by Jan-Hinnerk Antons
From 1943 onwards, around 1,000 Ukrainian Shuma (auxiliary police) members were trained and deployed as firefighters in Hamburg. In the east, where they had originally provided auxiliary services to the Wehrmacht, the collaborationist units were considered increasingly unreliable as many of their members deserted to join the partisans. In Hamburg and other major cities of the Reich, the men were quartered under light guard, while some of their families were accommodated in the wider Hamburg area.
After the war, relations between the Ukrainian firefighters, their German superiors and the British liberators proved extremely difficult. In particular, the controversial status of Ukrainians as either victims or accomplices of National Socialism became apparent. This phenomenon hints at the fractures of the victim–perpetrator dichotomy and will be examined to determine how loyalties between Germans and people from occupied countries were continuously renegotiated and adjusted. Throughout the war, the options available to Ukrainians in German service to make their own decisions changed continuously. Their self-perception and external perception will be analysed in relation to Ukrainian Eastern Workers, with whom they came into contact repeatedly.