The CIA and the Banderite Nazis

Ukrainian Nazis were spared from trial and punishment so they could serve the CIA and other Western intelligence services.

In the early years of the Cold War, prisoner swaps between the US and the Soviet Union were a regular occurrence. The events that unfold in the film “Bridge of Spies” actually happened, whenever one side wanted to get someone back from the other side.

And each side had people that they repeatedly asked to trade, but which the other side refused to let go.

Thomas Boghardt, a senior historian at the U.S. Army Center of Military History, relates the following story:

On 8 June 1946, Special Agent Robert R. Reeder, Jr., and Special Agent Stephen C. Rostan of the US Army Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC) met with two Soviet intelligence officers on Berlin’s Alexanderplatz. The CIC had requested the meeting to solicit Soviet assistance in apprehending Fred Kaltenbach, an American wanted for treason. A propagandist for Nazi Germany during the war, Kaltenbach was rumored to be hiding in the Soviet zone. Handing the Americans a list of “Russian traitors” residing in the US zone, the Soviets suggested a swap. Pointing to the name at the top, one of the Soviets said emphatically: “This man is for us as Kaltenbach is for you.”

By “this man”, the Soviets meant Stepan Bandera.