11. Murdering Hundreds of Thousands
As Galicia’s governor, von Wachter capitalized on the Ukrainians’ hatred of the communists to recruit a Waffen-SS division from the local population: the SS Division Galicia. He also continued overseeing the rounding up and transportation of Jews and others to their deaths. During his time as governor, about half a million in his province were sent to their deaths, and thousands more were murdered in reprisals for partisan activities.
The horrors in Galicia only ended when the province was lost to the advancing Red Army in July, 1944. As a major war criminal, indicted for atrocities by the Polish government in exile as early as 1942, von Wachter went on the lam as soon as the war ended. He evaded capture, hiding in the Salzburg mountain district in Austria for four years, before crossing the border into Italy. There, he was sheltered by a pro-Nazi Austrian bishop, who hid von Wachter in the Vatican until his death in 1949 of kidney failure.