Turning the pages back... October 20, 1962 (10/24/99)

Turning the pages back...

October 20, 1962

On October 20, 1962, The Ukrainian Weekly's front page carried news about the conviction of Bogdan Stashynsky, the Soviet assassin who murdered Ukrainian nationalist leaders Stepan Bandera and Lev Rebet.

Following are excerpts from that news report.

"KARLSRUHE, Germany, October 19, 1962 (By telephone). - The West German Supreme Court sentenced confessed Soviet assassin Bogdan N. Stashynsky yesterday to eight years of hard labor for the murders of Stepan Bandera and Dr. Lev Rebet in Munich on Kremlin orders.

"Chief Justice Dr. Heinrich Jagusch, in reading the sentence, said the real murderers were those who had planned and ordered the killings. He said the string-pullers, who are in Moscow, could not be apprehended at present. Dr. Jaguschi said it was 'depressing' that the Soviet government, despite its correct diplomatic relations with the Federal Republic, has issued orders for the murders on German territory. The chief justice said the award of a medal to Stashynsky after the murder of Bandera proved that Communist leaders view political murder as something honorable.

"Bogdan N. Stashynsky, 31, said he practiced firing the Russian-made murder instrument in his East Berlin apartment, using bathroom towels for targets, before he undertook the assassinations.

"Stashynsky admitted he fired the lethal atomizer into the faces of Rebet and Bandera. Dr. Rebet, a Ukrainian political writer and anti-communist, was found dead on the stairs of his newspaper office in Munich on October 12, 1957. Stepan Bandera, 50-year-old leader of the OUN (Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists), an anti-communist Ukrainian organization, was found dead in Munich on October 15, 1959. Stashynsky is also charged with spying on Western troops after he went to West Germany in 1956."

During the trial, Stashynsky spoke of his life in Ukraine. He was born on November 4, 1931, in the village of Borschiv, near Lviv, in western Ukraine, the son of a small farmer. He spoke of the occupation of that part Ukraine by the Poles, the Soviets and the Germans. The Weekly reported:

"He continually stressed that he remembered when the Germans were retreating from Ukraine, a struggle between them and the Ukrainians sprang up. The Ukrainians organized armed troops which lived in forests and marshes, supported by the population they continued to fight against the masters, the Russians. ... The struggle against the Russians increased then the Russians introduced collectivization in 1946-1947. The Ukrainian population resisted collectivization, and Ukrainian partisans applied reprisals against those who voluntarily went into collective farms (kolhosps). The collectivization, he said, was accompanied by deportations, punitive actions by the Russians and the arrest of young people.

"Stashynsky's younger sister was one of the main couriers for the Ukrainian underground, and the rest of the family were its ardent supporters, he testified. He himself espoused Communism, he said. The partisan units were named after their leaders, like Bandera or Melnyk, and they existed practically until 1954, he said."

"Stashynsky said an illegal railroad trip in 1950 caused him to become a Soviet spy and agent. He said he was caught taking the illegal trip, and was interrogated by a Captain Sidnikovsky of the KGB. Sidnikovsky gave him a choice of being sentenced to 25 years at hard labor and having his parents shipped off to Siberia, or working for the KGB, he said. He was hired to 'fight against American provocateurs' and to spy on his own fellow residents of the village. He was ordered to join the Ukrainian underground to find out who killed pro-Communist writer Yaroslav Halan with an axe.

"He was 19 years old when he was signed up as a spy and agent provocateur. Stashynsky further testified how he was trained in the use of the poison gun with which he was ordered by the KGB to kill Rebet and Bandera, who were described to him as 'enemies of the fatherland.' "

Source: "Stashynsky, self-confessed killer of Bandera and Rebet on orders from Moscow, convicted to 8 years of forced labor," The Ukrainian Weekly, October 20, 1962.

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