FACES AND PLACES: Hitler's traitor, Stalin's spy (07/09/00)

FACES AND PLACES

by Myron B. Kuropas

Hitler's traitor, Stalin's spy

One of the enigmas of World War II is the abhorrent and ultimately self-destructive behavior of the Germans during their occupation of Ukraine. Some historians believe that, had Hiltler's approach in Ukraine been more acquiescent, Stalin might have been defeated. Ukrainians had initially welcomed Hitler's army as liberators. Ukraine was also a wealthy storehouse of food and raw materials, supplies coveted by the Germans.

Was Nazi behavior the result of ignorance? Hardly. The German high command had been in contact with Ukrainian separatists since 1921, writes Alexander Dallin in his book "German Rule in Russia: 1941-1945, German contacts with Hetman Pavlo Skoropadsky following the first world war, the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) during Col. Yevhen Konovalets' time and later with Col. Andrii Melnyk's OUN (M) and Stefan Bandera's OUN(B) were ongoing generally positive.

The architect of the pro-Ukrainian school of thought within the Nazi high command was Alfred Rosenberg, head of Aussenpolitisches Amt, the Nazi party's foreign policy office. Rosenberg's blueprint for Ukraine called for a united and autonomous state in close alliance with Germany. To attain such a state, he argued, "Ukrainian writers, scholars and politicians must be put to work for a revival of Ukrainian historical consciousness, so as to overcome what Bolshevik-Jewish pressure has destroyed." Planned was a new university in Kyiv, technical academies, the eventual elimination of the Russian language, the publication of Ukrainian literature, the extension of Ukraine to the Volga and Crimea, and the propagation of German culture and language.

"If we accepted in marshaling all political, psychological and cultural means to create a free Ukrainian state from Lvov to Saratov," Rosenberg informed Hitler, "then the century-old nightmare which the German people has been subjected to by the Russian Empire will be broken."

Hitler appointed Rosenberg Ostminister (Minister for the Occupied East) but vacillated between the Rosenberg position and the ideas of Martin Bormann, who favored a lebensraum policy based on the Nazi principle that all Eastern Europeans were inferior (untermenschen), unfit for self-rule. The sole purpose of the Slavs, he reminded Hitler, was to serve the genetically superior German Herrenvolk.

Bormann convinced Hitler that any German plan for a "Garden of Eden" in Ukraine demanded that: Ukraine be divided; Ukrainians receive little formal education; medical and sanitary services be limited severely; Ukrainian towns not be rebuilt; Germans be forbidden to live among Ukrainians.

Hitler adopted Bormann's proposals and, after invading the Soviet Union, awarded Bukovyna to Romania, formally incorporated Galicia into the General Government for Occupied Polish Territories, and placed eastern Ukraine within the newly created Reichskomissariat Ukraine. Appointed Reichskomissar was Erich Koch, a psychopath close to Martin Bormann.

Aware that he, as Ostminister, outranked Koch, Rosenberg met with the gauleiter prior to his posting in Ukraine. As Jurgen Thorwald reports in his book "The Illusion: Soviet Soldiers in Hitler's Armies," the meeting went badly for Rosenberg. Running out of Rosenberg's office, the Reichskomissar bumped into Carl Cranz, Rosenberg's press officer, who innocently offered to shake hands, saying: "May I congratulate you, Herr Reichskommissar, on the interesting and fruitful mission you will now be assuming."

"What mission do you mean?" growled Koch. "I mean the mission of leading such a biologically strong and valuable race as the Ukrainians back to national consciousness," Carl Cranz replied.

"My dear sir," Koch roared. "You must have read that in some provincial tabloid. Let me tell you this: the Ukrainians are Slavs through and through. They are going to be governed by makhorka, vodka and the knout." Koch remained true to his word. His bestial oppression of eastern Ukraine squandered any remaining good will the Germans may have enjoyed. Caught between Stalin's anvil and Hitler's hammer, Ukrainian nationalists established the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) and battled both the Nazis and the Soviets.

Martin Bormann, a man very close to Hitler, engineered both the Jewish Holocaust and the Nazi terror in Ukraine. Was he a racist? A psychopath? Or did he have an agenda all his own?

Bormann was definitely a monster, but it now appears that he was also something else. He was a Soviet spy. Two-time Pulitzer prize winner Louis Kilzer persuasively argues in "Hitler's Traitor: Martin Bormann and the Defeat of the Reich" that "Bormann had been as valuable to Russia as 50 Red divisions. His value to Stalin began early." Mr. Kilzer notes: "In 1941, when Germany could have used millions of Ukrainian nationalists to defeat Soviet rule, Bormann decided that they deserved only 'enslavement and depopulation' ... Faced with the choice of genocide by the Germans or political domination by the Soviets, the Ukrainians chose to live, and by doing so ruined German hopes for an easy conquest."

In one of the most astounding espionage stories of the war, Mr. Kilzer describes the incredible escapades of the so-called "Red Orchestra," a spy ring operating out of Switzerland that regularly passed on information from the mysterious "Werther," a spy whose true identity remains murky. Werther provided the Soviets invaluable, almost instantaneous information regarding German military plans, often before Germany's front-line commanders were appraised. Whoever supplied this intelligence to the Soviets had to be extremely close to Hitler's inner circle. He was "the ultimate mole with the ultimate cover," a person who, according to Albert Speer, another Hitler confidant, sabotaged many well-planned German initiatives. After carefully reviewing the actions of a number of candidates close to Hitler and considering the views of many Western espionage experts familiar with Bormann, Mr. Kleizer concludes: "All the suspicions concerning Bormann by the spymasters over the years were valid. The pieces of the puzzle fit together. In Martin Bormann we have found Werther."

Was it in Stalin's interest to have Ukrainians turn on the Germans after initially treating them as "liberators?" Absolutely. Would Hitler have behaved differently had Herr Bormann not been around? Probably not, but, as is now clear, Bormann was Hitler's prime enabler, a man Speer believed should have been declared a "hero of the Soviet Union."

Myron Kuropas' e-mail address is: [email protected]

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