This post steps outside of the nutrition/excercise/biochem theme of this blog, but this is a matter so extremely important to me and close to my heart, that i have to share this with you guys. And i do hope, that even though you came here to read up on some nutrition question, you will not skip this post. This article was written by my stepdad, an ex nightbomber in the second WW. It breaks my heart that our government leads our newly freed country in a very cowardly way when it comes to giving honour where honour is due. These men will be all gone soon. This is all i can do for them - a little bit of publicity. Unbiased publicity is a rare commodity in this republic of ours.
WHY DID ESTONIANS FIGHT TOGETHER WITH THE GERMANS?
Hendrik Arro
Every now and then, the question about Estonian soldiers
in the German armed forces during World War II arises. Were they Nazi
bandits or Estonian freedom fighters? In order to give an unbiased
reply to that question, one should know the events of the time as
well as the historical background. The following has been written as
a brief overview of the reasons why Estonians fought with the
Germans.
The great tragedy, World War II, was especially
tragic for the many small nations who were drawn into that clash of
major nations against their will. Often,
free will to decide on which side they wanted to be on was not
possible and whose side they ended up on depended on the political
and geographical situation. It was not rare
to find people from the same nation fighting in opposing armies.
This is exactly the case of the Estonians.
The men who had been serving in the Estonian army
and had been transferred to the Red Army after the Soviet annexation,
as well as the men who were mobilised by the Soviet Union in Summer
1941, of which many perished in the forced labour camps1,
had to fight with the Soviets. The majority,
(70 to 80 per cent) of the (approximately) 100,000 Estonians fighting
in World War II fought with the Germans or the Finns2.
Many times Estonians were accusingly asked, “Why
did you fight with the Germans while all the democratic nations were
against Nazi Germany?” In order to
understand this and the general situation of the Estonians, we first
must be acquainted with the historic background.
Friends and enemies
Before the war and even during the beginning of
World War II, pro-British sentiment prevailed in Estonia. The
reason for this was the fact that the British had
helped the Estonians in the Independence War and that relations
between Estonia and Great Britain from then on had been quite good.
The author of this article, a schoolboy before the
war, remembers very well how most Estonians felt about the German
campaign against Poland and other small European nations in the
beginning of World War II. Estonians had
considered for centuries that Germans, especially the Baltic German
landlords were their main enemies and oppressors. Then there was the
German occupation in 1918 and the so-called Landeswehr War – where
German professional soldiers, financed by the Baltic German nobility,
fought against the Estonians in the Independence War in summer 1919 –
these conflicts did not engender any warm feelings towards the
Germans either.
So, why did public opinion change so rapidly in
favour of the Germans? It can be stated
with confidence that this profound change in public opinion was
caused directly by the Soviet Union and its actions. By
the late 1930s, events in the Soviet Union had created in many
people, a negative view of the Communist regime. This
view was strengthened by a rapid sequence of events in 1939 – the
violent establishment of Soviet military bases in the Baltic
countries, threatening these nations with raw force (the so-called
Bases Pact); a blow against Poland from behind while they were
fighting with the Germans; arrogant aggression against Finland; and a
few months later, the annexation of the hitherto independent Estonia
and other Baltic nations in the summer of 1940. Such actions clearly
demonstrated the violent and treacherous character of the Soviet
Union, and affected the opinion of most Estonians of it.
But, unfortunately, this was just the beginning.
The reality turned out even worse than people had
feared. In 1940–1941, after Estonia had
been annexed to the Soviet Union, events – violence and terror on
citizens, arrests, and especially the mass deportations and the
hundreds of executed people found in mass graves discovered shortly
after the Soviets had been driven out – quickly made it clear to
most Estonians that the gravest threat to the existence of the
Estonian people was Russian communism3.
The hope that British and French help in
maintaining the independence of the Estonian nation and republic
would be forthcoming, had collapsed. Moreover,
both these nations as well as the US, became friends of the Soviet
Union during World War II. So most Estonians could not do anything
other than see Germany as the only ally worth considering against the
threat of death coming from the east. The severity of the situation
forced the age-old hatred into the background.
The summer of 1941 saw the beginning of the
massive partisan movement, called the Forest Brethren (metsavennad)
against the Russians (for the average Estonian, the Soviet Union
still meant more or less the same as the Communist Russia4).
The majority of Estonians realised that one must
fight against the Communist regime of Russia by any and all means.
This was a forced war, which was fought, not for
conquering new land or subduing other nations, but for defending
one’s own homeland. Those Estonians who
fought in the so-called “destroyer battalions” which were putting
into effect the Stalinist policy of scorched earth, were considered
as traitors by most Estonians, as they were
fighting not against the Germans, but against their own people.
Brothers in arms – yes, but not friends
After the arrival of the Germans, who were first
accepted as friends and liberators, thousands of Estonian volunteers
joined the German armed forces. Estonian units were formed in order
to start defending their homeland against the Stalinist Russia and to
avenge the sufferings and injustice done to the Estonian people.
They hoped, naively, that the Germans would agree
to restore the Republic of Estonia, after which – very probably –
the Estonians would have then joined Germans as willing allies in the
fight against the Soviet Union. Unfortunately,
the German authorities did not use this enthusiasm well, though
restoring the national independence of Estonia would have made
Estonians allies to be trusted. On the
contrary – their actions, though better than the Soviet terror
against the Estonians, were still the actions of occupiers and very
soon Germans lost most of the trust and friendship of Estonians.
In the beginning, the Germans attempted to hinder
the formation of Estonian units, in order to prevent the emergence of
Estonian armed forces. Even when the German
authorities finally discovered the necessity of such units, the
Estonian units were kept as small as possible, diffused and under the
command of German staff. The Germans did
not want to hear anything about independent Estonian armed forces,
even when dire necessity made them mobilise tens of thousands of
Estonians.
In spite of all this – though cursing the German
arrogance and irrational politics – the Estonians continued
fighting with the Germans against the Russians, led by the principle
that in crisis one can use the help of Beelzebub to exorcise the
Devil. Many hoped that the historical
situation of 1918 would repeat itself – both great nations which
had been occupying Estonia, Russia and Germany, would exhaust one
another in the war, perhaps giving rise to the restoration of
Estonian independence. It was very
important that no Russian troops remained on Estonian soil when
action ceased. Estonian independence was
the aim for which one could fight, attempting to keeping the Soviets
from the Estonian border and preventing them from re-occupying
Estonia.
The intensity of people's hatred and the
indignation of most Estonians, which was induced by the action of the
Communists, and how important the fight against the Soviet Union was
considered to be can be estimated, for instance, by the fact that
even though the Germans turned out to be occupiers of Estonia, there
was practically no anti-German partisan movement during the German
occupation in Estonia (1941–1944). Though
the Soviets left Communist functionaries behind to organise partisan
action on their retreat, they were quickly exposed by the locals;
also the partisan groups sent from the Soviet Union into Estonia, not
gaining support from the people, were liquidated rather quickly.
There were some people who hid from the
mobilisation but their aim was purely personal safety. Active,
Forest Brethren partisan activity occurred in Estonia only in the
Soviet rear during the summer of 1941 and re-started in September
1944 after the Soviets re-occupied Estonia. It
should be also noted that a number of Estonians serving in the Soviet
Army defected to the Germans at the first chance. This
happened mostly in the summer of 1941 and the winter of 1942/43 (the
latter under Velikiye Luki). This was the
time when the Germans had not completely run out of luck, and there
appeared to be some reason in such defections. All
this shows that there was not only a small Nazi-minded group of
people who were fighting against Communist Russia, but most Estonians
supported the fighting.
Of course, most Estonians serving in the German
armed forces were mobilised in Estonia and therefore cannot be
described as volunteers. On the contrary,
people’s attitude towards the Germans was quite critical for the
most part (the action of the German authorities changed even the
minds of those people who had volunteered to join their troops).
But it should be noted that evading the German
mobilisations was significantly less widespread than it had been in
the Summer of 1941 when thousands of men were evading the Soviet
mobilisation. On the contrary, even when
the situation on the front was rather bad and evading the
mobilisation – for personal safety – would have been
understandable, most of the men who received the notice for
mobilisation came to protect their homeland and fought as well as it
was possible in that situation. The
attitude of people was also in favour of the men serving in the
German army. It was because people simply
understood the necessity of fighting.
The legal basis of Estonians fighting
When talking about the fight against the Soviet
Union, it is appropriate to discuss its legal basis also.
During both the Soviet and German occupations, the
Estonian legal authorities continued to operate, more or less
underground5.
Their orders and attitude formed the political and moral instructions
for Estonian citizens. Even though the
Germans denied the plea for restoration of independence by several
leading Estonian politicians, led by the prime minister J. Uluots,
the politicians still decided that the main enemy in the ongoing war
for Estonia and Estonians was the Soviet Union and they summoned the
Estonian people to mobilise all their internal efforts in fight
against communism. In February 1944, when
the Soviet troops had reached the Estonian borders, the Prime
Minister J. Uluots read a speech over the radio6.
During this speech he noted that the main presumption for the
restoration of Estonian freedom was to keep the Soviets out of
Estonia and in order to achieve this, he summoned Estonians to fight
with the Germans. The speech was published
in all Estonian newspapers. The National
Committee of the Republic of Estonia, which consisted of
representatives of Estonian political parties and was oriented mainly
towards the Western Allies, understood the graveness of the situation
and supported the idea of Estonian soldiers fighting with the
Germans7.
Thus it can be said with certainty that the
representatives of Estonian legal authority saw Estonians fighting
against the Soviet Union with the Germans as the only possibility in
the given conditions.
No doubt that the standpoint of and the petitions
by the Estonian legal authorities had considerable effect on people
and many of those who had originally not wanted to fight with the
Germans, became protectors of the homeland. For
instance, during the mobilisation at the beginning of the February
1944, about 15,000 men were expected to appear but actually, nearly
40,000 men joined in to protect their homeland. (The number of people
who turned up was even greater, but not all of the men were
accepted.) The situation at the Front had
become very serious and it was obvious that everything possible had
to be done to prevent the return of the Russians. For
Estonians, the fight had turned into nationwide fight for freedom8.
But the Germans were still afraid of forming
Estonian armed forces and so they are responsible for the fact that
the units formed out of the mobilised men (border guard units) were
not formed into a uniform Estonian unit (a Division), but were
dispersed and subordinated to German units. Further
– these men were not issued with suitable armament and equipment
for the conditions in which they were to fight.
If we try to assess the action of the Estonian
legal authorities and Estonians in World War II objectively, we must
consider the fact that Estonians were in a situation – against
their will – with no possibility of choosing between Western
democracy and Germany. The choice was between two major totalitarian
states, Stalinist Russia and Nazi Germany. Estonians
liked neither. As a friend and ally of the Western democracies in
World War II, Russia, had occupied Estonia for a year before the
hostilities began. This introduction had been enough to prove to the
Estonians that the mortal enemy of the Estonian people was Communist
Russia, against whom you had to protect yourself by whatever means
available. It was this, that decided the
course of history.
Soviet Union and the Western nations
Many of the Western nations understood what
Communist Russia was and learned of Stalin’s crimes only many years
later (some have not understood it yet). Due
to wartime propaganda, the peoples of the West considered anybody who
had fought with the Germans as protectors of that criminal regime,
not asking what the purpose of that fighting had been. There
were no exceptions for this rule. But back
then, Russians were considered to be good allies. It
is a tragedy of history that the situation caused those Estonian men
who had wanted to protect their homeland against Communist Russia to
do it wearing German uniforms. Tens of
thousands of men participated in this fight and for them it was a
fight for their country and people, caused by historic inevitability.
The legal authorities of Estonia sanctioned this
fight. It was clear to Estonian soldiers
that the prerequisite for defending Estonia and restoring its
national independence was to crush Communist Russia and in order to
achieve this aim, one had to fight, if necessary, outside of Estonia
as well. But whenever an Estonian soldier
fought, he carried the national colours, blue-black-white on his
sleeve and the aim of free Estonia in his heart.
The tragedy of a small nation is that the victors
of the World War II did not want to recognise this in the euphoria
following the victory. It was especially
bitter for the Estonians that even the US became an unconditional
ally of the Soviet Union. Many Estonians serving in the German army
had hoped that the US would understand the situation of the
Estonians. The Estonian prisoners-of-war
were often treated as ordinary, Nazi-minded volunteers fighting with
the Germans. (It took a long time before
the Americans started to understand that even though it was obvious
why the SS men did not want to return home, why were the ordinary
civilian refugees from the Soviet-held territories so unwilling to
return home? Something had to be wrong
there.) The events that happened
immediately after the war can be understood – ordinary Americans
tend not to have much empathy for other peoples. But
later, even now, here and there, all over the world, people have
tried to accuse Estonians who fought with the Germans, especially in
the Waffen-SS, of all imaginable sins. Especially
active in this sense have been the Communist authorities of post-war
Estonia and their followers and the global Jewish organisations.
The latter, especially, tend to think that the
fact that a lot of Estonians served in the 20th
(Estonian) Division of the Waffen-SS is enough to accuse all
Estonians, not asking what this unit actually was.
Estonians and the Waffen-SS
Firstly, it must be said that Estonians, for the
most part, joined the Waffen-SS – so much criticised by the Western
Allies and the Soviet Union – forcibly. Most
of the youngsters who had been mobilised in 1943 were transferred
there, as well as entire units in 1944. This
happened, for instance, with the Eastern Battalions, the Estonians
who had fought in Finland and had returned, and a number of others.
Men were not asked for their opinion, although
they vocally criticised these transfers. (As
contemporaries remember, even the legendary commander of a Eastern
Battalion, Major Alfons Rebane, carrier of the Ritterkreutz, later
commander of a regiment of the Estonian Division, had not wanted his
battalion to be transferred to the Waffen-SS and had even threatened
to leave to Finland. But he understood the seriousness of the
situation and with his sense of responsibility for his homeland and
men he continued his service.) The Estonian
Legion and the 20th
(Estonian) Division of the Waffen-SS, which had been formed from it,
were purely combat units which members the International Court of
Nuremberg did not condemn as war criminals. For
Estonians, the Waffen-SS meant better armament and training in the
first place, essential for fighting against the Eastern enemy9.
Quite often, the Estonian soldiers who had escaped
to Germany in autumn 1944 and continued to fight there in spite of
the hopeless situation have been criticised too. It
was obvious that they had already lost their homeland and the defeat
of Germany was only a matter of time. These
criticisers accuse Estonian soldiers that their effort helped the
Germans to resist and commit additional war crimes and crimes against
humanity until the end of the war. But one
must remember that military service was the only alternative the
Germans offered to the Estonian soldiers arriving in Germany10.
Unfortunately, these criticisers cannot suggest
any other alternative for what those men had to do other than
suggestions of surrender or even committing suicide (yes, this
extreme suggestion has been made). Indeed,
small groups of men would have tried to desert and to escape to the
West, but to develop the idea that this would have been possible for
entire units, especially on the Eastern Front, is sheer naivety.
Russians certainly were not people whom an
Estonian soldier would have wanted to trust, considering the bitter
experiences of 1940–41. (The suggestion
that the entire 20th
Division of the Waffen-SS should have shot themselves cannot be taken
seriously.)
A brief discussion about crimes against humanity
As it has been not possible to accuse any Estonian
units, not even the 20th
(Estonian) Division of the Waffen-SS of crimes against humanity, the
most active criticisers of the Estonian soldiers in German service
have, every now and then, launched an accusatory campaign, as noted
above, stating that even though Estonian combat units were not
directly involved in war crimes, their fighting helped the Germans to
amongst other things commit crimes against humanity. Briefly,
they are accused of supporting Germans committing such crimes.
But such a simplified approach allows us to accuse
soldiers of all forces in World War II. Following
the same logic, one can say that the soldiers of the Red Army,
including Estonians, can be accused in the murders of Katyn,
arresting and deporting tens or even hundreds of thousands of people
in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and the Caucasus etc. And
the list goes on. It would have been
impossible for the Stalinist regime to commit and hide those
atrocities from the world without the support of its armed forces.
It could be said that the Allied soldiers who were
liberating some peoples from the Germans were, with the Soviet Union,
pushing others deeper and deeper under the Communist yoke and helped
to preserve the Gulag Archipelago and aided in the death of millions
of people in the Soviet prison camps many years after the war’s
end. But the Nuremburg court only discussed
the atrocities of Germany and her allies. The
victorious peoples were not judged, in spite what they had done.
The Soviet Union demanded a number of issues
sensitive to the major nations to be dropped from the agenda of the
Nuremberg court; the other victorious nations agreed with pleasure.
But it is totally obvious that it is sheer
nonsense to accuse men who had fought on this or other side, only by
what atrocities the entire respective fighting nations had committed,
for it does not lead anywhere.
Even if we drop the issue of helping to commit war
crimes and consider certain crimes against humanity, it can be said
with certainty that those were committed by the armed forces of all
fighting nations. But a discussion on these
must be based on their committers. And even
here the situation is not clear, as one must know the background of
one or other act that is now considered a crime. Speaking
about the atrocities of Estonians on the side of the Germans, one
should know that before the anti-tank trench at Tartu11
there were the Tartu Prison and a number of other places where the
remains of cruelly tortured and executed people were found in the
Summer and Autumn of 1941, after the retreat of the Soviet armed
forces. One should also recall the
deportation of women and children, the actions of the “destroyer
battalions” etc. But these accusers have
been silent on these points. We can be
completely sure that all this had a strong emotional impact, which
took men to war against the Russians as volunteers, but also set the
character of that war. The enemy really was
an enemy, in every sense of the word.
It should be noted that crimes against humanity in
Estonia continued even after the war, as the hostilities in fact
continued. The actions of the post-war
Forest Brethren who had been fighting with the Germans for the most
part and whom the Communists were referring to as Fascist
throat-cutters and accusing of many crimes, (though their action did
not differ much from that of the Soviet partisans against the
Germans, which were not considered as crimes) compare were closely to
the post-war crimes of the men who had fought in the Red Army
(arresting and torturing innocent people, deportations etc).
Often such actions were carried out with the
willing or unwilling help of security agents, party activists etc.
who had been in the Soviet Army, being the main supporters of the
Soviet power in Estonia. (For the sake of truth, it must be said that
most of the men who had served in the Estonian Corps, did not
besmirch their honour with such atrocities.)
Speaking of the Forest Brethren, one needs to
remember that many men were forced into the forests by the actions of
the Soviet authorities, i.e. the actions of the same supporters who,
after the war, often persecuted people who did not like Soviet power
and the developments in Estonia, even if the men were not fighting
directly against it. These people often
could only choose between the option of to being sent to Siberia or
to go into the forest. This resulted in
thousands of abandoned households, broken families and tragic fates,
making many people who had perhaps already accepted the defeat and
started to live a normal life again, but now were forced to start an
active fight against the Soviets. Several
Soviet activists found their death at the hands of such men.
Additionally, one should not forget that by the
end of the Forest Brethren movement, they were fighting a hopeless
and desperate fight of betrayed and doomed people. They
had put all their hope on the US that this democratic and powerful
nation would understand what an empire of evil the Soviet Union was
and would do something against it. This
hope was based on the American claim that they did not recognise the
Soviet annexation of the Baltic nations in 1940. But,
unfortunately, all this remained only words. The
Baltic nations were sold at Yalta, just as they had been sold by the
Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. It must be
understood that an embittered man, his vain hopes betrayed, is a
bitter fighter, whose only purpose is to sell his life as dearly as
possible.
But all this is a different topic. The
discussion above shows that as it is impossible to point at the Red
Army or any other armed force of any fighting nation as whole, it is
also impossible to call single units of the German armed forces, such
as the Estonian Legion or the 20th
(Estonian) Division of the Waffen-SS, criminals, especially when
there is no evidence of atrocities being committed by these units.
So, what did an Estonian soldier fight for?
In summary, it must be said that Estonian soldiers
in World War II were generally considered as good and brave soldiers.
But the aim of this soldier, which he carried in
his heart during the fighting, was not a new Europe or Greater
Germany, it was only to free his little homeland12.
It is a historical tragedy that Estonia could not
fight against Communist Russia on the side of democratic Western
nations but with Nazi Germany and thus inadvertently became one of
the “bad boys”. The Western nations
have generally accepted the Finnish fight for their freedom against
the Soviet Union, especially because the Finns had to fight against
the Germans by the end of the war. The
Estonian fight was exactly the same, a fight for freedom, where the
Estonian soldier tried to give his best, using the resources he had
at the time. It was not the fault of the
Estonian soldier that he had no other choice of ally than Nazi
Germany and that he could not reach his aim nor defend his homeland
in the battle between the major nations. Even
though history has been rather biased so far, the former combatants
still believe that the younger generations, both in Estonia and
abroad, will see history with open minds one day, in spite of more
than fifty years of propaganda accusing the men who had served in the
German armed forces, and eventually understand by objectively
assessing the events that for an Estonian soldier the World War II
was just a continuation of the Independence War and nothing else.
1
Estonians were not trusted. The Estonians who were mobilised
and taken to Russia were taken to the so-called labour battalions
where many perished from hunger and cold in the winter of 1941/42.
Estonians in these labour battalions were, in reality,
prisoners. It was only in late 1942, when
it was evident that the Germans are running out of luck, that
Estonians were concentrated into the new Estonian Rifle Corps which
later saw action.
2
Over 3000 Estonian volunteers (so-called “Finnish boys”,
soomepoisid) fought in the Finnish armed forces. They had not
wanted to fight for the Germans and escaped from Estonia to Finland.
The largest Estonian unit in the Finnish armed forces was the
200th Infantry Regiment (JR 200). As
Finland was an Axis country and fought against the Soviets with
Germany, the people fighting with the Finns can be counted as
fighting on the German side as well.
3
In 1940–1941 over 4000 peaceful citizens were arrested by
the Soviets in Estonia, violating all internationally accepted legal
norms. Most of them were murdered, or they died in prison camps.
The terror culminated in the deportation of more than 10,000
people, including women and children, in June 1941.
The question that faced Estonians was no longer about the
survival of democracy or the Republic, but the survival of the
Estonian nation itself.
4
Historicaly, Russians have been the only conquerors from the
east who have attempted to harass the Estonians. None of the other
nations making up the Soviet Union have attempted this.
5
When the Soviet occupation troops arrived in June 1940, Jüri
Uluots, the Prime Minister of Estonia, succeeded in going
underground. After the Estonian president
Konstantin Päts was arrested in July 1940, the powers of the
president were transferred to the Prime Minister, as set out in the
constitution. The Western nations
recognised the continuity and legal succession of the underground
Estonian state authorities,.
6
Radio speech of the Prime Minister J. Uluots on February 7,
1944.
7
Order of the National Committee of the Republic of Estonia,
No. 1 of August 1, 1944 and No. 2 of August 24, 1944.
8
About 1800 of the Estonians fighting with the Finns returned
to Estonia in August 1944 when the Russians had reached Tartu, in
order to do anything possible during this critical moment to protect
Estonia.
9
All soldiers and officers who fought in the 20th
Division of the Waffen-SS were released from imprisonment in the
West after the Nuremberg court acquitted those former fighters of
the Waffen-SS who had been assigned there by authorities and had not
committed atrocities. In addition, the
letter from the Displaced Persons Commission to the Acting Consul
General of Estonia in New York, dated September 13, 1950 states that
the Baltic Waffen-SS units, including the Estonian Legion, were to
be considered as separate and distinct in purpose, ideology,
activities and qualifications for membership from the German SS, and
therefore the Commission held them not to be a movement hostile to
the Government of the United States. Therefore,
the cases of applicants for admission into the United States who
have been members of the Baltic Waffen-SS, including the Estonian
Legion, would be considered on their individual merit.
10
Before the end of the war nearly all Estonian soldiers in
Germany were transferred to the 20th (Estonian) Division
of the Waffen-SS, in spite of their original arm of service.
11
After the war, it became well known as the execution site for
people shot by the German occupation authorities.
12
The number of Estonians who had been mobilised in the Soviet
armed forces from Estonia and who idealised the Communist empire
lead by Russia, was very small. Mostly
they ended up on the Soviet side because it had been impossible to
evade the mobilisation (see also Note 1).
10
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