The Charlemagne Division of the Waffen S.S.
Posted on 08/07/2007 10:57:06 PM PDT by Gondar
Estonia's commemoration of its pro-German World War II past, including the re-enactment of a Nazi victory, has outraged European officials and the Russian Jewish community.
Published: 08/06/2007
MOSCOW (JTA) -- Estonia's commemoration of its pro-German World War II past, including the re-enactment of a Nazi victory, has outraged European officials and the Russian Jewish community.
A week ago, veterans of the Waffen SS 20th Estonian Division celebrated the anniversary of the first clashes between Estonian pro-German troops and the Soviet Army in 1941.
And on Monday, young Estonian ultra-rightists began a week of commemoration by re-enacting the 1941 Erna Campaign, when a diversionary platoon of 42 Estonian paramilitary volunteers trounced the Soviet Red Army. According to the semi-official Russian Federal News Agency, the re-enactment attracted participation from 10 countries, including the United States, Finland and Germany.
Recalling its pro-German World War II past has been an annual tradition for Estonia since the republic seceded from the Soviet Union in 1991.
Rene van der Linden, chairman of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, said Estonian efforts to whitewash its Nazi past would be high on the assembly’s agenda when it convenes Oct. 1 in Strasbourg.
During last week's commemoration, in the small Estonian town of Sinimiae, elderly veterans from Estonia, Norway and Austria traveled three hours by charter bus from Tallinn, the Estonian capital. They were accompanied by dozens of young followers dressed in T-shirts with Nazi symbols, along with Estonian officials, including Parliament member Trivimi Velliste and Minister of Defense Jak Aaviksoo.
Speaking before the gathering, Aaviksoo reportedly called the former SS commandos “fighters for independence” and Velliste described the Soviet soldiers as “terrorists.”
Moscow described the Sinimiae event as a “popularization of Nazism.”
Estonia has clashed previously with Moscow over what Russia has called Estonia’s “glorification” of its Nazi past. In January, 150 people were wounded and more than 1,000 detained in violent street protests in Tallinn after a bronze statue commemorating a World War II Soviet soldier was moved from a downtown square to a less prestigious location outside the city’s center.
Estonia’s prewar Jewish population was virtually destroyed during the country’s four years of Nazi occupation. Estonia’s small Jewish population of 3,500 has stayed out of the fray, offering no formal comment on either the statue removal or this week’s commemorative events.
Foreign Jews, however, were outspoken.
Boruch Gorin, the Moscow-based spokesman for the Chabad-affiliated Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia, blasted the commemoration in Sinimiae, saying the Estonian government and church leaders who supported it made heroes of “blood-thirsty killers” and were “dancing on the bones” of Jews killed in the Holocaust.
The Russian delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly repeatedly has drawn attention to the situation in Estonia, but this will mark the first time it will be discussed formally. The assembly has 47 member states. Israeli representatives have attended as observers since 1957, but without voting rights. Van der Linden, the assembly chairman, plans to visit Estonia prior to October.
“Russian Jewry hopes the assembly will put the lid on this glorification of Hitler’s death squads,” Gorin said. “If we let them forget the lessons of history, we may face such crimes again.”
Ping!
No easy answer here. The only two sides in that area were pro-Nazi or pro-Soviet. It’s not easy to find a lot of love for either. It’s too easy to apply today’s judgments to old men who, when young, had to pick one or the other.
What I would propose is no flag but the Estonian flag. No songs but Estonian songs. The veterans of the war, on whichever side they fought, can walk in the parade side by side or not at all.
By 1920 or so, the surviving Civil War veterans combined their efforts, blue and gray alike; it’s time to bring that healing vibe to the rembemberances of WWII.
Any veteran of either side who is still alive today was young and misled then. They survived. Civilization survived. The Nazis lost in a decade, the Soviets six decades later.
While we must never salute their misguided mission, their courage and honor deserves a tip o’ the cap. Something folks on opposite sides are quicker to offer than we sideline quarterbacks.
We should celebrate that, celebrate each other, and stop re-fighting past wars. Let the dead bury the dead. And for the love of all things decent and holy, let’s look forward to the world we want to build rather than back at the one we so spectacularly f’ed up.
Well said.
I really feel bad for the Eastern European nations and peoples... they were trapped between the two murderous systems of Nazism and Communism, and were sold out to Stalin after WW2. The 20th century wasn’t kind to them.
Excellent post.
I think a lot of the pro-Soviet “Estonians” are Russians who settled in Estonia after the War or their descendants. The Soviets russified Estonia after the War, “liquidating” large numbers of Estonians, especially civil servants, publishers, teachers and managers and replaced them with Russians.
Yea, it’s not a good situation when the Nazis are looked at as being better than the Soviets. Of course, the Soviets ruled them for lot longer than the Nazis. It may be a case of seething hatred.
Russification, liquidation of the Estonian intelligentsia and purges began in 1939/40 with the occupation by the USSR of the Baltic states as part of the Nazi-Soviet Pact, a major reason the German occupiers were looked on by a large percentage of the population as liberators.
The same is true of Latvia and especially Lithuania.
Obviously the Nazis were not seen that way by their victims; the Jewish minority, communists and others. Estonian nationalists weren’t particularly understanding of the Quislings amongst them either.
In many ways the Finns had it the best among German allies. After recovering the territories lost to Russia in the Winter War of Nov ‘39 to March ‘40 (Petsamo, Karelia, Hango, etc.) the Finns pretty much stayed within their former territories, prevented the Germans from perseucuting their Jewish minority and avoided occupation by either side during or after the war.
However, the recovered territories were lost again, a heavy war indemnity was imposed and the USSR maintained a veto over Finnish foreign policy and the personnel occupying senior government office (foreign minister, President, etc) were as often as not creatures of the NKVD/MGB/KGB. Finland was also tied to the Soviets by a Mutual Defense Pact, tho Soviet troops weren’t stationed in Finland.
Hence the origin of the Cold War term Finlandization as a possible outcome of Soviet efforts to split the alliance.
While he is right about the Soviet soldiers, that does not mean to SS commandos were any less terrorists.
A pox on all their houses.
Oh I agree, its not unlike the Chinese colonizers of Tibet and Sinkiang.
Headed by Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler, the Waffen-SS saw action throughout the Second World War. It had three sub-organisations:
Leibstandarte, Adolf Hitler's bodyguard regiment.The Totenkopfverbände were the really bad guys.Totenkopfverbände, that administered the concentration camps.
Verfügungstruppe, up to 39 divisions in World War II that served as elite combat troops alongside the regular army Wehrmacht.
Very intersting! Thanks for the info!
The Charlemagne Division of the Waffen S.S.
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That's easy for us to say, 60 years later, from a country that wasn't caught between two monsters.
Ah cool! I love those old propaganda posters. The Nazis had some nice ones, but the Soviets had even better ones in my opinion.
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