Division S galicie

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Characteristics

Creation: April 28th, 1943
Effective maximum: 26.000 men (Ukrainian bodies under German command)
Distinguished: the lion of Galicie
Crosses of Iron obtained: 1

With the image of the 13 {{E}} division S of mountain Handschar and 21 {{E}} division S of mountain Skanderbeg, which have Imam S, Galicie division could integrate priests Ukrainian Uniates and Orthodoxes in its center.

Grounds of operations

From June 1943 in June 1944, the large one of division first of all follows a drive to the camp of Heidelager, to Poland/Prussia, then to Neuhammer, then it is sent on the Russian face with the Groupe of armies Center and takes part in the battles of Brody which causes the death of 3000 of its hommes.
At the beginning of October 1944, division is sent in Slovakia, in order to protect the line from the railroads around Žilina. At the side of the local guard, (Hlinkova kept), two groups of combat (called Kampfgruppen Wildener and Kampfguppen Wittenmeyer), formed starting from the first units of division arrived on the spot, start the engagements against the Slovak partisans , taken refuge in the mountains after the failure of the rising of August 29th, 1944 1. At the end of January 1945, it is moved in Slovenia to fight the partisans of Tito.
April 1st, she fights against the Red Army in the area with Graz in Austria until the end of the war.

Composition

Ukrainian volunteers coming from all the areas from Ukraine (Galicie, Ruthénie, Volhynie, Transcarpatie, area of Kiev) but the majority from the volunteers coming from the areas from Ukraine from the west.

Commanders

S Gruppenführer Walther Schimana (30.06.43 - 20.11.43)
S Brigadeführer Fritz Freitag (20.11.43 - 24.04.45)
General Pavlo Schandruk (24.04.45 - 08.05.45) (after fastening with UNA)

Ukrainians of division

Joseph Kotsilovski, chaplain military
Alfred Bizants, Chief of the intendance
Eugene Pobigouchiï, Sturmbannführer
Nicolas Palienko, Sturmbannführer
Dimitri Paliïv, Hauptsturmführer
Vladimir Kozak, Hauptsturmführer, only Ukrainian to have received the iron 1 cross classifies
Philippe Tratsch, Untersturmführer

Battle order

Waffen-Pomegranate-Regiment DER S 29 (galizisches NR. 1)
Waffen-Pomegranate-Regiment DER S 30 (galizisches NR. 2)
Waffen-Pomegranate-Regiment DER S 31 (galizisches NR. 3)
Waffen-Artillery-Regiment DER S 14
Waffen-Fusilier-Battalion 14
SS-Freiwiligen-Flak-Ableitung 14
Waffen-Nachrichten-Ableitung DER S 14
SS-Radfahr-Battalion 14
Waffen-Pioneer-Battalion DER S 14
Waffen-Panzerjager-Kompanie 14
SS-Sanitäts-Ableitung 14
SS-Veterinär-Kompanie 14
SS-Division-Nachschubtruppen 14
SS-Wirtschafts-Battalion 14
SS-Versorgungs-Kompanie 14
SS-Feldpostamt 14
SS-Kriegsberichten 14
SS-Feldersatz-Battalion 14

After the war

After the defeat of Brody, many combatants continue to fight against the Red Army within UPA, in the Carpates until the middle of the years 1950. The other members of division choose the exile with the Canada, where important communautée Ukrainian resides. In his report drawn up in 1986, the Canadian commission of research on the war criminals affirms that “their behavior of old Waffen S since they came in this country was good and they never indicated some way that it either which they had been infected by the ideology Nazi It seems that they had been voluntary to fight against the Red Army for nationalist reasons which knew a strong impulse caused the behavior of the Soviet authorities during the occupation of the Western part of the Ukraine after the signature of the pact Germano-Soviet”.

This conclusion of the Canadian report cannot refer to the aforesaid interventions of Division S Galicie in Slovenia and Slovakia within the framework of operations of fight against the local partisans (see above the section " Grounds of opérations"), for which divisions of Waffen S intervened in a systematic way. These actions of Division S Galicie against the resistant ones of other countries fighting on their national territories against the occupants Nazis cannot obviously be charged to " reasons nationalistes" Ukrainian.

The responsibility for Galicie division in the massacre for: 1000 inhabitants of the Polish village of Huta Pieniacka (Ukraine), on February 28th, 1944, is the subject of debates. This fact is disputed by certain Ukrainian sources. The Canadian board of inquiry into the war crimes, already quoted, affirms in his final report, in 1986, that the charges of war crimes committed by the 14th division S had never been prouvées.
The Polish institute of the memory estimates as for him, via an analysis published on November 18th, 2003 1, that it is many men of the 4th regiment of Galicie division who made the massacre, and this on the basis of documents exhumed in 1999, is after the Canadian investigation.

The controversy on this subject is always in hand.

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