The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact - ELTE BTK Történelem Szakos Portál

announced: „We have no active allies on the world, apart from Germany. They
are against all our occupants” 18 . Indeed, Germany was described as the lesser
of two evils, because they were not an occupant on the one hand and were not
acquainted with the Soviet Union on the other. Moreover, the common priority
of Ukrainian and German policy, which was a revision of the order of
Versailles, remained current.
Surprisingly, groups affected by pro-German orientation did not doubt even
after the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Though, for others that was a sight that
redefinition of policy needs to be done. The growing resistance against official
statement of the OUN executives subsequently was exemplified by the OUN’s
split into two parts in 1940, with the older more moderate members supporting
Melnyk and the younger and more radical supporting Stepan Bandera. But total
rejection of hopes connected with the German intervention was quite
unrealistic; when on 17 th September 1939 Soviet army started an invasion of
Poland, for Ukraine it meant not only long-anticipated unification of Ukrainian
territory, but also – soon after – it resulted in Soviet political and economic
repressions. Hence, the myth of the Germans as some kind of liberators had
maintained until German army came to Ukraine in 1941 and implemented their
own prosecutions.
18
TORECZKI, Roman: Kwestia ukraińska w polityce III Rzeszy (1933-1945).
Warszawa, 1972. 182.
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