About the Canadian Parliament honoring that Waffen-SS veteran ... (1 of 2)

The Speaker of the Canadian House of Commons, Anthony Rota, resigned after controversy erupted over his presenting a 98-year-old Ukrainian veteran of the Nazi Waffen-SS Speaker to Parliament to be celebrated with a standing ovation for his service fighting for the German occupiers of his country and against the Allies - of which Canada was one - during the Second World War.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called the event “deeply embarrassing,” and elaborates on it for 2 1/2 minutes.¹ He dumps the full blame on Rota, who is also part of Trudeau’s center-left Liberal Party.

Now-former Speaker Rota presented the Waffen-SS veteran, Yaroslav Hunka, as someone who "fought for Ukrainian independence against the Russians."

Even that part was false. Hunka's unit was the 14. Waffen-Grenadier-Division of the SS, also known as the Galician Division. It concentrated on massacring Poles, Jews, and Slovakians, although it was one of the units that took part in the 1944 Battle of Brody against the Soviet Red Army. Historian Per Anders Rudling writes:

There is no overt indication that the unit in any way was dedicated to Ukrainian statehood, let alone independence. The volunteers committed themselves to a German victory, the New European Order, and to Adolf Hitler personally. …

During the recruitment of the Waffen-SS Galizien, Volodymyr Kubijovyć, one of the initiators of the Waffen-SS Galizien publically called upon its volunteers to help ‘exterminate the Jewish-Bolshevik pestilence.’ …

The Waffen-SS was committed to anti-Semitic and genocidal policies. Speaking to the officers of the Waffen-SS Galizien on 16 May 1944, Heinrich Himmler shared with them his satisfaction with how the land had improved after ‘it lost, through our intervention, those inhabitants who often sullied the name of Galicia, namely the Jews.’ Regarding the Polish minority, Himmler joked with his Ukrainian Waffen-SS officers that ‘if I ordered the Division to exterminate the Poles in this or that area, I would be a very popular man.’² [my emphasis]

The Waffen-SS Galicia Division is still celebrated by the hard right in Canada, and not only by those in the Ukrainian "diaspora".³ The Ukrainian diaspora community in North America that formed among refugees from Ukraine when it was part of the Soviet Union tended, not surprisingly, to be anti-Communist. But anti-Communist has never been synonymous with pro-democracy.

A veteran diaspora historian recently took [Viktor] Yushchenko [Western-leaning Ukrainian President 2005-2010] to task for his failure to rehabilitate and include Ukrainian units in the service of Nazi Germany in his [Ukrainian nationalist] myth making efforts. The historian, who is also an activist in the Ukrainian Canadian Congress, believes that the Waffen-SS veterans deserve ‘no less respect’ than the soldiers of the Red Army. On Remembrance Day 2010, Paul Grod, President of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress, in the name of 1.2 million Ukrainian-Canadians, paid tribute to the veterans of the Waffen-SS Galizien, and remembered its fallen ‘who perished fighting for the freedom of their ancestral Ukrainian homeland.’ When the president of the Canadian society of veterans of the Waffen-SS Galizien passed away earlier that year, the UCC claimed ‘he will be remembered as a hero of Ukraine who fought for her independence.’⁴ [my emphasis]

This was far-right revisionist history, presenting the Waffen-SS Galicia Division as fighters for Ukrainian independence against the USSR. And it’s plainly bogus. The Waffen-SS was part of the SS, which was a Nazi Party organization. Joining the SS was voluntary and the volunteers knew they were joining a violent, murderous Nazi Party group. The Nuremberg Tribunal designated the SS (including the Waffen-SS) officially as a criminal organization.

Except for the last month of the war, the Division’s recruits were required to take this oath:

I swear before God this holy oath, that in the battle against Bolshevism, I will give absolute obedience to the commander in chief of the German Armed Forces Adolf Hitler, and as a brave soldier I will always be prepared to lay down my life for this oath. ⁵

Olesya Khromeychuk takes note of the propaganda cover story:

The fact that the Division, unlike a number of other Waffen SS formations, was formed with an agreement to fight exclusively on the Eastern Front, against the Red Army, is often used by the former “Galicians” and some historians to justify the view that the Division was intended purely as the basis for a regular Ukrainian army. In these terms, the fact that it existed as an element within the German Army is viewed as merely incidental.

The Forward describes the Division this way:

Formed in 1943, SS Galichina was composed of recruits from the Galicia region in western Ukraine. The unit was armed and trained by the Nazis and commanded by German officers. In 1944, the division was visited by SS head Heinrich Himmler, who spoke of the soldiers’ “willingness to slaughter Poles.” 

Three months earlier, SS Galichina subunits perpetrated what is known as the Huta Pieniacka massacre, burning 500 to 1,000 Polish villagers alive. …

After the war, thousands of SS Galichina veterans were allowed to resettle in the West, around 2,000 of them in Canada. By then, the unit was universally known as the First Ukrainian Division.⁶

The Waffen-SS was a military unit under the command of the SS and not part of the Wehrmacht, the regular German Army - which committed many war crimes itself⁷ but was never officially designated a criminal organization. There were individuals who were assigned from the Wehrmacht to the Waffen-SS who had not volunteered for the SS and so may not have technically Nazi Party members themselves. They were ”only“ soldiers who fought on the German side as part of a criminal Nazi Party organization.

So whether Yaroslav Hunka was or had been personally a dedicated Nazi Party member doesn‘t detract from the fact that the Canadian Parliament got pitifully suckered by some sleazy rightwingers into honoring someone for fighting against the Allies for a military unit of Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Party.

The Waffen-SS Galicia Division was set up specifically for Ukrainian volunteers. It was not made up of Germans or involuntary transfers from the Wehrmacht. Apparently there were some individuals who were later assigned to the division rather than volunteered for it.⁸ But the Galicia Division was primarily made up of willing volunteers for a Nazi Party SS military unit fighting for the German invaders.

Luke Savage notes that Hunka “ willingly joined a military unit that carried out war crimes and has continued to celebrate his membership in the SS into old age.”⁹

Hunka wasn’t the first veteran of this Waffen-SS Division to be officially honored by Canada:

Canada’s governor general apologized Tuesday afternoon for awarding one of the country’s highest honors to a Ukrainian immigrant who served in the same Nazi unit during World War II as the 98-year-old who was honored last month in the Canadian Parliament, an incident which sparked international outrage.

The statement from the governor general —  the representative of the British monarchy in Canada — concerned Peter Savaryn, who served as chancellor of the University of Alberta from 1982 to 1986 and in 1987 was appointed to the Order of Canada. The award is akin to the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom, and is considered the second-highest distinction for Canadians, topped only by the Order of Merit available to all citizens of the British Commonwealth. 

Responding to an inquiry from the Forward, the statement from Governor General Mary Simon expressed “deep regret” about Savaryn’s appointment. A spokesperson said the office is also now reviewing two other honors it gave Savaryn: the Golden Jubilee (awarded in 2002) and Diamond Jubilee (awarded in 2012) medals.¹⁰  [my emphasis]

In the second post, I’ll comment on a related embarrassment involving Canada’s Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, also of the Liberal Party.

The pseudonymous and apprently Canadian blogger Punditman has some worthwhile reflections on the Hunka incident in the context of Canada’s current Ukraine policy.¹¹

1. Prime Minister Trudeau apologises for parliamentary speaker publicly praising Nazi. The Telegraph YouTube channel 09/27/2023. (Accessed: 2023-05-10).

2. Rudling, Per Anders (2012): ‘They Defended Ukraine’: The 14.Waffen-Grenadier-Division der SS (Galizische Nr. 1) Revisited. Journal of Slavic Military Studies 25, 329–368.

3. Woolf, Marie (2023): Neo-Nazis, white nationalists go on pilgrimage to Galicia Waffen-SS memorial. The Globe and Mail 10/04/2023. <https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-neo-nazis-white-nationalists-go-on-pilgrimage-to-galicia-waffen-ss/> (Accessed: 2023-05-10).

4. Rudling, op. cit.

5. Ibid.

6. Zelenskyy joins Canadian Parliament’s ovation to 98-year-old veteran who fought with Nazis, Forward 09/24/2023. <https://forward.com/fast-forward/561927/zelenskyy-joins-canadian-parliaments-ovation-to-98-year-old-veteran-who-fought-with-nazis/> (Accessed: 2023-05-10).

7. Hamburger Institut für Sozialforschung (Hg.) (2002): Verbrechen der Wehrmacht.Dimensionen des Vernichtungskrieges 1941-1944. Hamburg: Hamburger Edition HIS Verlageses. mbH

Hartmann, Christian (2010): Wehrmacht im Ostkrieg. Front und militärisches Hinterland 1941/42 (2 Auflage) München: R. Oldenbourg Verlag.

Pohl, Dieter (2009): Die Herrschaft der Wehrmacht.Deutsche Militärbesatzung und einheimische Bevölkerung in der Sowjetunion 1941-1944. München: R. Oldenbourg Verlag.

8. Khromeychuk (2012): The Shaping of “Historical Truth”: Construction and Reconstruction of the Memory and Narrative of the Waffen SS “Galicia” Division. Canadian Slavonic Papers 54: 3-4, 446. “After the Battle of Brody (13–22 July 1944) the ‘Galicia’ was joined by a large number of recruits from other military formations. Most of those who joined the ‘Galicia’ before the Battle of Brody did so voluntarily.”

9. Savage, Luke (2023): Canada Must Reckon With Its History ofHarboring andCelebrating Nazi WarCriminals. Jacobin 10/06/2023. <https://jacobin.com/2023/10/canada-nazi-emigres-honor-yaroslav-hunka-memory> (Accessed: 2023-06-10).

10. Golinkin, Lev (2023): Canada apologizes for honoring another veteran from unit that fought with Nazis <https://forward.com/fast-forward/562864/canada-nazi-ss-galachina-peter-savaryn-yaroslav-hunka-mary-simon/> (Accessed: 2023-05-10).

11. Punditman (2023): A Closer Look at the Hunka Affair: Inconvenient Truths Past and Present. Punditman's Newsletter 10/05/2023. <https://punditman.substack.com/p/a-closer-look-at-the-hunka-affair> (Accessed: 2023-06-10).