UK 'didn't want' Ukrainian Nazis

The Nazis recruited Ukrainians after invading the USSR in 1941

British officials were very uneasy about the decision to allow an entire Ukrainian SS division to settle in the UK in 1947, newly released files show.

The papers from Britain's National Archives deal with 8,000 Ukrainians who had been recruited by the Nazis to fight the Soviet Union.

"What little we know of their war record is bad," commented Beryl Hughes, an official at the UK Home Office.

The Ukrainians had fought in eastern Europe and surrendered in Austria.

They were being held in British camps in Italy.

When in 1947 the Italian government signed a treaty with the USSR, that meant the soldiers could be repatriated.

But the UK Foreign Office was anxious to thwart their repatriation, fearing massacres or rioting if the Ukrainians tried to resist.

Initially the home secretary decided they should not be given refuge in the UK, the BBC's Sanchia Berg reports.

But a year later he had accepted that they could stay, arguing that they were good workers and there was a labour shortage in agriculture. It was also far more difficult now to send them home.

The Home Office has confirmed that police have identified several hundred members of the SS division who may still be alive and investigations into war crimes are still possible.

The US Justice Department believes some of the veterans may have been guards at a notorious labour camp and that some may have been involved in the liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto.

The Polish government believes some were involved in a massacre there, while the Slovak government has questions about wartime atrocities on its territory.