Stepan Bandera

**Stepan Andriyovych Bandera** (January 1, 1909 – October 15, 1959) was a Ukrainian nationalist who co-founded the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN).

## Background

Bandera joined the OUN in his twenties when western Ukraine was governed by Poland, while eastern Ukraine was ruled by the Soviet Union and going through the Holodomor, a man-made famine under Joseph Stalin that killed as many as 7,000,000.

## World War II

The 1936 assassination of Poland's Minister of Interior caused Bandera to be sentenced to life imprisonment. He was freed by the Soviets to live in Nazi-occupied Poland after the Nazi-Soviet partition of Poland in October 1939. Factional infighting within the OUN caused the formation of the OUN-B led by him. Before the Operation Barbarossa, Bandera raised the Ukrainian Auxiliary Police for Hitler. He tried to create a Ukrainian government in Nazi-occupied Soviet Ukraine, but was deported to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp.

Upon his release in September 1944, he negotiated the founding of the Ukrainian National Army (UNA) and Ukrainian National Committee (UNK) before the fall of Nazi Germany, but it had no impact on the post-war fate of the Ukrainians. Ukraine did not restore independence until 1991.

## Postwar

Bandera and his family were resettled in Munich, West Germany. The Soviet Union asked for Bandera and several Ukrainian nationalists to be handed over under the intra-Allied cooperation wartime agreement. However, the Americans refused to hand over him. They saw him as too valuable to give up due to his knowledge of the Soviet Union useful for the Cold War. In his final years, he also visited Ukrainian exile communities in the UK, Austria, Belgium, Holland, Italy, Spain and Canada.

## Death

Due to Bandera's commitment to Ukrainian liberation from Soviet imperialism, the Soviets had made several attempts on his life, which they ultimately succeeded on October 15, 1959, when Bandera died of cyanide gas poisoning on a street in Munich.

### Poles

During Bandera's detention in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, the OUN-B was involved in the Volhynia massacre, killing as many as 133,000 Poles, but his role is disputed. Today, the Volhynia massacre is a controversial issue, affecting Poland–Ukraine relations and broader European politics.

### Jews

Both Rossolinski-Liebe and German political scientist Andreas Umland believed that Bandera was not involved in the Holocaust:

Rossoliński-Liebe saw Bandera's antisemitic views as a product of his time. The view was shared by American historian Alexander John Motyl, who did not see Ukrainian nationalism as antisemitic as Nazism. Rather, the OUN-B saw the Poles and Russians as its main enemies.

### Russian imperialism

Bandera believed that Russian imperialism must be ended:

## Legacy

Since Bandera's death in 1959, he has been a highly divisive figure in both Europe and America, with his legacy under intense debate, complicated by geopolitics, including the EU–Ukraine relations, Polish WWII history dispute and Ukraino–Russian war, when Putin's dictatorship keeps equating Bandera with ordinary Ukrainians to demonize Ukraine and justify the invasion.

### Ukrainians

Since Ukraine restored independence in 1991, Stepan Bandera monuments have been built across western Ukraine, including the Stepan Bandera monument in Lviv. In December 2018, the Ukrainian Parliament declared January 1 as the national day of commemoration for Stepan Bandera.

#### 2020s

Since the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine started, Stepan Bandera has reportedly been rehabilitated in Ukraine as a national hero who sacrificed for the fight against Russian imperialism, with substantial popularity among young Ukrainians.

In April 2022, it is found that 74% Ukrainians had a favourable view of Stepan Bandera. On New Year's Day 2023, the Ukrainian Parliament tweeted a photo of Valeri Zaloujny, the then-Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, giving a thumbs-up to a Stepan Bandera portrait, with a caption encouraging Ukrainians to keep up the fight.

### Others

American historian Timothy D. Snyder said,

Meanwhile, German-Polish historian Grzegorz Rossoliński-Liebe said,

However, Czech political scientist Luboš Veselý criticized Rossoliński-Liebe's book on Stepan Bandera as a slander of Bandera and Ukrainian nationalism,

## Related pages

- Soviet persecution of Poles during World War II

## Infobox (officeholder)

- **name**: Stepan Bandera
- **native name lang**: uk
- **image**: SBandera.jpg
- **caption**: Stepan Bandera,  1934
- **office**: Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists–Banderite faction (OUN-B)
- **term start**: 10 February 1940
- **term end**: 15 October 1959
- **predecessor**: _Position established_
(Andriy Melnyk as leader of the OUN)
- **successor**: Stepan Lenkavskyi
- **birth place**: Staryi Uhryniv, Galicia, Austria-Hungary
- **death place**: Munich, Bavaria, West Germany
- **death cause**: Assassination by cyanide gas
- **nationality**: Ukrainian
- **children**: 3
- **father**: Andriy Bandera
- **alma mater**: Lviv Polytechnic
- **occupation**: Politician
- **battles**: World War II
- **awards**: Hero of Ukraine (annulled)
- **signature**: Stepan Bandera sign.svg
- **resting place**: Munich Waldfriedhof