Officers from the Abwehr sensed that, with the vast areas to be conquered, the Wehrmacht’s best strategy would be to recruit a Ukrainian army of a million men. Their suggestion was rejected by Hitler, who did not want weapons given to Slav Untermenschen, but his wishes were soon quietly ignored, both by the army and by the SS, both of whom began to recruit. The Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, on the other hand, whose members had been helping the Germans just before the invasion, were suppressed. Berlin wanted to crush their hopes for an independent Ukraine.
