation initially directing, in his own words, "all
heir
Inheritance is the practice of receiving private property, titles, debts, entitlements, privileges, rights, and obligations upon the death of an individual. The rules of inheritance differ among societies and have changed over time. Offi ...
forces and means at
heir
Inheritance is the practice of receiving private property, titles, debts, entitlements, privileges, rights, and obligations upon the death of an individual. The rules of inheritance differ among societies and have changed over time. Offi ...
disposal" to aid them, later refining this to experienced military specialists on the request of
Avgustyn Voloshyn who became aware that a number of nationalists, some of whom he privately derided as "revolutionary shouters", were planning a
coup d'état
A coup d'état (; ; ), or simply a coup
, is typically an illegal and overt attempt by a military organization or other government elites to unseat an incumbent leadership. A self-coup is said to take place when a leader, having come to powe ...
.
Following on from the November 1938
First Vienna Award
The First Vienna Award was a treaty signed on 2 November 1938 pursuant to the Vienna Arbitration, which took place at Vienna's Belvedere Palace. The arbitration and award were direct consequences of the previous month's Munich Agreement, whic ...
, itself part of
the broader partition of
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia ( ; Czech language, Czech and , ''Česko-Slovensko'') was a landlocked country in Central Europe, created in 1918, when it declared its independence from Austria-Hungary. In 1938, after the Munich Agreement, the Sudetenland beca ...
, the automnomous region declared its independence from the
Second Czechoslovak Republic
The Second Czechoslovak Republic (Czech language, Czech and ), officially the Czecho-Slovak Republic (Czech and Slovak: ''Česko-Slovenská republika''), existed for 169 days, between 30 September 1938 and 15 March 1939. It was c ...
in March 1939, though
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...
failed to respond to appeals for recognition and the short-lived state was thus invaded and annexed by the
Kingdom of Hungary
The Kingdom of Hungary was a monarchy in Central Europe that existed for nearly a millennium, from 1000 to 1946 and was a key part of the Habsburg monarchy from 1526-1918. The Principality of Hungary emerged as a Christian kingdom upon the Coro ...
a day later.
Melnyk was present in
Venice
Venice ( ; ; , formerly ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 islands that are separated by expanses of open water and by canals; portions of the city are li ...
in July for the formalisation of cooperation and recognition between the OUN and the government of Carpathian Ukraine, with the events of the past months dealing an initial blow to Ukrainian nationalists' hopes that Hitler's Germany would support their ambitions in the event of an anticipated conflict against the
USSR
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...
, compounded by the
Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact a month later.
At the Second General Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists in
Rome
Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...
on 27 August 1939, Melnyk was formally ratified as leader of the OUN and reaffirmed its ideology as continuing in the vein of ''
natsiokratiia'' (literally translating to 'natocracy' or 'nationalocracy'), characterised by many scholars as a 'Ukrainian fascism'.
In a May 1938 letter to German Foreign Minister
Joachim von Ribbentrop
Ulrich Friedrich-Wilhelm Joachim von Ribbentrop (; 30 April 1893 – 16 October 1946) was a German Nazi politician and diplomat who served as Minister for Foreign Affairs (Germany), Minister of Foreign Affairs of Nazi Germany from 1938 to 1945. ...
, Melnyk claimed that the OUN was "ideologically akin to similar movements in Europe, especially to National Socialism in Germany and Fascism in Italy".
Melnyk sought to avoid the mistakes of the independence war and, in May 1939, took steps to transfer part of the OUN leadership apparatus from
Mussolini's Italy to an expectedly neutral country— initially moving them to
Spain
Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...
and later securing their settlement in
Portugal
Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic, is a country on the Iberian Peninsula in Southwestern Europe. Featuring Cabo da Roca, the westernmost point in continental Europe, Portugal borders Spain to its north and east, with which it share ...
.
Melnyk and his supporters within the OUN were generally more conservative and less inclined towards the radical
anti-clericalism
Anti-clericalism is opposition to clergy, religious authority, typically in social or political matters. Historically, anti-clericalism in Christian traditions has been opposed to the influence of Catholicism. Anti-clericalism is related to secul ...
and violence against non-conforming Ukrainians that had characterised the organisation prior, generally favouring a more cautious and diplomatic approach to securing Ukrainian independence with the semi-
totalitarian
Totalitarianism is a political system and a form of government that prohibits opposition from political parties, disregards and outlaws the political claims of individual and group opposition to the state, and completely controls the public sph ...
OUN at the helm of an
ethnocratic state.
The elevation of Melnyk to the position of leader exacerbated a generational divide within the organisation between an older, more cautious generation, many of whom had fought in the conflicts surrounding the First World War, and a younger, more bellicose generation heavily inspired by
Nazi ideology
Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During Hitler's rise to power, it was freque ...
that demanded a more charismatic and radical leader and which began to coalesce around
Stepan Bandera
Stepan Andriyovych Bandera (, ; ; 1 January 1909 – 15 October 1959) was a Ukrainian far-right leader of the radical militant wing of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, the OUN-B.
Bandera was born in Austria-Hungary, in Galicia (Eas ...
, who had attained notoriety following his role in
the assassination of Polish Interior Minister
Bronisław Pieracki
Bronisław Wilhelm Pieracki (28 May 1895 – 15 June 1934) was a Polish military officer and politician.
Life
As a member of the Polish Legions in World War I, Pieracki took part in the Polish-Ukrainian War (1918–1919). He later supported J ...
and the publicity that arose from the 1935
Warsaw
Warsaw, officially the Capital City of Warsaw, is the capital and List of cities and towns in Poland, largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the Vistula, River Vistula in east-central Poland. Its population is officially estimated at ...
and 1936 Lviv trials.
From 1938 onwards, Melnyk and Bandera were recruited into the Nazi Germany military intelligence
Abwehr
The (German language, German for ''resistance'' or ''defence'', though the word usually means ''counterintelligence'' in a military context) ) was the German military intelligence , military-intelligence service for the ''Reichswehr'' and the ...
for espionage, counter-espionage and sabotage, a relationship that had its roots as far back as 1923 pertaining to the UVO, in return for providing the organisation with financial support. The Abwehr's goal was to run diversion activities after Germany's planned attack on the Soviet Union. Melnyk was given the codename 'Consul I'. This information is part of the testimony that Abwehr Colonel Erwin Stolze gave on 25 December 1945 and submitted to the Nuremberg trials, with a request that it be admitted as evidence.
Split with Bandera and the OUN(m) (1940-1945)
In the spring of 1940 and following Bandera's release from prison during the
Nazi-Soviet partition of Poland (which placed Western Ukraine in the hands of the Soviets), Melnyk and Bandera met in Rome in a final unsuccessful attempt to resolve the growing divide between the two emerging factions with the OUN subsequently fracturing into two rival organisations: the Melnykites (''Melnykivtsi'' or the OUN-M) and the Banderites (''Banderivtsi'' or the OUN-B), with Melnyk continuing efforts in vain to try to repair the schism.
Though Melnyk received widespread support among Ukrainian émigrés abroad, Bandera's position on the ground in Western Ukraine and the demographics of his base meant that he gained control of the vast majority of the local aparatus in the region.
Ironically, effective Soviet repression in Central and Eastern Ukraine meant that most of the Ukrainians living in these regions were unaware of the split in the OUN, benefitting the more active Banderites in their battle for legitimacy.
Initial Second World War collaboration with the Nazis (early to mid-1941)
Working from their bases in
Berlin
Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...
and
Nazi-occupied Kraków
, officially the Royal Capital City of Kraków, is the List of cities and towns in Poland, second-largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, the city has a population of 804,237 ...
(with Melnyk and his wife living in a Berlin apartment rented from German general
Hermann Niehoff), both factions of the OUN formed marching groups and planned to follow the
Wehrmacht
The ''Wehrmacht'' (, ) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the German Army (1935–1945), ''Heer'' (army), the ''Kriegsmarine'' (navy) and the ''Luftwaffe'' (air force). The designation "''Wehrmac ...
into Ukraine during the June 1941
German invasion of the Soviet Union in order to recruit supporters and set up local governments.
As soon as the
collaborationalist Nachtigall Battalion entered Lviv on June 30, the group of Banderites, directed by Bandera from Kraków,
proclaimed an
independent Ukrainian state, though the German military authorities caught wind of this and cracked down upon the OUN-B, arresting Bandera on the eve of the proclaimation.
The following day, 3,000 bodies seemingly
killed by the NKVD were discovered in basements around Lviv, leading to
anti-Jewish pogroms by OUN-B members, integrally enabled and supported by Bandera's rhetorical propagandising of antisemetic violence and ethnic cleansing surrounding the antisemetic
Judeo-Bolshevism myth.
Melnyk's reaction to the Lviv pogroms of 1941 is a matter of historical debate as there is no surviving evidence that he condemned the massacres and may have tacitly approved. It is generally accepted among historians that Melnyk was at best ambivalent towards the plight of the Jews and at worst actively complicit in
the Holocaust
The Holocaust (), known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as the (), was the genocide of History of the Jews in Europe, European Jews during World War II. From 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy ...
given that some OUN-M members took part in the massacres, though there is evidence suggesting he was more pragmatically concerned with securing political autonomy from the Nazi authorities than with any ethnic cleansing, such as his letter to
Heinrich Himmler
Heinrich Luitpold Himmler (; 7 October 1900 – 23 May 1945) was a German Nazism, Nazi politician and military leader who was the 4th of the (Protection Squadron; SS), a leading member of the Nazi Party, and one of the most powerful p ...
in July 1941.
Melnyk and his supporters meanwhile avoided making any unilateral proclaimations, competing with Bandera's supporters for influence in Western Ukraine and intent on cooperating and gaining favour with the Wermacht in pursuit of a military-political arrangement similar to that of the Croatian
Ustashe, thereby seeking to secure a place for a Ukrainian state in the fascist
New European Order.
Melnyk based the OUN-M's Ukrainian headquarters in
Kyiv
Kyiv, also Kiev, is the capital and most populous List of cities in Ukraine, city of Ukraine. Located in the north-central part of the country, it straddles both sides of the Dnieper, Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2022, its population was 2, ...
with the founding of the Ukrainian National Council (UNRada) on 5 October, styled off of
its namesake under the
Austro-Hungarian Empire
Austria-Hungary, also referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Dual Monarchy or the Habsburg Monarchy, was a multi-national constitutional monarchy in Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. A military and diplomatic alliance, it consist ...
, as well as maintaining a significant presence in Rivne due to it being the de facto capital of the
Reich Commissionerate of Ukraine under
Erich Koch.
Detention, incarceration, and release (mid-1941 to 1945)
Initially, Melnyk's more conservative and moderate supporters enjoyed support against Bandera's radicals both from the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church and from the German military authorities, with some Melnykites informing on OUN-B members.
However, alarmed at the OUN-M's growing strength in Eastern and Central Ukraine and taken together with the incompatibility of Ukrainian statehood with Nazi designs on the region, the
SS and government officials overruled the Wermacht and ordered a crackdown on the organisation with the UNRada dissolved in November 1941, the Melnykite newspaper ''Ukrainian Word'' puppeted in December, and many OUN-M members arrested or executed by the
SD from November onwards.
After travelling several times between Kraków, Melnyk had had his movements restricted to Berlin in mid-1941, under
Gestapo
The (, ), Syllabic abbreviation, abbreviated Gestapo (), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe.
The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of F ...
surveillance, from where he sent letters to Nazi officials including
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler (20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was the dictator of Nazi Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his suicide in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the lea ...
, protesting the change in policy and attempting to secure the release of arrested and persecuted members, periodically receiving information of further crackdowns upon OUN-M members in Ukraine.
In a letter to
Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky dated July 7, 1942, Melnyk wrote:
"As always before, I am now ready to meet as far as possible in carrying out the initiatives of Your Excellency to eliminate disagreements within our people, which especially at this time needs the greatest possible unity to achieve the ideal of the Nation under the single current political factor in Ukraine— the OUN…
In my experience so far, when I have given so much evidence of my best will and understanding for both human weaknesses and ambitions, and for the peculiar situations and demands of the wave, including the disposition of my own person, I have an unshakable conviction of the right path: not to indulge the disaster, but to fight the disaster. My only regret is that all our citizens did not follow this path at once."
A conservative Catholic who maintained the officer's personal code of honor, Melnyk was reluctant to assert dominance or to engage in a ruthless pursuit of power which disadvantaged him versus his younger and more violent rivals in the Bandera camp.
Many of Melnyk's close associates were killed by the Banderite
Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) between 1941 and 1944 and Bandera's movement came to dominate the Ukrainian nationalist political milieu in most of Western Ukraine.
Historical evidence on Melnyk's reaction to the
1943 Galicia-Volhynian Massacres, which for the most part involved OUN-B members while he and his faction were practically marginalised, is sparse and some historians argue that, together with former OUN-M émigrés generally seeking to play down this event in the post-war years once it attracted greater attention, this reflects tacit acceptance or ideological complicity.
A leaflet disseminated in 1944 by Melnykites among the civilians of Volhynia blamed the Banderite faction for the failure of the nationalist movement, condemning them for provoking the Nazi authorities, the "senseless and murderous violence towards the Polish civilian population", and "most of all" acts of violence against non-conforming Ukrainians by the OUN-B and the UPA.
In late 1943, and amid
Allied bombing raids, Melnyk moved with his wife to Vienna in an attempt to restore contact with OUN-M members in occupied Ukraine, though, following a brief trip to Berlin where he likely tried to re-establish connections with Nazi officials, he and his wife were arrested by the Gestapo in late January 1944 and taken back to the capital.
The following day, Melnyk was moved to a dacha in
Wannsee where he was frequently interrogated by Gestapo chief
Heinrich Müller and then moved on the turn of March to the alpine settlement of
Hirschegg where he was held as a ''
Sonderhaftling'' (special prisoner) at the Ifen Hotel.
Fellow political prisoner
André François-Poncet
André François-Poncet (13 June 1887 – 8 January 1978) was a French politician and diplomat whose post as ambassador to Germany allowed him to witness first-hand the rise to power of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party, and the Nazi regime's prep ...
, with whom he would attend the local church service on Sundays,
wrote of him in his diary:
"This Melnyk is a man of refined culture, very polite and well-mannered. His wife – a small brunette, with quick eyes, delicate facial features, and uses a lorgnette
A lorgnette () is a pair of glasses, spectacles with a handle, used to hold them in place, rather than fitting over the ears or nose. The word ''lorgnette'' is derived from the French ''lorgner'', to take a sidelong look at, and Middle French, f ...
. Both seem indignant at the deprivation of freedom they must endure. They might become pleasant companions in suffering."
"The colonel was always sad and taciturn. When we met him in the morning, he radiated great dignity and gentlemanliness. He was the first to greet me and ask about my health. And he never talked about himself. However, I remember that there were moments when Melnyk came out of his hiding place and became talkative. This happened when he remembered the liberation struggles of Ukraine."
In July 1944, Melnyk was moved first to Berlin where he was accused of holding political conversations with fellow arrested persons and trying to establish contact with the OUN-M in occupied-Ukraine.
Subsequently he was sent to
Sachsenhausen concentration camp
Sachsenhausen () or Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg was a German Nazi concentration camp in Oranienburg, Germany, used from 1936 until April 1945, shortly before the defeat of Nazi Germany in May later that year. It mainly held political prisoners t ...
, where Bandera was also being held and from whom he learnt of the death of
Oleh Olzhych, the acting head of the OUN-M, before the Ukrainian political leadership were taken to Berlin in October to engage in negotiations with the Nazi authorities, who at this point were suffering from manpower shortages, for political concessions pertaining to Ukrainian independence under the auspices of the
Ukrainian National Committee
The Ukrainian National Committee ( ) was a Ukrainian political structure created under the leadership of Pavlo Shandruk, on March 17 (or March 12), 1945 in Weimar, Nazi Germany, nearly two months before the German Instrument of Surrender, with the ...
.
Melnyk and his supporters however were dissatisfied with the progress and value of these negotiations and instead organised a meeting in Berlin in January 1945 whereupon it was decided that OUN-M members would meet the
Allied advance and seek to familiarise the
Western Allies
Western Allies was a political and geographic grouping among the Allied Powers of the Second World War. It primarily refers to the leading Anglo-American Allied powers, namely the United States and the United Kingdom, although the term has also be ...
with the Ukrainian independence movement.
Melnyk left for
Bad Kissingen
Bad Kissingen () is a German spa town in the Bavarian region of Lower Franconia and County town, seat of the Bad Kissingen (district), district Bad Kissingen. Situated to the south of the Rhön Mountains on the Franconian Saale, Franconia ...
in February, with the town occupied by American troops on April 7.
Petitioning the Allied military administration, Melnyk was able to secure the right of Ukrainians freed from the
concentration camps
A concentration camp is a prison or other facility used for the internment of political prisoners or politically targeted demographics, such as members of national or ethnic minority groups, on the grounds of national security, or for exploit ...
to be separated from Poles and Russians and allowed to display the
blue-and-yellow flag.
Post-WW2
After the war, Melnyk remained in the West and lived with his wife in
Clervaux
Clervaux (; or locally ; ) is a commune and town in northern Luxembourg, situated in the canton of the same name.
The town's arms, granted in 1896, show three blackbirds on a gold ground in the chief of a red shield, as a variation of the a ...
,
Luxembourg
Luxembourg, officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, is a landlocked country in Western Europe. It is bordered by Belgium to the west and north, Germany to the east, and France on the south. Its capital and most populous city, Luxembour ...
, having become aquainted with
Prince Félix when he was director of forests for the Lviv Metropol, as well as later living in
West Germany
West Germany was the common English name for the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) from its formation on 23 May 1949 until German reunification, its reunification with East Germany on 3 October 1990. It is sometimes known as the Bonn Republi ...
and
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...
.
Melnyk remained politically active, authoring several historical articles on the Ukrainian independence movement and was instrumental in the founding of the Ukrainian Coordinating Committee in 1946 and a new Ukrainian National Council in 1947.
In 1957, he proposed the idea of an 'umbrella' organisation to consolidate the fragmented landscape of Ukrainian diaspora organisations, something realised ten years later with the founding of the
World Congress of Free Ukrainians.
According to
CIA reports from 1952 and 1977, the less intellectual and "radically outmoded" Banderite émigré organisations struggled to build influence on the ground in the
Ukrainian SSR
The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, abbreviated as the Ukrainian SSR, UkrSSR, and also known as Soviet Ukraine or just Ukraine, was one of the Republics of the Soviet Union, constituent republics of the Soviet Union from 1922 until 1991. ...
whereas Melnykite organisations would go on to establish contacts with Ukrainian dissidents and publish dissident works such as the 1968 ''
Chornovil Papers'' and five volumes of ''
The Ukrainian Herald''.
Under Melnyk, the OUN-M distributed anonymous pamphlets as early as 1946 in west German Ukrainian displacement camps that sought to rewrite the history of the war into a nationalist propagandist narrative, exclusively victimising and lionising the organisation for the brutal repression many of its members endured and glossing over its complicity in war crimes and much of its collaboration with the Nazis.
Yuri Radchenko asserts that these efforts were instrumental in popularising myths surrounding the OUN-M in the diaspora and newly independent
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the List of European countries by area, second-largest country in Europe after Russia, which Russia–Ukraine border, borders it to the east and northeast. Ukraine also borders Belarus to the nor ...
and contested the assertion that 62 Melnykites, especially
Olena Teliha, were specifically executed at
Babyn Yar for resisting the Nazi occupation, with Orest Bilak in his memoirs testifying to an instance where he and his surrounding Melnykites would assume that members who disappeared without a trace were killed at Babyn Yar.
This scepticism is echoed by Per Anders Rudling who found the claim to be spurious and asserted that efforts to memorialise the killings that allegedly took place at Babyn Yar aimed to surpass and forget the over 100,000 estimated to have been killed there.
Letters between Melnyk and Bandera in the post-war years indicate that they had reconciled, with Bandera referring to Melnyk as 'Colonel' and head of the OUN's official governing body.
The exiled OUN leadership, including Melnyk, Bandera, and
Yaroslav Stetsko, attended a ceremony at Konovalets's grave in Rotterdam on May 27, 1958 to mark the 20th anniversary of his assassination.
Death
Melnyk died in
Cologne
Cologne ( ; ; ) is the largest city of the States of Germany, German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and the List of cities in Germany by population, fourth-most populous city of Germany with nearly 1.1 million inhabitants in the city pr ...
, West Germany, on November 1, 1964 at the age of 73, and was buried at Bonnevoie cemetery,
Luxembourg.
In late 2006, the Lviv city administration announced the future transfer of the tombs of Andriy Melnyk, Yevhen Konovalets, Stepan Bandera and other key leaders of the OUN and UPA to a new area of
Lychakivskiy Cemetery specifically dedicated to the Ukrainian national-liberation struggle.
However this was not implemented.
See also
*
History of Ukraine
*
Stepan Bandera
Stepan Andriyovych Bandera (, ; ; 1 January 1909 – 15 October 1959) was a Ukrainian far-right leader of the radical militant wing of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, the OUN-B.
Bandera was born in Austria-Hungary, in Galicia (Eas ...
Notes
References
External links
Andrii Melnyk biography in Encyclopaedia of Ukraine*"''The History we don't know. Or don't care to know?''"
сторія, якої не знаємо. Чи не хочемо знати?br>
available online
{{DEFAULTSORT:Melnyk, Andriy Atanasovych
1890 births
1964 deaths
Austro-Hungarian military personnel of World War I
Military personnel from Lviv Oblast
Politicians from Lviv Oblast
Military personnel of the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria
Sachsenhausen concentration camp survivors
Ukrainian Austro-Hungarians
Ukrainian collaborators with Nazi Germany
Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists members
Ukrainian people of World War I
Ukrainian refugees
Ukrainian Eastern Catholics
Ukrainian people imprisoned in Poland
Ukrainian People's Army officers
20th-century Ukrainian politicians