Galicia Division [Дивізія «Галичина»] – a Ukrainian military formation within the German armed forces in the Second World War, created in Western Ukraine (specifically the Galicia District of the German-occupied Generalgouvernement) to fight on the Eastern front against Soviet forces.
Insignia of the Galicia Division
The formation was created as the 14th division of the “armed SS” (Waffen-SS), one of many Waffen-SS divisions composed of non-German volunteers and conscripts in various countries occupied by Germany. Its creation was announced on 28 April 1943 in Lviv, and had the support of Galician Ukrainian leaders who viewed the division as the potential nucleus of a future Ukrainian national army. Initially, the division consisted mainly of Ukrainians from Galicia, but subsequently it also took on recruits from other parts of Ukraine, including Soviet army personnel taken prisoner by the Germans.
From July 1943 to June 1944 the recruits were trained in camps in Germany and other European countries occupied by Germany. In July 1944 the division, as part of the German 13th Army Corps, fought in a battle near Brody (about 100 km east of Lviv) against advancing Soviet forces. The corps was surrounded and destroyed. Of the 10,000-11,000 soldiers of the Galicia Division who took part in the battle, several thousand were killed or taken prisoner, some merged with the local population and others escaped the encirclement. A significant number of those who survived the battle joined the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, while about 3,000 returned to the division.
After Brody, a new division was formed, comprising the soldiers who returned from the battle, an existing training and reserve regiment and new recruits. Training of this so-called “Second Division” began in Neuhammer (Świętoszów in present-day Poland). In October 1944 it was transferred to Slovakia, where the training continued, and where some units were deployed against Soviet and pro-Soviet partisans. In mid-January 1945 the division numbered 14,000 soldiers and 8,000 new recruits in the training and reserve regiment. At the end of January and beginning of February the division was relocated to Slovenia where, together with German units, it fought against Tito’s communist partisans. In early April it was moved to the eastern front in Austria, where it successfully fought back against Soviet forces which had broken through the front line between Feldbach and Gleichenberg.
In March 1945 the Germans announced the creation of a Ukrainian National Army (UNA), which was to incorporate the Galicia Division. On 25 April the soldiers of the division swore an oath of allegiance to the Ukrainian people before the UNA commander, General Pavlo Shandruk. The division thereby officially ceased to be part of the Waffen-SS and became the 1st Ukrainian Division of the UNA. In the final weeks of the war, however, with the organisation of the UNA still in its early stages, the division remained under German operational control.
At the beginnning of May 1945, when Germany’s capitulation was immiment, it was decided that, to avoid capture by Soviet forces, the division should surrender to the British 8th Army, which had already entered Austria. Representatives of the division were sent to make contact with the British, and arrangements for the surrender were agreed. On 8 May, a few hours before the German surrender to the USSR, the division was ordered to retreat from the front. Most of its personnel (about 10,000 men) surrendered to the British and were interned in Italy before being subsequently transferred to the UK (see Former soldiers of the Galicia Division). About 1,000 members of the division crossed into Southern Germany, surrendered to US forces, and were interned in US camps in Germany and Austria.
Bibliography
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Bolianovskyi, A., Dyvizia “Halychyna”. Istoria, Lviv: Lvivskyi Natsionalnyi universytet im. I. Franka, 2000.
Heike, W.-D., edited by Y. Boshyk with an Introduction by J.A. Armstrong, The Ukrainian Division ‘Galicia’, 1943-45. A Memoir, Toronto – Paris – Munich: The Shevchenko Scientific Society, 1988.
Krokhmaliuk, R., Zahrava na Skhodi. Spohady i dokumenty z pratsi u Viiskovii Upravi “Halychyna” v 1943-1945 rokakh, Toronto – New York: Bratstvo kol. Voiakiv 1-oi Ukrainskoi Dyvizii UNA, 1978.
Logusz, M. O., Galicia Division. The Waffen-SS 14th Grenadier Division 1943-1945, Atglen, PA: Schiffer Publishing, 1997.
Melnyk, M. J., To Battle. The Formation and History of the 14th Galician Waffen-SS Division, Solihull: Helion & Company, 2002.