BETWEEN HITLER AND STALIN

YAROSLAV STETSKO

b. 19 January, 1912, Ternopil, d. 5 July 1986, Munich

Stetsko was a leader and ideologue in the Ukrainian Nationalist movement. He joined the Ukrainian Nationalist Youth organization at a young age, and became a member of the Ukrainian Military Organization and then the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists upon its creation in 1929. He was appointed to the OUN executive in 1932, and made responsible for ideology.

Stetsko was arrested several times by the Polish authorities for his nationalist activities. He was sentenced to five years imprisonment in 1936 but freed as part of a general amnesty in 1937. In 1940 he joined the OUN-Bandera faction and was elected Bandera’s second-in-command. He was responsible for the preparation of the proclamation of Ukrainian statehood of 30 June 1941, and was chosen premier of the Ukrainian State Administration.

After refusing to rescind their declaration, Stetsko, Bandera and many other leaders were arrested by the Gestapo. Stetsko was imprisoned in Berlin and then at Sachsenhausen concentration camp. He was released in the fall of 1944 as part of the German effort to gain the support of the Western Ukrainian population.

After the end of the war, Stetsko lived in Munich, where, in 1945 he was elected to the Leadership of OUN-B. He was very active in the anticommunist movement until his death. He was elected head of the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations and head of the foreign policy sector of OUN-B in 1946. Stetsko was a member of the World Anti-Communist League and was a founder of the European Freedom Council.

In 1968, Stetsko was elected head of OUN-B, and served in that position until his death in 1986.