Controversy
Accusations have placed the Battalion in Lviv in July 1941 and claimed that the unit participated in the pogrom that took place. While some members of the unit did indeed participate in the pogrom, the unit as a whole was not involved in the event. The origin of the accusations against Nachtigall to a Soviet attempt to discredit the Adenauer government in Germany in 1959. Historical records have since exonerated the Nachtigall Battalion from participation in the pogrom.
The Simon Wiesenthal Center contends that between June 30 and July 3, 1941, in the days that the Battalion was in Lviv the Nachtigall soldiers together with the German army and the local Ukrainians participated in the killings of Jews in the city. The pretext for the pogrom was a rumor that the Jews were responsible for the execution of prisoners by the Soviets before the 1941 Soviet withdrawal from Lviv. The encyclopedia of the Holocaust states that some 4,000 Jews were kidnapped and killed at that time. It further states that the unit was removed from Lviv on July 7 and sent to the Eastern Front.
The Polish side contends that members of the Nazi-led Nachtigall battalion also participated in the massacres of Polish professors, including the ex-Polish Prime minister Kazimierz Bartel, Tadeusz Boy-Żeleński and others, in Lwów in 1941. See Massacre of Lviv professors.
Canadian Investigation: Involvement of any members of the Nachtigall Battalion in the war crimes have not yet been established. The Canadian Commission on War Criminals in Canada (Deschênes Commission) that look into allegations of war criminals residing in Canada, has not named any of the members of the Nachtigall Battalion. Moreover, it concluded, that units collaborating with the Nazis should not be indicted as a group and that mere membership in such units was not sufficient to justify prosecution.
World opinion: An international commission was set up at The Hague in the Netherlands in 1959 to carry out independent investigations. The members were four former anti-Hitler activists, Norwegian lawyer Hans Cappelen, former Danish foreign minister and president of the Danish parliament Ole Bjørn Kraft, Dutch socialist Karel van Staal, Belgian law professor Flor Peeters, and Swiss jurist and member of parliament Kurt Scoch. Following its interrogation of a number of Ukrainian witnesses between November 1959 and March 1960, the commission concluded: "After four months of inquiries and the evaluation of 232 statements by witnesses from all circles involved, it can be established that the accusations against the Battalion Nachtigall and against the then Lieutenant and currently Federal Minister Oberländer have no foundation in fact".
The Ukrainian side states that none of the allegations have been proven by any documents, and that the Battalion's main priority was securing the radio station, newspapers and proclaiming Ukrainian independence.
The activities of the Nachtigall Battalion continue to remain controversial. A study of the massacre in Lviv based on documents of the time was made by de Zayas in his book The Wehrmacht War Crimes Bureau, 1939-1945 University of Nebraska Press, Rockport, Maine, 2000 edition.
Read more about this topic: Nachtigall Battalion
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