Reckoning and Remembrance: Germany, Ukraine, and the Second World War after 1945

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Reckoning and Remembrance: Germany, Ukraine, and the Second World War after 1945

The Second World War constituted - in a negative sense - the central period of German-Ukrainian relations in the twentieth century. Alongside Poland and Belarus, Ukraine was among the countries that suffered most under German occupation, experiencing mass crimes including the Shoah, the mass murder of prisoners of war, and an occupation regime marked by repression, destruction, exploitation, and the widespread use of forced labour. The long-standing silence surrounding these crimes and the delayed process of coming to terms with them have shaped German–Ukrainian relations in the post-war period up to the present day. This also applies to the complex and contested issue of collaboration between Nazi Germany and Ukrainian nationalist organisations in the period preceding and during the war. The conference presentations examine the significance of German crimes, as well as Ukrainian resistance or collaboration during the Second World War, from the perspective of their historiographical and legal treatment and their representation in public memory from 1945 to the present.

In post-war narratives, Ukraine’s suffering and sacrifices under German occupation and in the war against Nazi Germany were largely subsumed under the history of the Soviet Union, while Ukraine itself was frequently associated primarily with collaboration. This pattern was evident both in the German Democratic Republic, where elements of Soviet propaganda were adopted, and in the Federal Republic of Germany. The conference contributions also examine the images of Ukraine and Ukrainian nationalism that circulated in both German states, as well as the political, cultural, and social contexts in which these representations emerged and gained currency.

Program

WEDNESDAY, 2 SEPTEMBER

Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Alfons-Goppel-Str. 11, 80539 München

18:00 Annual Mykola Haievoi Lecture 2026

• Karl Schlögel: "Die ukrainische Spur oder: die verlorene Unschuld der deutschen Provinz"
• Commentary: Yuri Shapoval
• Reception

Registration required

THURSDAY, 3 SEPTEMBER

Conference venue

9:00

• Welcome Yaroslav Hrytsak and Martin Schulze Wessel
• Introduction Martin Schulze Wessel: The Long Shadow of World War II in German-Ukrainian Relations

09:45 Coffee Break

10:15 – 12:30 In World War II I Chair: Yaroslav Hrytsak

• Oleksandr Zaitsev, Ukrainian Catholic University, Lviv: Ukrainian Integral Nationalism and German National Socialism in the 1930s
• Roman Tütenko, Ukrainian Free University, Munich: The Ukrainian Diaspora in Germany and the Dictatorship of National Socialism: Models of Behaviour and Resistance
• Natalja Böhm, Ludwig Maximilian University, Munich: Hans Koch between Academic Research and Politics: an Expert on Ukraine in World War II
• Yuri Radchenko, Oles Honchar Dnipro National University: Nazi Anti-Semitic Anti-Karaism: The Case of Mara Krüger

12:30 – 13.30 Lunch

13.30 – 15:15 Camps, PoW and DPs I Chair: Gelinada Grinchenko

• Svitlana Pavlenko, Centre for Advanced Study, Sofia: After the War Was Over: Axis Prisoners of War in the Dnipropetrovsk Region and the Question of Repatriation (second half of the 1940s)
• Alexandra Pulvermacher, University of Klagenfurt: Justice or Politics? Soviet Trials of Former Ukrainian Prisoners of War after World War II
• Jennifer Popowycz, United States Military Academy, West Point, NY: Resisting Repatriation: Redefining National Belonging in Ukrainian Displaced Persons Camps

15:15 – 15:45 Coffee Break

15:45 – 18:00 German-Ukrainian Relations after World War II I Chair: Yuri Shapoval

• Gelinada Grinchenko, Ludwig Maximilian University, Munich: (Re)Writing Ukrainian Ostarbeiter after 1945: Frameworks of Memory and Interpretation
• Polina Barvinska, University of Regensburg: A Controversial Past: Memories of the Second World War in the Ukrainian Left-Wing Emigrant Press in West Germany
• Oleksandra Bienert, Humboldt University of Berlin: Women from Ukraine in the Nazi Concentration Camp Ravensbrück in German Memory Culture
• Jaroslaw Kit, University of Entrepreneurship and Administration, Lublin: Between Alliance and Assassination: The Diplomacy of the FRG and GDR towards the Question of Ukrainian Statehood, Emigration, and Political Killings (1945–1962)

19:00 Dinner

FRIDAY, 4 SEPTEMBER

Conference venue

9:30 – 11:45 Remembrance in Ukraine I Chair: Marianna Pyrih

• Polina Barskova, University of California, Berkeley: Looking at Kyiv in 1941: Terror, Collaboration, Resistance, and the Invention of Memory
• Anna Romandash, Centre for International Governance Innovation, Waterloo, Ontario: The Enemy of My Enemy? Ukrainian Intellectuals and the German Occupation of 1941
• Anastasiia Kanivets, Kyiv-Mohyla Academy: The Second World War and the Crimes of Nazism on the Ukrainian Screen in the Soviet Period and the Era of Independence
• Juliane Niklas, Leibniz Institute for Contemporary History, Munich: German Crimes and the Politics of Memory in Kyiv’s National War Museum

12:00 – 13:15 Lunch

13:15 – 15:00 Trials I Chair: Kai Struve

• Olesia Isaiuk, National Memorial Museum “Prison at Lontskoho Street”, Lviv: Ukrainian World War II through the Eyes of a German Court: the Bandera Family History at the Frankfurt Auschwitz Trial (1963 - 1965) and Collisions of Polish, Ukrainian, and German Memory
• Judith Vöcker, University of Leicester: Judging the East: German Courts and Judges in District Galicia and their Postwar Reckoning and Afterlives in the GDR
• Franz X. Keilhofer, Munich: Criminal Proceedings of the Liquidation of the Lutsk Ghetto – A Re-examination in Light of Changed Judicial Practice

15:00 – 15:30 Coffee Break

15:30 – 16:30 World War II and Russia’s War against Ukraine I Chair: Martin Schulze Wessel

• Svitlana Parker, University of Massachusetts, Amherst: War and Memory: How the Russo-Ukrainian War Reshapes World War II Narratives in Ukraine and Germany (online)
• Martin Aust, University of Bonn: Memories of the Second World War in German-Ukrainian Relations – Challenges for Historiography in Germany and the Academic Ukrainian-German Dialogue

16:30 – 17:00 Concluding Discussion