BERLIN — It used to be as though Ukraine’s ambassador in Germany used to be vying for the identify of maximum undiplomatic diplomat: Made up our minds to spur Berlin into extra pressing give a boost to for his embattled country, he mocked the chancellor, informed a former lawmaker to “close your lure,” and posted memes on Twitter likening Germany’s lagging guns deliveries to a snail with a bullet taped to its again.

But it used to be now not the controversies of the current that ended Andriy Melnyk’s profession in Berlin. As an alternative, it used to be a thorny query in regards to the previous.

Ukraine disregarded Mr. Melnyk remaining weekend after in interview wherein he defended a nationalist Ukrainian chief who collaborated with the Nazis, and whose fans took phase in massacres of Jews and Poles.

The talk over Mr. Melnyk’s feedback has stirred questions over how Germans and Ukrainians see a depressing bankruptcy in their shared historical past. Most likely extra essential, it has uncovered how diverging perspectives of that historical past nonetheless form one of the most tensest Ecu partnerships in opposition to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Two weeks in the past, at the German YouTube program “Jung & Naiv,” Mr. Melnyk used to be challenged on his choice a number of years in the past to put plant life on the grave of Stepan Bandera, the chief of the Group of Ukrainian Nationalists. Bandera, the journalist famous, held antisemitic, fascist perspectives that in the end spurred his independence opponents to collaborate with the Nazis.

“I’m in opposition to blaming all crimes on Bandera,” Mr. Melnyk mentioned. “There is not any proof that Bandera’s troops murdered masses of hundreds of Jews,” he mentioned, contradicting an overview shared by means of maximum historians. “Those are narratives that the Russians are pushing to nowadays, which to find give a boost to in Germany, Poland and in addition in Israel.”

His feedback provoked outrage amongst a few of Ukraine’s most crucial allies.

In Poland, the place Bandera and his workforce are remembered for massacring tens of hundreds of Poles, now not most effective did a overseas ministry deputy name the feedback “completely unacceptable,” however President Andrzej Duda used the commemoration of 1 such bloodbath on Monday to insist that the reality in regards to the wartime massacres between 1942 and 1945 needed to be “firmly and obviously mentioned.”

“Let this reality if truth be told function a basis,” for brand spanking new members of the family, he mentioned. “It used to be now not about and isn’t about revenge, about any retaliation. There is not any higher evidence of this than the time now we have now,” he added, relating to the sturdy ties the international locations have constructed within the face of Russia’s invasion.

In Germany, the place acknowledging crimes of the Nazi previous is observed as a type of nationwide responsibility, outrage unfold briefly throughout social media. Even politicians who had as soon as supported Mr. Melnyk distanced themselves.

However to many Ukrainians, Mr. Melnyk’s perspectives are uncontroversial: Bandera — who used to be assassinated in Munich by means of Soviet brokers — is observed as an anti-Soviet freedom fighter who made tricky compromises within the battle for independence. They deny his Nazi collaboration by means of declaring that Germany later interned him in a focus camp over his independence efforts.

In particular in Bandera’s local west, statues are erected in his honor; streets are named after him. In Lviv, retail outlets promote Bandera-themed T-shirts and socks.

President Vladimir V. Putin has dredged up such nationalist figures to strengthen his declare that Russia is “de-Nazifying” Ukraine. In speeches, he has referred to as Ukrainians combating Russia “Banderites.”

Grzegorz Rossolinski-Liebe, a Polish historian in Berlin, mentioned that Ukraine “one day must maintain Bandera.”

A part of the rationale Bandera remained so outstanding, he mentioned, used to be that even main intellectuals refused to rethink the historical past. “They don’t truly need to open Ukrainian historical past to the historical past of the Holocaust, the historical past of fascism,” he mentioned. “So long as they keep away from and put off, then people will instrumentalize this historical past — like Putin.”

Nonetheless, the talk round Bandera’s legacy in Ukraine is advanced. More youthful historians and the ones from Ukraine’s heart and east, the place many households fought within the Soviet Union’s Crimson Military, are extra vulnerable to view Bandera severely, mentioned Mr. Rossolinski-Liebe.

In 2019, President Volodymyr Zelensky, who’s Jewish and the grandson of a Crimson Military veteran, fired Volodymyr Viatrovych, a historian who labored to rehabilitate Bandera and different nationalists, as head of the Ukrainian Institute of Nationwide Reminiscence.

Franziska Davies, a historian of Japanese Europe at Ludwig Maximilian College in Munich, mentioned that whilst Mr. Melnyk’s feedback had been “merely false,” the “excessive center of attention” on him used to be now not most effective as a result of the ambassador’s provocative taste.

“It additionally has one thing to do with this German stereotype of Ukraine — as a particularly nationalist nation, as a rustic the place historical past is misrepresented,” she mentioned. “There’s an overly colonialist discourse on Ukraine in Germany.”

For lots of, Mr. Melnyk got here to embrace Ukraine’s frustration with Berlin — now not most effective about slow supply of guns, however about its a long time of financial ties with Moscow, together with a contested gasoline pipeline, Nord Circulate 2, which Ukrainians thought to be a Russian effort to economically strangle their nation by means of depriving it of transit charges.

In fresh months, Mr. Melnyk has accused Germany’s in large part ceremonial president, the previous overseas minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, of weaving a “spider’s internet” of contacts with Russia. Mr. Steinmeier, as soon as shut with Moscow’s overseas minister, Sergey Lavrov, had lengthy promoted Nord Circulate 2, for which he apologized after the invasion.

When Mr. Steinmeier used to be rapidly uninvited from a seek advice from to Kyiv previous this 12 months, Chancellor Olaf Scholz in flip refused for months to seek advice from. Mr. Melnyk then referred to as him an “insulted liverwurst” — a German expression that, loosely, way somebody who’s appearing like a prima donna.

Mr. Melnyk changed into a favourite visitor at the German communicate display circuit, the place he delivered outlandish remarks that outraged the German elite whilst delighting the ones pushing extra powerful give a boost to for Ukraine.

“I don’t experience upsetting. I’m nonetheless a diplomat — I’m now not a political candidate. I’m now not an ‘enfant horrible,’” Mr. Melnyk informed The New York Instances. “The general public say, ‘Neatly, he changed into loopy as a result of the warfare, and emotional.’ That’s not so.”

German officers had been at all times well mannered, however ceaselessly dismissive of his non-public pleas for give a boost to, he mentioned.

“The purpose is you might be desperately attempting to give an explanation for that Ukraine’s scenario is a lot more severe, and also you don’t see any response from Berlin. That’s one thing that possibly modified my means, however it used to be now not a aware choice. It used to be a intestine feeling, a type of experimenting, looking to see: How can I wake Germany up?”

He additionally inadvertently uncovered a from time to time condescending means Germans took to Ukrainians. Throughout one communicate display look, a German historian scolding Mr. Melnyk argued Germany’s conciliatory angle towards Russia used to be formed by means of enjoy of warfare — ignoring or forgetting that Ukrainians witnessed one of the vital bloodiest chapters of Global Struggle II, and had been mired in warfare once more.

Susan Neiman, an American thinker and cultural commentator in Berlin, mentioned a part of the rationale such disputes purpose such a lot outrage is as a result of how tied up Global Struggle II has change into in Western societies’ sense of morality.

“If there may be one consensus the Western international has at this second in time, it’s that if you wish to have a case of absolute evil, or ‘the great battle,’ it’s Global Struggle II,” she mentioned. “Other folks like what they suspect are transparent classes from historical past.”

The talk round Mr. Melnyk’s feedback uncovered divisions within the classes drawn from Global Struggle II.

“By no means once more” is the average chorus for all, however for terribly other causes, mentioned Irit Dekel, who researches political reminiscence on the College of Indiana-Bloomington. “For Germany, it’s ‘by no means once more warfare,’ ‘by no means once more to the Holocaust,’” she mentioned. “For the Russian phase, and its propaganda, it’s been: ‘By no means once more Nazis.’”

However for Japanese Europeans, “A very powerful lesson of Global Struggle II used to be that you need to battle the aggressor,” mentioned Ms. Davies. “That’s what they see they have got to do now: Putin is the aggressor, we will have to battle it.”

The sense amongst Japanese Europeans in their shared will to battle is why it used to be now not Germany or Israel’s condemnation of Mr. Melnyk’s phrases, however Poland’s, that spurred Ukraine’s overseas ministry to distance itself from him. Stressing its gratitude to Poland, Kyiv referred to as for “solidarity within the face of shared demanding situations.”

Mr. Melnyk now recognizes that he went too a long way in his feedback.

“The problem of Bandera is one thing we Ukrainians must paintings on. We simply want extra time,” he mentioned, arguing that Ukraine’s fraught postwar historical past, from Soviet profession to as of late’s warfare, have introduced little room to severely read about its historical past.

However his feedback, he mentioned, mirror a frustration Ukrainians nonetheless have with how they’re observed by means of Germans: “That may be a place that many Ukrainians percentage, however few dare to talk.”