Is it true that Stepan Bandera is depicted in a well -known photo in Nazi form?

A picture of a group of German officers of the time of the Third Reich is popular on the network. Many sources argue that in the center of the photograph there is a Ukrainian politician Stepan Bandera. We checked if it was true.

Group photography (often with the signature of “Warfare with the Germans” by S. Bandera. The photo Bandera prohibited in Ukraine ”) in different years was distributed on Russian -language information sites (RT, Sputnik, "Moldavian Vedomosti", Sibnet.ru, "Picabu", "Poems.ru" , Fishki.net, Don’t Panic, V social networksas well as in a number of European sources, including Polish And Italian resources.

The military-political activity of the Ukrainian nationalist leader Stepan Bandera during the Second World War often becomes the subject of polemic and speculation. In September 1939, after the German attack on Poland, then a relatively ordinary participant in the organization of Ukrainian nationalists (OUN) Bandera was Freed From under the imprisonment in the Brest Fortress, which he was serving for organizing the murder of the Polish Minister of Internal Affairs Bronislav Perratsky. A few days later, the Germans transferred Brest to the Soviet troops, and Bandera himself had already returned to Lviv by that time, after which he went to Eastern Europe to establish the further activity of the OUN. The main area of ​​work of the organization has now been the struggle against the Soviet government, which at that time established control over the West of Ukraine.

By the beginning of 1940, a split was outlined in the OUN, since Bandera and his closest supporters considered the actions of the leadership insufficient and demanded to more actively prepare an uprising in the region. And although the OUN revolutionary wing led by Stepan Bandera (in April 1941, which proclaimed itself the only legitimate in the organization) supported the German offensive in June, it soon turned out that the goals of Bandera to create independent Ukraine did not suit the Germans at all. June 30 was read out "Act of the proclamation of the Ukrainian state", in response to which the German occupation authorities arrested the top of the OUN, sent Bandera first to Berlin under house arrest, and after the series interrogations - To the concentration camp of Zasenhausen. There, Bandera was until the fall of 1944, when the affairs of the Germans on the Eastern Front were significantly deteriorated and they needed the help of any possible opponents of the Soviet regime. However, the leadership of the SS did not manage to agree with the liberated Bandera - he still cherished the dream of a completely independent Ukraine and Refused Both from the idea of ​​future submission, and from temporary cooperation with ethnically Russian General Vlasov. In the spring of 1945, the information diverges about further activities of Bandera at large, but in no serious source it is alleged that he officially entered any German armed groups, and even more so received officers and state awards.

Who is depicted in the center of the photograph then? Before us is quite different outwardly on Stepan Bandera Reinhard Gelen, the Wehrmacht officer (since April 1945-Lieutenant General), who years later will become the founder of the Federal Intelligence Service of Germany. With Stepan Bandera, he is not connected by anything but theoretically possible acquaintance in connection with professional activities. But the photo dispersed on the network has nothing to do with the leader of the OUN. It was made in 1943 on the territory of modern Poland, and on the Bundesarchiv website all 35 people captured on it Name So.

The image on the cover: Bundesarchive.

Fake

What do our verdicts mean?

Read on the topic:

1. Mauerwald, FHO, Gruppenaufnahme