US official backtracks after Nazi Collaborator tweet storm

The Helsinki Commission’s Paul Massaro posted an image glorifying WW2 Hitler-ally Stepan Bandera

A prominent American foreign policy official was forced into a climbdown on Wednesday after he tweeted in appreciation of a notorious 1940s Nazi collaborator.

Paul Massaro posted a a photo of a patch bearing an image of Stepan Bandera, the leader of a Ukrainian nationalist group which butchered Poles and Jews, in collusion with Adolf Hitler's forces.

Following a storm of protest, he later deleted the tweet. Massaro works for is the US Helsinki Commission, officially known as the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe.

“Hey, look what I've got,” the grinning Massaro tweeted around 9:30 in the morning, showing off his green pseudo-military jacket with a patch that read “Bandera is our father, Ukraine is our mother.” It bore the embroidered visage of Bandera and the logo of his OUN-B organization.

Less than two hours and 270,000 views later, however, the tweet was gone. “Deleted at the request of a good Polish friend. God bless Polish-Ukrainian friendship and may it remain strong forever,” Massaro explained.

If this photograph is real, we are looking at a #US government employee wearing a badge featuring a mass murderer, responsible for the massacre of tens of thousands of innocent Jews, Poles and Minorities.

Massaro represents the worst of the #USA but doesn’t represent the #USA pic.twitter.com/NeRDHAokPq

— Chay Bowes