Roman Shukhevych joined the Ukrainian Military Organization (UVO) in 1923 and the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) in 1929. He became one of OUN's leading members as chief of its combat branch.
In 1936 he was imprisoned by the Polish authorities for his revolutionary activities against Polish occupation of western Ukraine. During 1938-1939, as staff officer of the nascent armed forces of the Ukrainian Carpathian Republic, he fought against the Nazi-supported invasion of the republic by Hungarian troops.
In February 1941 the OUN reached an agreement (without Hitler's knowledge) with the German Abwehr (military intelligence) and the Wehrmacht (army) as to the creation of a Ukrainian legion - the battalions Nachtigall and Roland. The two battalions were front-line units, subordinated only to the Wehrmacht command, and, pointedly swore loyalty only to Ukraine. The OUN hoped, that should Germany recognize Ukraine's right to statehood, the two battalions would become a nucleus for the creation of a Ukrainian army.
In April 1941 the OUN ordered Roman Shukhevych to join the Nachtigall battalion to become its OUN liaison and political and commanding officer. The relationship between the OUN and the Germans was always transactional, pragmatic and, therefore, ad hoc, with either side pursuing its own aims.
Therefore, when the Germans suppressed by force the Declaration of Restoration of Ukrainian Statehood on 30 June 1941 in Lviv along with the arrest of the Ukrainian government headed by Yaroslav Stetsko, the Ukrainian commanders and soldiers of Nachtigall and Roland openly protested and opposed Germany's actions. As a result, on 13 August 1941 the rebellious battalions were pulled from the front line, disarmed, and sent back to their Neuhammer base in Germany.
In October 1941 the Nachtigall and Roland battalions were merged to form Schutzmannschaftbattaillon #201 (auxiliary police battalion) on a "contractual" basis. Shukhevych became a company commander in the battalion, which saw action in Belarus against Soviet partisans. When in 1942 the soldiers of the battalion
refused to "renew" their "contract " for further service, the battalion was disarmed and demobilized, and its officers arrested. Shukhevych managed to escape, went underground, and joined the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), which was already fighting against the Germans.
Upon joining the UPA, he became leader of the OUN Home Leadership and Commander-in-Chief of the UPA in 1943, and in 1944 was elected Secretary-General of the Ukrainian Supreme Liberation Council (which in effect was an underground Ukrainian national parliament with representatives from a wide political spectrum and all regions of Ukraine).
The OUN - UPA Resistance movement NEVER defined its enemies on racial, religious, or ethnic grounds, but whether a given individual or group (INCLUDING ethnic Ukrainians) supported Ukraine's right to statehood, independence and freedom from foreign rule -- or NOT, by siding with the enemy during the liberation struggle. The wide popular base of the OUN - UPA Resistance is reflected in the composition of its vast and varied membership: Alongside the ethnic Ukrainian base, there were large numbers of Ukrainians of diverse ethnic ancestry and national origins, who joined the struggle - namely Polish, Russian, Jewish, Greek , Crimean Tatar, Swedish, Uzbek, Azerbaijani, Georgian, et al. Some of these groups were so numerous, that the UPA command organized them in separate national combat battalions. At the height of the struggle (1943-1945) the UPA, in effect, presented itself as a multinational armed force.
During the Nazi occupation of Lviv, the future Commander-in-Chief of the UPA, Roman Shukhevych, and his wife Natalia sheltered (September 1942 - February 1943) a Jewish girl, Irene Reichenberg, under the assumed name of Iryna Vasylivna Ryzhko. When Natalia was arrested by the Gestapo in 1943 (later freed from German custody by OUN operatives and going underground), Roman Shukhevych arranged for Iryna's sanctuary at a convent of the Basilian Order of nuns. Iryna Reichenberg - Ryzhko survived the Holocaust, raised a family and died in Kyiv in 2007 at the age of 72.
Roman Shukhevych's son Yurii, born in 1933, who was Iryna's childhood friend in Lviv, met several times with Iryna's son Volodymyr Hushcha - the last time in 2017. Yurii Shukhevych spent 35 years in Soviet prisons and concentration camps (where he became totally blind) for refusing to denounce his father and the Ukrainian national liberation movement. His mother, Natalia Shukhevych, was sentenced to 10 years of imprisonment. They were both arrested by the Soviets in 1945.
General Roman Shukhevych was killed in combat against Soviet security forces on 5 March 1950 in Bilohorshcha, near the city of Lviv.
