Will Jordan

Prof. Hoerle

5/11/2010

Nazi Germany

Research Paper

Nationalism: the Greatest Catalyst for Collaboration with the Nazis in Eastern Europe?

As Hitler waged war in Eastern Europe, a mutual relationship ensued between the Nazis and their

conquered Slavic subjects: in occupied territory such as Slovakia, the Ukraine and Croatia collaboration

was very persistent. In general, wartime collaboration was the product of a variety of factors, but in

Eastern Europe, integral nationalism, (that is nationalism for a primary country within a master nation),

was by far the biggest motivation. In Eastern Europe collaborationism was based on preset social and

political circumstances, which left nations such as Slovakia, Croatia and the Ukraine in “a subordinate

position throughout the prewar political and social systems.”(1) Nationalism and the suppression of ethnic

peoples were a means to elevate the economic, social and political autonomy of such occupied countries

in Eastern Europe. Collaboration in Slovakia, Croatia and the Ukraine was not based on an embracement

of National Socialism’s social and political ideology as it was in Western Europe; these people were not

diehard Nazis. To Slavic populations which fell under Hitler’s wehrmacht; the fact that Hitler repeatedly

dehumanized the Slavic people shows, initially, that such people were not compelled towards Nazi

collaboration for its racial and political ideology; for instance Hitler’s treatment of Ukrainians as serfs and

untermenschen. Despite the marginalization that Hitler inflicted on the Slavic people, it was his conquest

of the east which provided a opportunity “against the status quo which the moderate nationalists sought to

upset;” The overwhelming forces of Nazism gave a chance for such nationalist parties including the

Ustasa, the Slovak People’s Party and the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists to implement plans

against their political and social enemies.

As collaborationism presents itself in WWII history, it is evident that nationalism was far more

influential in Eastern Europe than in Western European nations, which supports the argument that Nazi

cooperation in the east was chiefly a motive to promote nationalism. Notably, Western European nations

like France, Norway and Denmark had sovereignty before Nazi occupation, whereas in Eastern Europe,

many Slavic nations were virtually nonexistent by being mere plebian nations to greater encompassing

powers. Such countries like Croatia, Slovakia and the Ukraine were not specifically invaded by the

Nazis; rather the Nazis occupied greater national entities which encompassed these countries (i.e. Hitler

invaded Yugoslavia which controlled Croatia, the USSR; an empire over the Ukraine and

Czechoslovakia, a master nation to Slovakia.) This is how the notion of nationalist uprising through

collaboration started: subordinate territories struggled to gain autonomy from greater ‘father’ nations, at a

moment when the Nazis had already dismantled any resistance from the incumbent governments thereof.

Contrary to the East, Western European countries did not have to fight for autonomy before the war

started; such countries were stripped of independence and nationalist pride once the Nazis assumed

control. The occupation of Western European, in Norway, Denmark and France; the collaboration which

ensued in such nations represents also a negation of each country’s inherent nationalism; as western

European nations were no longer independent countries, nationalism served Nazi resistance proponents

exclusively. In the East, the occupation period indicated a chance for independence-- however minimal

under the Nazi war machine; the Nazis were not the prime enemies for nationalist groups; each occupied

territory had its own archenemy who controlled the master nation: for Ukraine: it was Joseph Stalin of the

USSR, for Slovakia: Edvard Benes of the Czech National Party and Croatia, Josip Tito of the communist

party of Yugoslavia.

Firstly, Croatia’s role in serving the Nazi cause was the product of a nationalist ambition that

originated in 1928. Ante Pavelic served as commandant over the collaborationist regime, the Ustasa, a

radical political group known for terrorism during the 1920s and 1930s. Pavelic contributed to the Nazi

occupation in Yugoslavia by persecuting hundreds of thousands of ethnic minorities; namely Jews, Serbs

and gypsies—although Bosnian Muslims were overlooked as John Armstrong explains in his work,

‘Collaboration in World War II: the Integral Nationalist Variant in Eastern Europe, because of their

history of being “former Croats” before converting to “Islam when the Ottoman Empire controlled the

Balkans in the 13th century.”(2) The Ustasa was a racist nationalist party, their ideology was oppressive

to many different ethnic groups; for people of direct Croatian descent, they considered with solidarity yet

for gypsies, Jews and Serbs they regarded with utmost scorn. The eradication of such ethnic groups was

integral to the Ustasa’s nationalist agenda; particularly, they sought strongly against the Serbs, who were

of Orthodox Christian dissent--Pavelic treated them as “culturally inferior” and as a “threat to the Ustasa

ideology.”(3) In addition to the pursuit of national sovereignty and territorial expansion, the execution

and exile of hundreds of thousands of ethnic minorities was a product of Croatia’s nationalist drive

throughout WWII.

Nationalism in Croatia was an important but distinct factor in collaboration with the Nazis. It

shows how despite being a Slavic nation, it too, contributed to Nazism in exchange for a chance to pursue

national autonomy. The fact that the Ustasa regime was a revolutionary group, having a reputation for

terrorism and violence since 1928, shows how it was driven through violent nationalism far before the

Nazis invaded Croatia, or had even gained power in the Reichstag. Since its conception the Ustasa was

founded on an ambition to vie for a greater all-Croat society; Josip Frank, a 19 th century Croatian lawyer

and politician, was an influential patriarch for the Ustasa; who, in his career, adamantly struggled for

“Croatian independence within the Austria-Hungarian Empire.” (4) The Ustasa, considering Frank’s

nationalist sentiment drew a distinction between its constituency and their political and social enemies;

namely Serbians, gypsies and Jews in addition to Marxists, Capitalists and Democrats.

As one can see from Josip Frank’s lifework and influence, nationalist sentiment in Croatia

originated far before Nazism began. Croatian nationalism had its own influences—separate to the Nazi

ideology; in the inter war period between WWI and WWII, the moderate Croat leader, Vladko Macek

even related how “the Italian Military Mission in Croatia in 1919 helped him transmit an anti-Serbian

petition to the Paris peace Conference;” even “Macedonian and Albanian conspiratorial group seem to

have provided more important models” (5) than the Nazi party. Croatia’s brand of extreme nationalism

up until WWII was largely based on alienating the Serbs, and expanding territory; there were racist

principles but mainly on an ethnic platform. Croatian nationalists had their own politics; they did not

cooperate with the Nazis solely on the basis of support for Hitler’s racist ‘New Order,’ but to serve

Croatia’s sovereignty; autonomy, the expansion of territory and the exile and execution of ethnic

minorities. Hitler, knowing that using a nationalist dictator was problematic accepted Pavelic not merely

for his racist cooperation but because he had no other alternative once the Ustasa proclaimed its control in

1941.

The Nazi ideology was not the centerpiece to Croatia’s collaboration; partly because there were

many differences between the Ustasa and Nazi ideology. An appeal through Croatia’s racial and religious

identity created the basis for the Ustasa’s ideology. This made adherence to the Ustasa cause, in part

religious as well as nationalist. Racial differences once exploited by Adolf Hitler; such as the labeling of

Slavic people as untermenschen created discord between the Croat nationalists and the Nazi occupiers.

Hitler’s bigotry was widely known amongst the Ustasa and as Armstrong notes: only when “the SS was

short on troops was it willing to accept Croats into service.”(6) To create grounds for uniformity to

Hitler’s racist order, Ante Pavelic strongly asserted that Croatians were a distinct “Gothic” people.

Pavelic also stressed a great deal on Croatia’s Catholic identity, the Ustasa used this as a major point of

contention between the Croatians and the Serbs; the latter of whom were devotees of the Orthodox

Church. Catholicism served not only as a cultural symbol but a fundamental point to the Ustasa ideology,

contrary to the Nazi’s “thoroughgoing rejection of religion.” (7) In the Ustasa Easter 1941 proclamation

—the moment which the regime announced its semi-autonomous control—demonstrates how the regime

was motivated towards religion, as John Armstrong’s article details:

“By god’s providence and the will of our great ally as well as the

centuries old struggle of the Croatian people and the great readiness to

sacrifice of our leader Ante Pavelic. Today before the resurrection of the

Son of God, our independent state of Croatia also arises.”

The political nature of Ustasa was not only nationalist but religious as well. Even members of the

Croatian clergy participated in much of the slaughter against ethnic minorities; being motivated to fight

for Croatia’s sovereignty: one Franciscan even wrote of his participation in the Holocaust stating, “I am

perfectly aware of what is in store for me. For my past, present and future deeds I shall burn in hell, but at

least I shall burn for Croatia.”(8) In Croatia, Catholicism was all important to the persistence of

nationalism and the suppression of ethnic minorities. As Armstrong points out, in Croatia religious belief

was the “dividing line between nations, the religious struggle was the national struggle.” (9)

With respect to the Ustasa’s persecution of ethnic minorities, such people were mutual enemies

between the Nazis and Croatian nationalists. Hitler saw Pavelic’s control over the country as a means to

weed out the same undesirables and political dissidents that plagued the Third Reich. Even through

Croatia had a strong Slavic origin, Pavelic made the assertion, by overlooking historical and linguistic

evidence that the Croats were of “Gothic origin.” (10) Although they were not complete Aryans, such a

conviction would at least gain them a modicum of racial solidarity with the Nazis. In a sense this partially

justified their support of genocide by putting the Croats on the same side of the European racial barrier.

The Ustasa firmly made a distinction between themselves as Croats and the Serb, the gypsy and the Jew;

all of which hundreds of thousands perished in Croatia’s Jasenovac concentration camp. Other political

groups such as liberals, communists, democrats and freemasons, the Ustasa treated as “subversive of the

national ideal.”(11) Like the Nazis, the Ustasa despised political groups that, by coincidence, were

representative of the Weimar republic. When Josip Tito’s pro-Soviet communist reign in Yugoslavia

became a threat to the Ustasa, Pavelic soon regarded communists as political adversaries. Like Gorings’

initiative to repress communists after the Reichstag fire, the Ustasa as well began to persecute Marxists as

“Bolshevik traitors” (11) after its conception in 1941. As a regime fighting both ethnic and political

influences, the Ustasa began to repress communists; in part, out of acquiescence towards the Nazi

occupation and secondly, to gain autonomy and distance itself from its master communist nation,

Yugoslavia.

Again we see in other eastern European countries like Slovakia, that Nazi collaboration was

chiefly based on the nationalist sentiment of the Slovak People’s Party led by Voljtech Tuka; who used

the Hlinka Guard, a right wing paramilitary group, to accommodate the Nazis in the Holocaust; as

Yeshayahu Jelinek writes in Storm-Troopers in Slovakia: the Rodobrana and the Hlinka Guard:

“They {Hlinka Guard} excelled in manhandling Jews, as a

border guard in charge of confiscating the property of emigrants, in

terrorizing individuals and entire organizations, and in other tasks of a

similar nature. They were useful for mobilizing public demonstrations

and suppressing the unwanted kind. The radicals saw in the troops a

handy lever for a possible coup d’etat…By a government order of 29,

October 1938, the guard was proclaimed the only legal gymnastic and

pre-military organization in the country. All other organizations were

required to hand their property over to the Guard which was also made

responsible for pre-military training of the Slovak youth…In Vienna, and

later in the old Reich as well, several Slovak agents of the Nazis

organized a Hlinka Guard Abroad.” (12)

Slovakia during 1940-1945 became a state ruled by a collaborationist regime which endorsed the

founding principles of Andrei Hlinka, a bigoted nationalist and Catholic priest; founder of the Slovak

People’s Party in 1918 after the proclamation of the Czechoslovak republic. Hlinka died in 1938, shortly

before the party became collaborationist during WWII; Hlinka spoke with great spite against the

government in Prague, aiming to gain autonomy for Slovakia from Czechoslovakia by refuting “the

Pittsburg Agreement of 1919” (13) (an agreement between American Czechs and Slovaks to create

Czechoslovakia after WWI). In some cases Hlinka was “outspokenly hostile;” he accused the government

of “attempting to deprive the Slovak people of their nationality, faith, and individuality;” of “breaking its

promises of economic and social oppression.” (14) Hlinka’s legacy, although he never lived to witness,

would manifest in World War Two when Prime Minister Josip Tiso and deputy Vojtech Tuka,

commandant of the Hlinka Guard joined the Nazi cause in 1939; the Hlinka Guard not only helped topple

the Czechoslovak government but also helped spread Nazi-propaganda; the Nazis owed much to the

Slovak radicals of the Hlinka Party; who “gave them the pretext for interfering in the internal affairs of

the Second republic {post occupation Czechoslovakia}.” (15) Such radicals were supportive of Hitler’s

push into the Sudentenland and Czechoslovakia itself.

Voltech Tuka was the real leader in driving Slovakia’s nationalist agenda through WWII. Tuka’s

career as a politician in the Slovak People’s Party is filled with violence and conspiracies against the

Czechoslovak government in Prague. In the 1930s he even corresponded with Ante Pavelic to follow and

possibly adopted the Ustasa’s terrorist methods. After Hitler’s 1924 beer hall Putsch, Tuka was inspired

to commit his own coup against the Czechoslovak government; for a militia he formed the Rodobrana in

1923, a right wing paramilitary organization—forerunner to the Hlinka Guard; their uniform wore all

“black shirts with doubled armed silver crosses on the sides.” (16) Their existence marked the beginning

of Slovak fascism; albeit when the Prague government curbed its operation in 1927, the Slovak People’s

Party would not have a paramilitary unit until the formation of the Hlinka Guard in 1938. To

accommodate his nationalist agenda against Czechoslovakia, Tuka sought to form a contingent of troops;

in doing so he needed money, weapons and training. He called out to “British soldiers of fortune, polish

authorities, the Italin Fascio all’ Estero, Hungarian irredentists, Croatian Ustashists, White Russians,

Macedonian terrorized;” (17) as mercenaries these were potential members of Tuka’s military effort

against the Czechoslovak government.

Nationalist as well as religious and racist principles were a part of the Hlinka ideology, although

it is unclear where the People’s Party exactly stood throughout its entire progression. Initially the party

was, “nationalist, religious, anti-Socialist and anti-Czech” (18) but in the late twenties it became

extremely right wing. When fascism succeeded in Italy, the Rodobrana was labeled a fascist regime

because it “made efforts to demonstrate its affinity with Mussolini’s Italy.” (19) The party by the late

1920s was a mix of fascist and religious jingoism; yet it did not develop formal relations with the Nazis

until the mid 1930s. Once the Rodobrana was compromised after its disbandment by the Czechoslovak

government in 1927 its veteran administration changed to younger intellectuals who adopted a stance that

was “anti-Bolshevik and anti-Semitic.”(20) The Slovak People’s Party was then split between three

groups: the “Rodobrana, the Natsupists, and the Polonophiles”; these organizations all constituted the

radical wing of the Hlinka Party; it was they who “created and developed its {Slovakia} links with Nazi

Germany.”(21) This relation was a far stretch from the founding principles of Andei Hlinka, which

entailed the “encyclicals of Popes Leo XIII and Pius X” (22) as the basis of its social policy.

Complete acquiescence to the Nazi war effort came once the Slovaks People’s Party officially

adopted like policies to Hitler’s order. As Jelinek details, these policies included the “establishment, with

SS assistance, of an elite storm-troop unit, the attendance of thirty Guards at an SS officer’s school in the

Reich, and above all promulgation of the so-called ‘Jewish Code.’” (23) The formation of the latter policy

indicates the official racist collaboration between Slovakia and Nazi Germany; the Jewish Code

established on “9 September 1941 defined a Jew on racial grounds for the first time in Slovak history.”

(24) Interestingly enough, as a religious state that emphasized on Christian fellowship, there was only

“modest clerical opposition” (25) to the persecution of Jews. The clergy of Slovakia had nothing to gain

from helping them. As the Hlinka Guard sought to oppress Jews, the Tuka government gained from

sacrificing about 57,000 Jews; their assets were seized most likely for the funding of the Hlinka Guard.

They profited from deportation as well.

In Slovakia, the Hlinka regime did not strongly emphasize on biological or racial aspects in their

agenda, although they did contribute to the Holocaust. The party was split on the issue of anti-Semitism

once Tuka’s consolidation of power began in 1940. Racism was an ambiguous motive for the Slovaks;

nevertheless, it did occur when the Slovak Jewish community was deported to Auschwitz. As a nationalist

organization the Slovak People’s Party, was more focused on nationalism than ethnic dissatisfaction. In

fact, Slovakia seemed to have conjured up all “moral limitations” when dealing with minorities as

opposed to the Croats who even “appalled” (26) the Nazis themselves in their endeavor to carry out mass

murder against ethnic people. Collaboration between the Slovaks and the Nazis was based on the

denouncement of Czechoslovakia and the prospect of Slovakian national sovereignty through the

leadership of a ‘Catholic’ priest; the Hlinka regime was for the most part, intent on seceding from the

influence of Prague and ending the sad state of Slovakia being a ‘plebian nation.’

In face of the Nazi wehrmacht, the nationalist effort in Slovakia was opportunistic; being based

on wartime circumstances rather than unbending principles. In relation to the Soviet communists, the

Slovak Peoples Party had maintained relations with the USSR during the Nazi-Soviet pact. This

demonstrates how like, other Slavic nationalist groups, the Slovaks were not entirely acquiescent to the

Nazi cause. Their willingness to establish diplomacy with the USSR demonstrates opportunism; they

played a double game with the communists to ensure that they would not be completely left out of

alignment with the Soviets in case of Hitler’s defeat. This motive resulted quite nicely for the Slovaks

once the Red Army advanced into Slovakia. The Soviet war effort in Slovakia pales in comparison to that

of Croatia, where “50,000 Croat soldiers died” (27) once the Red Army occupied Yugoslavia.

Nationalism was by far the greatest reason behind collaborationism in Eastern Europe. In the

Ukraine, the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) led under Stepan Bandera is a perfect

example of how nationalism was the ultimate driving force for cooperation with Hitler. The underlying

fascist drive of Ukrainian nationalism is something that trumped all other cultural values: “The cause of

the nation was held as sacred, and elevated above religion and moral scruples.” (28) The OUN under

Bandera envisaged an independent Ukraine free from the bonds of the “1654 treaty of Pereyaslav.” So

extreme was the brand of Ukrainian Nationalism espoused by the OUN that its leader Bandera, since his

years as a young revolutionary followed the so-called Decalogue, a “quasi fascist listing” of the following

principles. As David R. Marples writes in his article Stepan Bandera: The Resurrection of a Ukrainian

National Hero this ten precept code was a radical nationalist program:

“You will attain a Ukrainian state or die in battle for it”

“You will not permit anyone to defame the glory or honor of

your nation”

“Remember the Great Days of our struggles”

“Be proud that you are the inheritor of the struggle for

Volodymyr’s trident”

“Avenge the deaths of the Great Knights”

“Do not speak about matters with anyone; only those with whom

it is essential”

“Do not hesitate to undertake the most dangerous deeds, should

this be demanded by the good of the Cause.”

“Treat the enemies of your nation with hatred and ruthlessness”

“Neither pleading, nor threats no torture nor death shall compel

you to betray a secret”

“Aspire to expand the strength, riches, and size of the Ukrainian

state even by means of enslaving foreigners” (29)

Stepan Bandera’s earlier followings demonstrate Ukrainian nationalism as it ultimately pertained

to the Nazi years. Bandera was known as a Ukrainian war hero for his involvement in fighting off the

Soviet expansion of the Ukraine. He was known also for assassinations; one at the Soviet embassy of A.

Mailov, a KGB agent. On June 1934, the OUN assassinated the Polish Minister of the Interior Bronislaw

Pieracki. After this turn of events Bandera was arrested in Poland for spreading OUN propaganda and

was implicated in the murder of the Polish Minister of the Interior. Subsequently he was sent to prison to

await a death sentence; once the Poles agreed not to make a Ukrainian martyr out of him, Bandera’s

sentence was reduced to life imprisonment. His eventual capture and trial gave him widespread

recognition as a Ukrainian national hero. However, his stay in jail was interrupted by Operation

Barbarossa. After Bandera broke out of his polish jail during the Nazi invasion, the period in Ukrainian

nationalism was dominated by a rift in the OUN that followed the assassination of leader Evhen

Konvalets in 1938 at the hands of a soviet agent in Rotterdam. As Marples explains: “Most sources depict

the quarrel as one that developed on generational lines.” The younger members of the party sided with

Bandera (OUN-B) once the designated leader Andrii Melynk (OUN-M) failed to gain the support of the

more radical youth members who “gradually broke away into a separate faction under Bandera.” (30)

On Feb 10 1940 Bandera was elected leader of the new revolutionary wing (OUN-B) of the OUN

at a meeting in Krakow. He based his organization on strict principles similar to the Nazi ideology; “self

sacrifice for the goals of the nation,” and a “Fuhrerprinzip, modeled loosely on Fascist Italy and Nazi

Germany.”(31) The OUN strategy was to the drive out Stalin’s authority over the Ukraine; in so it was

not fixed around any racist doctrinaire thinking. However, some historians today argue that Bandera was

anti-Semitic when he allegedly said that “exterminating the Jews was part of a general goal of bringing

down Bolshevik Moscow and its reputed agents.” (32) Anti-Semitic or not, it is indisputable that

Bandera’s organization embraced the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union; he regarded Nazi Germany as

the “likely catalyst for change in Europe” (33) and sought cooperation with the German authorities;

particularly “the Abwehr” a (German military intelligence organization) and the German Army. As an

accommodation to Bandera’s anti-soviet cause the Germans assembled two Ukrainian military units,

“Roland and Nachtigal.” (34) According to Marples these units were “intended solely for the struggle

against the USSR and were never an integral part of the German Army.” (35) This shows how the Nazis

took advantage of the Ukrainian nationalist movement only to defeat their mutual enemy.

To elaborate how nationalism served the Nazi occupation, historian VP Troshchyns’kyi maintains

that the “Ukrainian bourgeois nationalist formations’ {OUN-B} were collaborators with the German

fascists during the Second World War” (36) and he also notes that when the “OUN-B issued its assembly

of a Ukrainian state,” it also proclaimed that it would be linked with “National Socialist Great Germany,”

which under the leadership of Adolf Hitler would create a “New order for Europe and the world.” (37)

Bandera created Ukrainian armed forces that would supplement the German army and “go immediately

into battle.” Stanislav Kul’chyts’kyi, a pivotal figure in the revised history of the Ukraine notes that

between “September 1939 and June 1941, the nationalists were ipso facto allies of the Germans.” (38)

The reasons for collaboration were entirely nationalist; Marples explains that both groups of the OUN

believed that the Germans would “support an independent Ukraine, and after the destruction of the USSR

there would be a union between Germany and the enemies of Russia.” (39) Bandera, unsuspecting that

Hitler would renege on any act to create an independent Ukraine, followed the pursuit of collaboration

without scruples.

Relations between the OUN and the Nazis were such that even the ideology of National

Socialism was similar to Ukrainian nationalism. Knowing of their great scorn for the USSR German

special services deployed the OUN for ideological purposes. Marple’s work relates how “Ukrainians took

part in preparatory work in instruction centers of the Abwehr in specially created police schools;” (40) in

which the schultzmannshaft was formed: an ‘auxiliary police battalion’ the Nazis used to quell the rise of

Nazi resistance. OUN organizations were also built in occupied territory in Krackow, Poland. The

Ukrainian nationalists of the Nazi battalions Roland and Nactigal even participated in fighting along

German lines. On 22 June Captain E. Stolz of the Abwehr, ordered “Bandera (OUN-B) and Melnyk

(OUN-M) to carry out actions in the rear of the German army.”(41) Bandera led his troops in Galicia in

the south and Volhynia, on the polish border; where a large number of Poles were killed by Ukrainian

troops. On 3 July, the OUN announced that the Ukrainian state was “a part of the New European order”,

as Marples writes: it was a defining moment in collaboration as the Ukraine became “subordinate to the

great Fuehrer of the German Army and the German people.” (42)

Once the OUN fully acquiesced to Hitler’s war effort, Bandera thought that Hitler would offer

them the chance for an independent Ukraine. Collaboration, in the hope of attaining nationalism, proved

ineffective once Hitler refused to agree to the formation of an independent Ukraine. When Bandera

protested he was sent to a concentration camp, initially under moderately “benign conditions.”

Nationalism in the Ukraine failed once the relations between the OUN-B and the Nazis turned ugly. By

August 5, 1943 in the Ukraine the wehrmacht ordered the “arrest of the members of the OUN-B group

and the two battalions—Roland and Nachtigal--were disbanded.”(43) This purge was followed by mass

“arrests and executions of OUN-B members.” Himmler and the Gestapo ordered the disbandment of the

group on the “grounds that it was preparing an uprising against the Reichskommissaraiat in Ukraine.”

(44) Bandera was ordered to remain captive in the “Sachsenhausen Camp north of Berlin” and kept in

isolation. Notwithstanding, the Nazis had some use for his nationalist cause in the future once the Red

Army defeated the wehrmacht at Stalingrad and Kursk. Bandera was released in December 1944, after 20

months in prison, when the Germans once again “reconsidered the idea of cooperating with Ukrainian

Nationalist forces.” (45)

Obviously, such relations reveal how nationalism was the overarching theme to collaboration.

The relation between the Nazis and nationalist parties in Croatia, Slovakia and the Ukraine was above all

an incentive for the attainment of national sovereignty. How this would play out under Hitler’s new

‘thousand year Reich’ no one will ever know for sure; but one can suggest that Hitler would not have had

much tolerance for national autonomy within the Third Reich. Blind towards the underlying efforts of the

Nazi regime, nationalist parties adhered to Hitler’s war effort in the hope of raising their country out of

the subordination of being second to a master nation. It was the dislike of being a mere territory within an

encompassing nation that fueled collaboration, not necessarily ethnic dissatisfaction or ideological

affinity towards Hitler’s racialist principles. Nationalism by far was the greatest catalyst for collaboration

with the Nazis in Eastern Europe. The nationalist plight of the Ustasa, the Slovak People’s Party and the

Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists during WWII corroborates this assertion.

1. John A. Armstrong, ‘Collaborationism in World War II: The Integral Nationalist Variant

in Eastern Europe,’ The Journal of Modern History, Vol. 40, No. 3 (968), p. 396

2. Armstrong, ‘Collaboration in World War II,’ the Journal of Modern History, p.3973. Armstrong, ‘Collaboration in World War II,’ the Journal of Modern History, p.3984. Armstrong, ‘Collaboration in World War II,’ the Journal of Modern History, p.3995. Armstrong, ‘Collaboration in World War II,’ the Journal of Modern History, p.4056. Armstrong, ‘Collaboration in World War II,’ the Journal of Modern History, p.4027. Armstrong, ‘Collaboration in World War II,’ the Journal of Modern History, p.3968. Armstrong, ‘Collaboration in World War II,’ the Journal of Modern History, p.4139. Armstrong, ‘Collaboration in World War II,’ the Journal of Modern History, p.41210. Armstrong, ‘Collaboration in World War II,’ the Journal of Modern History, p.39911. Armstrong, ‘Collaboration in World War II,’ the Journal of Modern History, p.41112. Yeshayahu Jelinek, ‘Storm-Troopers in Slovakia: The Rodobrana and the Hlinka Guard,’ Journal

of Contemporary History, Vol. 6, No. 3 (1971), p. 10013. Jelinek, Storm-Troopers in Slovakia, Journal of Contemporary History, 9814. Jelinek, Storm-Troopers in Slovakia, Journal of Contemporary History, 10115. Jelinek, Storm-Troopers in Slovakia, Journal of Contemporary History, 10316. Jelinek, Storm-Troopers in Slovakia, Journal of Contemporary History, 10517. Jelinek, Storm-Troopers in Slovakia, Journal of Contemporary History, 10518. Jelinek, Storm-Troopers in Slovakia, Journal of Contemporary History, 10619. Jelinek, Storm-Troopers in Slovakia, Journal of Contemporary History, 107

20. Jelinek, Storm-Troopers in Slovakia, Journal of Contemporary History, 10821. Jelinek, Storm-Troopers in Slovakia, Journal of Contemporary History, 11022. Jelinek, Storm-Troopers in Slovakia, Journal of Contemporary History, 11223. Jelinek, Storm-Troopers in Slovakia, Journal of Contemporary History, 11124. Jelinek, Storm-Troopers in Slovakia, Journal of Contemporary History, 11325. Jelinek, Storm-Troopers in Slovakia, Journal of Contemporary History, 11326. Jelinek, Storm-Troopers in Slovakia, Journal of Contemporary History, 10827. Jelinek, Storm-Troopers in Slovakia, Journal of Contemporary History, 11528. David R. Marples, ‘Stepan Bandera: The Resurrection of a Ukrainian National Hero,’ Europe-

Asia Studies, Vol. 58, No. 4 (Jun., 2006), pp. 555

29. Marples, ‘Stepan Bandera,’ Europe-Asia Studies, p.55630. Marples, ‘Stepan Bandera,’ Europe-Asia Studies, p.55631. Marples, ‘Stepan Bandera,’ Europe-Asia Studies, p.55832. Marples, ‘Stepan Bandera,’ Europe-Asia Studies, p.55733. Marples, ‘Stepan Bandera,’ Europe-Asia Studies, p.55934. Marples, ‘Stepan Bandera,’ Europe-Asia Studies, p.56035. Marples, ‘Stepan Bandera,’ Europe-Asia Studies, p.56236. Marples, ‘Stepan Bandera,’ Europe-Asia Studies, p.56337. Marples, ‘Stepan Bandera,’ Europe-Asia Studies, p.56438. Marples, ‘Stepan Bandera,’ Europe-Asia Studies, p.55939. Marples, ‘Stepan Bandera,’ Europe-Asia Studies, p.56040. Marples, ‘Stepan Bandera,’ Europe-Asia Studies, p.56141. Marples, ‘Stepan Bandera,’ Europe-Asia Studies, p.56242. Marples, ‘Stepan Bandera,’ Europe-Asia Studies, p.56343. Marples, ‘Stepan Bandera,’ Europe-Asia Studies, p.56444. Marples, ‘Stepan Bandera,’ Europe-Asia Studies, p.56445. Marples, ‘Stepan Bandera,’ Europe-Asia Studies, p.564

Armstrong 396-415 marples 555-566