Sixty years ago, on October 15, 1959, Stepan Bandera, leader of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) was killed under mysterious circumstances at his home in Munich.
Initial reports said Bandera had died as a result of falling on the stairs to his home, and police said there was no evidence of foul play. However, four days after the killing, investigators determined that Bandera had be killed by cyanide poisoning. The 50-year-old Bandera was the victim of a Moscow-directed murder plot, the Associated Press noted.
George Lenyk, an OUN deputy, said: “We are convinced he was killed by the Bolsheviks. But the question remains: How was he made to take the poison?”
UPI reported that Bandera was found unconscious at the foot of the stairs in his home on Thursday, October 15, only two minutes after two bodyguards left him at the front door. He was suffering from severe head injuries and did not regain consciousness before he died.
An autopsy revealed the cyanide poisoning, but there was no determination if it was murder or suicide. His friends stated that he would never had committed suicide, but rather that he was murdered by Soviet agents.
Bandera’s funeral on October 20, 1959, was attended by representatives from all Ukrainian diaspora organizations. There were 1.2 million Ukrainian refugees at the time, and 500,000 in the U.S. and Canada.
In 1961, two years after Bandera’s death, that German authorities announced that Bandera’s murderer was KGB agent Bohdan Stashynsky, who had acted on orders of KGB head Alexander Shelepin and Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev. Stashynsky was tried and convicted, and on October 19, he was sentenced to eight years in prison.
In 2014, Bandera’s gravesite in Waldfriedhof Cemetery was desecrated and his headstone toppled. Bandera’s birthday is commemorated every year on January 1.
Source: “Stepan Bandera, leader of Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), dies from cyanide poisoning in Munich at the age of 50,” The Ukrainian Weekly, October 24, 1959.