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Nightingale Battalion

Discussion in 'Winter and Continuation Wars' started by TheRedBaron, Aug 11, 2004.

  1. TheRedBaron

    TheRedBaron Ace

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    Anyone have any info on this formation This is all I have been able to find out so far...

    "Raised during the Winter of 40/41, the Nightingale Battalion, so-called from the male voice choir which it boasted, was raised dy 1st Regiment (Brandenburg) and made up of former West Ukrainian Polish soldiers who had been taken prisoner during 1939. This battalion distinguished itself as part of the Brandenburg Regiment during the fighting around Lvov and, naively perhaps, declared itself to be the army of a free Ukraine. When the Germans refused to recognise the Ukraine as an independant state open mutiny broke out, and the battalion was disbanded."

    The above comes from the book, 'Grossdeutchland' by James Lucas...
     
  2. Kai-Petri

    Kai-Petri Kenraali

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    1st Co. was the Baltenkompanie. Battallion Nachtigal ("nightingale"), a "legionary" unit consisting of Ukrainian volunteers, was attached. That unit's "political leader" was Hauptmann Prof. Oberländer, Minister for Refugees in post-war West Germany. The unit was disbanded in summer 1941 as unreliable.

    http://home.comcast.net/~furrylogic/brandenburg.html

    Roman Shukeyavitch is also memorialized. He was the deputy commander of the SS Division Nightingale.(?)

    There was a Nachtigal (Nightingale) battalion, and a second, similar unit designated Roland. Both were German military units, formed on German territory prior to the outbreak of the war, whose Ukrainian soldiers had joined in the hope of being helpful to the cause of Ukraine's liberation from the Soviets. Neither unit belonged to the SS. Stepan Bandera was the leader of a faction of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists. He was associated with Nachtigal but never a member. Roman Shukevych was an officer in the unit. On 30 June 1941, soon after Nachtigal entered Lviv, Jaroslav Stetsko, one of Bandera's close comrades, proclaimed the renewal of an independent Ukrainian state. The Nazis immediately ordered Bandera to rescind the proclamation. When he refused, the Nazis set out to destroy the Ukrainian nationalist movement. Bandera was arrested and spent the duration of the war in Nazi concentration camps. His two brothers died in Auschwitz. The Nachtigal unit continued to fight the Soviets until 1943. After its members refused, once again, to take an oath of allegiance to Adolf Hitler, the battalion was disbanded and its officers arrested. Roman Shukhevych, the highest ranking Ukrainian officer, escaped. He eventually came to command the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), an armed national resistance movement which first fought against the Nazis and then the Soviets, until the early 1950s.

    http://www.infoukes.com/politics/cbs60minutes/kuropas/

    There is a well-known Canadian Ukrainian historian Orest Subtelny, who wrote in one of his works: "On the eve of the attack by Germany on the USSR, already there was formed the Ukrainian Underground Army, the first formation was called 'Legion of Ukrainian Nationalists.' This legion was composed of 600 members and it was split into two battalions, code-named "Nightingale" and "Roland". These Ukrainian fascists came together with the Germans into Ukraine. In June of 1941 in Lvov, they distributed leaflets, which ended up with these words; "People, do understand! Moscow, Poland, Hungary, Jews – these are the enemies! We must eliminate them!" In the Act of Declaration of Ukrainian "Independent" State in 1941, the document ended with these words: "Glory to the victorious German Army and its great leader, Adolph Hitler!"

    http://www.northstarcompass.org/nsc0203/herasym.htm

    Here´s a good site I think:

    http://www.ostbataillon.by.ru/nachtigal.htm
     
  3. TheRedBaron

    TheRedBaron Ace

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    Thanks Kai, I must have missed your reply, only noticed it tonite!
     

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