Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945

by Tony Judt

Slovaks and Croats took advantage of the German presence to establish notionally independent states in accordance with the cherished projects of pre-war separatist parties. In Poland the Germans were not looking for collaborators; but further north—in the Baltic States and even Finland—the Wehrmacht was initially welcomed as an alternative to occupation and absorption by the Soviet Union. Ukrainians especially did their best to capitalize on German occupation after 1941 to secure their long-sought independence, and the lands of eastern Galicia and western Ukraine saw a murderous civil conflict between Ukrainian and Polish partisans under the aegis of both anti-Nazi and anti-Soviet partisan warfare. In these circumstances, fine distinctions between ideological warfare, inter-communal conflict and the battle for political independence lost their meaning: not least for the local populations, the primary victims in every case.