CBC newsmagazine stirs controversy over Galicia Division (03/17/96)

CBC newsmagazine stirs controversy over Galicia Division

by Andrij Wynnyckyj
Toronto Press Bureau

TORONTO - Cardinal Myroslav Lubachivsky's blessing of Ukrainian veterans of the Galicia Division at the 50th anniversary of its formation in the summer of 1993 is once again a focus of controversy in the North American media.

On March 5 and 10, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's television newsmagazine "The Fifth Estate" broadcast a segment titled "Disorder in the Order," in its usual Tuesday evening and Sunday afternoon time slots.

Reporter Francine Pelletier focused on Michael Steeler, a man who recently resigned from the Sovereign Order of St. Stanislas, a Polish chivalric order that has a presence in North America, because he learned that Russian neo-fascist Vladimir Zhirinovsky was accepted as a member and had been appointed deputy grand prior for the Russian Federation.

Before getting to the question of Mr. Zhirinovsky, however, the broadcast touched on matters Ukrainian. With a photograph of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church's senior hierarch filling the screen, Ms. Pelletier mentioned that Mr. Steeler, a member of the order since 1990 who had risen to the post of Canadian grand prior, became concerned that Cardinal Lubachivsky "blessed a reunion of second world war veterans, including veterans from the Nazi SS Galicia division," and wrote to the Vatican's secretary of state to express his concern.

"What was a prince of the Catholic Church doing blessing former Nazis?" Ms. Pelletier related, "That's what the grand prior of Canada, Michael Steeler, wanted to know."

In an interview setting, Mr. Steeler then said, "And I think that the blessing of the SS by Lubachivsky was to restore confidence in the Nazi SS, and that they were to be presented as knights, and therefore honorable people. It's Holocaust denial."

The "Disorder in the Order" of the segment's title allegedly became manifest when the order's grand master, Count Juliusz Sokolnicki, asked Mr. Steeler to desist in his "crusade" after initially having been "very, very much in favor of my questioning the pope about this."

Mr. Steeler's dissaffection was further exacerbated when he learned that the openly racist Mr. Zhirinovsky was made a high-ranking officer of the order. In the program, Count Sokolnicki and the U.S.-based St. Stanislas grand chancellor, Maj. Gen. Earl Morris, are seen issuing apologia for Mr. Zhirinovsky.

Count Sokolnicki calls the Russian "liberal democratic." Gen. Morris says that Mr. Zhirinovsky is "a nationalist - extremist - but I'd rather have a nationalist than a Communist."

Mr. Steeler, a Toronto-area banker, a descendant of various European aristocratic families and a member of six chivalric orders, is now dying of AIDS and, as he told the CBC, is "looking for a fight."

How it was that Mr. Steeler's interest in the "Galicia" Division and Cardinal Lubachivsky was aroused was not explained during the program.

Ms. Pelletier related that Pope John Paul II once accepted an insignia from the order, and gave the order and its companions his blessing.

Cardinal Lubachivsky's blessing of the Galicia Division, a combat group formed in July 1943 as a formation under the Waffen SS, was part of the controversy generated by the CBS "60 Minutes" broadcast, "The Ugly Face of Freedom" shown in October 1993.

In December 1986, Canadian Justice Jules Deschenes issued a report in which it was stated, "If the only allegation against a resident of Canada is that he was a member of the Galician Division, that is not an individual which we consider should be made the subject of an investigation."

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