Germany Third Reich (2 results)

Pp. 134, text illustrations; med. 8vo; pictorial stiff paper wrappers; Pen & Sword, Barnsley, Yorkshire, 2013. First printed edition. *First published in digital format in 2012.

Card Covers. Octavo. (14 x 21 cm). pp. 11, [1] (Index, printed to verso of rear wrapper). Publisher's single-stapled, illustrated wrappers, featuring a repeating decorative border and a vignette of a church and soldier. Eleven leaves of typeset Ukrainian-Catholic liturgical musical scores, printed in the traditional order of use, with lyrics in Ukrainian Cyrillic. Title printed in German and Ukrainian. Faint toning to margins of covers, single unobtrusive institutional stamp to the lower margin of cover, and limitation leaf, otherwise, contents without blemish; near fine. Exceptionally rare, unrecorded in commerce. Nominally corresponds to OCLC #1414548304 which records only one institutional holding at time of cataloguing (Bayerische Staatsbibliothek). Not found in Fisher, BL, Houghton, LAC/BAC, University of Manitoba Archives & Special Collections, Peel, et al. Not found in Buchynsky, nor in Boshyk & Balan. Rare indeed. An exceptionally rare primary source document of the first order, from the final months of the Second World War, documenting the formal, structured collaboration between Ukrainian volunteer units and the German Wehrmacht. Not merely a general religious pamphlet but an official military publication issued by the German Wehrmacht for its Ukrainian volunteers. The publisher, as explicitly stated on the cover in both German and Ukrainian, is the Griech.-kath. Oberkriegspfarrer (Greek-Catholic Senior Military Chaplain) attached to the command of the German Air Force / Luftwaffe (Luftgau Kdo.). This songbook was evidently printed for the express use of Ukrainian soldiers, youth, and auxiliaries embedded within the German military. During the war, particularly following the invasion of the Soviet Union, German forces recruited heavily from occupied territories. Many Ukrainian nationalists, viewing the Germans as liberators from Stalin's regime, joined volunteer units (such as the 14th SS Division "Galicia" or various Wehrmacht battalions) in the hope of securing Ukrainian independence.This booklet is tangible proof of this wartime collaboration, demonstrating that by 1945 these units were so formally integrated that the Wehrmacht provided for their spiritual needs with an official military chaplaincy. Its publication in Berlin on January 27, 1945 - with Soviet forces rapidly closing in - underscores the German military's desperate effort to maintain the morale and fighting effectiveness of its foreign volunteers until the very end.The official ecclesiastical approval (Imprimatur) is granted by Msgr. Dr. Peter Werhun [Petro Verhun], the ranking Ukrainian Catholic official in Greater Germany. His fate underscores the item's tragic context: a mere five months after approving this publication, Werhun was arrested by the victorious Red Army, charged with collaboration, and deported to a Siberian Gulag, where he died in 1957. Index of contents: 1. Glory Only-Begotten ( ); 2. Holy God ( ); 3. Alleluia ( ); 4. We Cherubim ( ); 5. As the King ( ); 6. Holy ( ); 7. We Sing to You ( ); 8. It Is Truly Right ( ); 9. Our Father ( ); 10. Let It Be Fulfilled ( ); 11. Blessed Be the Name of the Lord ( ' ); 12. God, Hear Our Prayers ( ); 13. O Great God, Almighty Creator ( , ). Provenance: The Ukrainian Cultural and Education Centre (Oseredok), Winnipeg. First Edition. Limited Edition of 945 copies, this being No. 40 (hand-numbered to imprimatur leaf).