Andriy Melnyk (officer)

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Andriy Atanasovych Melnyk
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Andriy Melnyk
Андрій Мельник
Chief of Staff
UnitSich Riflemen
Commands heldSich Riflemen
Battles/wars
Other workPolitician, co-creator of the
OUN

Andriy Atanasovich Melnyk[a] (Ukrainian: Андрій Атанасович Мельник; 12 December 1890 – 1 November 1964) was a Ukrainian military and political leader.

Life

Melnyk was born near

Russians in 1916. In captivity, Melnyk became a close associate of Yevhen Konovalets
and joined the Ukrainian independence movement.

Members of the last supreme command of the Sich Riflemen. Melnyk is seated, second from the left.

During the

Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists was generally anti-clerical), Melnyk even became the chairman of Orlo, the Galician Catholic youth organization that was regarded as anti-Nationalist by many OUN members.[3]

After the assassination of OUN leader Konovalets in 1938, the principal OUN leadership abroad could not choose a

leader from amongst themselves and therefore asked Melnyk to become leader of OUN in 1939.[2] He was chosen by the leadership in part because of the hope for more moderate and pragmatic leadership and due to the desire to repair strained ties with the Catholic Church.[1] The group that had chosen Melnyk as their leader admired aspects of Benito Mussolini's fascism but condemned Nazism.[4] In 1940 a more radical faction of the OUN, led by Stepan Bandera
and based in Ukraine, broke away from the OUN led by Melnyk in exile. The two rival organizations became known as Melnykites (Melnykivtsi) and Banderites (Banderivtsi).

After 1938 Melnyk and Bandera were recruited into the Nazi Germany military intelligence Abwehr for espionage, counter-espionage and sabotage.[5] The Abwehr goal was to run diversion activities after Germany's planned attack on the Soviet Union. Melnyk was given the code name 'Consul I'. This information is part of the testimony that Abwehr Colonel Erwin Stolze gave on 25 December 1945 and submitted to the Nuremberg trials, with a request that it be admitted as evidence.[6][7]

After the June 1941 German invasion of the Soviet Union, Melnyk declared his own independent Ukrainian government in Rivne,[citation needed] competing with Bandera supporters for influence in western Ukraine. Initially, Melnyk's more conservative and moderate supporters enjoyed support against Bandera's radicals both from the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church and from German military authorities. However, his position was contradictory. A conservative Catholic who maintained the officer's personal code of honor, Melnyk was at odds with aspects of the ideology of his own organization. His reluctance to assert dominance or to engage in a ruthless pursuit of power disadvantaged him versus his younger and more violent rivals in the Bandera camp.[1] Many of Melnyk's close associates were killed by Bandera's Ukrainian Insurgent Army between 1941 and 1944 and Bandera's movement came to dominate the Ukrainian nationalist political milieu in most of western Ukraine. In 1944 Melnyk was briefly imprisoned by the Gestapo during a crackdown against the Ukrainian independence movement.

After the war, Melnyk escaped to the West and lived in

Luxembourg
.

In late 2006, the

Lychakivskiy Cemetery specifically dedicated to the Ukrainian national-liberation struggle.[8]
However this was not implemented.

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Also Andrii and Andrij

References

  1. ^ a b c John Armstrong (1963). Ukrainian Nationalism. New York: Columbia University Press, pp. 36-39
  2. ^ a b The History We Don’T Know. Or Don’T Care To Know?. Kost Bondarenko | Topic Of The Week | Politics[permanent dead link]
  3. ^ John Armstrong (1963). Ukrainian Nationalism. New York: Columbia University Press, pp. 36-39.
  4. ^ "Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists". Retrieved 16 January 2016.
  5. ^ Мельник Андрей
  6. ^ "Nuremberg - The Trial of German Major War Criminals (Volume VI)". Archived from the original on 24 March 2010. Retrieved 16 January 2016. Stolze's testimony of 25th December, 1945, which was given to Lieutenant-Colonel Burashnikov, of the Counter-Intelligence Service of the Red Army and which I submit to the Tribunal as Exhibit USSR 231 with the request that it be accepted as evidence. [...] 'In carrying out the above-mentioned instructions of Keitel and Jodl, I contacted Ukrainian Nationalists who were in the German Intelligence Service and other members of the Nationalist Fascist groups, whom I enlisted in to carry out the tasks as set out above. In particular, instructions were given by me personally to the leaders of the Ukrainian Nationalists, the German Agents Myelnik (code name 'Consul I') and Bandara to organise, immediately upon Germany's attack on the Soviet Union, and to provoke demonstrations in the Ukraine, in order to disrupt the immediate rear of the Soviet Armies, and also to convince international public opinion of alleged disintegration of the Soviet rear.'
  7. ISBN 9781591141013
    . Retrieved 16 January 2016.
  8. ^ "Lviv to bury the remains of NKVD victims at the Lychakivsky Cemetery on 7 November". Retrieved 16 January 2016.

External links

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