After the Germans won the Battle of Kiev in September 1941, they completely occupied Ukraine! But what is strange is that there were quite a few Ukrainians who were "pro-Nazi" at that time! There were even people who regarded the German army as their own "liberators", and they took to the streets to welcome the arrival of the German army to celebrate the "liberation".
The Ukrainians welcomed the Germans
Guderian later recalled that when he led his troops into Ukraine, he said: "As soon as we entered Kiev, there was a local old lady who enthusiastically stuffed bread for me to eat, and she said that she would finish eating and then leave!" ”
Seeing this, the Germans helped Ukrainian "pro-Nazis" quickly set up a pro-German puppet government to help Nazi Germany join them in dealing with their homeland: the Soviet Union. Later, in the battle against the Soviet army and the guerrillas, the "puppet army" troops composed of Ukrainians were also very motivated, and they were all very desperate!
Ukrainian women "send flowers" to German soldiers
Originally "born from the same roots", when the enemy was present, why did some Ukrainians abandon the Soviet Union? There's actually a long history to say:
As early as the Time of the Kievan Rus' Kingdom, there was no classification of Russians and Ukrainians. It was not until 1219 and 1235 that the Mongols defeated the Kingdom of Rus on two western expeditions and established the Golden Horde. During the centuries of Mongol rule, three ethnic groups of Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians gradually emerged.
Mongol Army (Film)
Later, with the weakening of the Golden Horde, the Grand Duchy of Moscow began to rise. Later, after continuous expansion, the Grand Duchy of Moscow annexed the Republic of Pskov, the Principality of Tver and the Principality of Ryazan. In 1547, Ivan IV proclaimed himself "Tsar", and the Tsarist Russian Empire was officially born.
As the birthplace of the Rus' people, Ukraine has always been known as "Little Russia", and Ukrainians believe that if it were not for the invasion of the Mongol army, the center of the East Slavs should be in their Kiev, not later Moscow or St. Petersburg.
However, Ukraine has also been divided into east and west in history, with Russians in eastern Ukraine and Ukrainians mostly orthodox Ukrainians, so they have a great sense of identity with GreatEr Russia. Western Ukraine, on the other hand, has not been influenced by Russia and the Orthodox Church, which has always been close to Poland!
Thus, The Ukrainian language is also made up of a combination of Russian and Polish. Therefore, western Ukraine has historically had a great sense of rejection of the so-called Great Russian Empire and later the Soviet Union! This has also led to Ukraine being de facto divided for hundreds of years.
In 1654, in order to resist the expansion of Poland, the Ukrainian Cossack leader Khmelnytsky and the Tsar signed the Treaty of Pereyaslav, and eastern Ukraine was formally incorporated into Russia, thus beginning Russia's rule over Ukraine for more than 300 years.
But the Galicia region of western Ukraine was never ruled by Tsarist Russia. It was not until September 17, 1939, after the joint partition of Poland between the Soviet Union and Germany, that the Soviet Union incorporated the Galician region of Western Ukraine into the Soviet Union: the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic.
Soldiers of both sides took a group photo when the Soviets and Germans partitioned Poland
At this time, Ukraine is truly unified! Although there is something "special" about the uniform approach.
The "Great Famine" reduced the Ukrainians' sense of identification with the Soviet Union, and finally staged the farce of "welcoming the German army".
During the Tsarist era and the early Soviet Union, Ukraine's status in the Russian Empire was actually quite high! It joined the Soviet Union as a founding power at the time. However, after Stalin came to power, in order to speed up the industrialization of the Soviet army, he hoped to export a large amount of grain in exchange for foreign exchange.
As a result, Stalin increased the expropriation of Soviet agriculture. However, at that time, the Soviet government could not come up with too high a price to buy grain, so the grain procurement work has always been "difficult".
As the Soviet Union's grain-producing powerhouse, Stalin believed that the Kulakyo class in Ukraine was "deliberately sabotaging"! Therefore, despite the opposition of Bukharin and others, he began to force the Ukrainian peasants to sell grain at low prices through various means, and even directly confiscated the property of the rich peasants.
In those years, ukrainian farmers had too much grain to be "taken away"! This led to a severe "Great Famine" in Ukraine in 1932. Even more frightening, the Soviet government at the time did not allow Ukrainians to flee the wilderness in order to avoid the emptiness of the countryside.
The final horrific famine lasted for more than a year, ending in early 1934 with the improvement of the weather. This "great famine" eventually led to a sharp decline in the population of Ukraine, and according to some known data released by the Soviet Union, the death toll was at least in the million level!
There are even former Soviet scholars who estimate that the death toll could be as high as "7 million", a figure that is undoubtedly a rather frightening death toll for Ukraine and the Soviet Union as a whole. But it wasn't until after the collapse of the Soviet Union that the results of the 1937 census were declassified: the Great Famine did cause a massive decline in the population of the Soviet Union (Ukraine) at that time.
But no matter how many Ukrainians died in the Great Famine, the Ukrainians' sense of identification with the Soviet Union was definitely greatly reduced! Discontent began to spread in Ukraine. In the end, it led to the strange scene of some Ukrainians "welcoming" the German army in the early stages of World War II.
But how could poor Ukrainians think that the enemies of the enemy are not necessarily friends!
There are statistics that throughout World War II, about 400,000 Ukrainians volunteered to join the German army to help attack the Soviet Union! Moreover, they fought no less than the Germans, and fought even harder than the Germans when fighting the Soviets. However, this is, after all, a small group of Ukrainian defectors.
In fact, Ukraine in World War II was extremely complex: there were a large number of Ukrainians who joined the Soviet army against fascism, there were also Ukrainian "leading party" who joined the German camp, and there were also various armed organizations of completely different natures such as anti-Soviet, anti-German, anti-Polish "Ukrainian resistance" and so on.
Later, more and more Ukrainians gradually woke up: the Nazis were not their friends, they were even more terrible "predators"! Since then, the situation has changed dramatically, and the hearts of the Ukrainians who have already surrendered to the enemy have begun to shake.
On August 27, 1944, the Russians and Ukrainians of the 30th Grenadier Division of the Waffen SS successfully launched an uprising: they killed 200 German soldiers and all surrendered to the Soviets.
In December of the same year, Ukrainians and some Russians of the Waffen-SS 36th Grenadier Division began to desert on a large scale: countless people left and surrendered, and almost completely "scattered" the entire Grenadier Division. At the end of World War II, ukrainians who had "warmly welcomed the German army" managed to support two German division-level mutinies.
And the Ukrainian defectors who committed the most heinous crimes in the war, but still did not repent, were listed as traitors by the Soviet government after the war and were duly punished. But the historical ties and grudges between the Ukrainians and the former Soviet Union can only be left to future generations to give a fair evaluation.
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