Re: Glorification of Estonian Waffen SS Re: Vodka, vobla i chastushka

In article <1193227186.795135.249020@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
vello <vellokala@xxxxxx> wrote:

<deletions>

Basically OK, Eugen, just one question - from what sources you find
data about Germans liquidating Estonian military men? Horror of first
Soviet year turns estonians against soviets and germans were clever
enough to make profit on that. Our military men got opportunity to
join Wermacht. some take it others not, deciding "it's not OUR war".
Later there were forced conscriptions so no place for free choice.

I have read the Estonian History Commission's report in detail. The
following sources are not as well documented, but they give the general
picture:

Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estonia_in_World_War_II#Soviet_regime_of_ter
ror

<quote>
<deletions>
The Soviet authorities, having gained control over Estonia, immediately
imposed a regime of terror. Order ? 001223 "On the Procedure for
carrying out the Deportation of Anti-Soviet Elements from Lithuania,
Latvia, and Estonia" was issued.
During the first year of Soviet occupation (1940-1941) over 8,000
people, including most of the country's leading politicians and military
officers, were arrested. About 2,200 of the arrested were executed in
Estonia, while most others were moved to prison camps in Russia, from
where very few were later able to return alive. On July 19, 1940 the
Commander-in-chief of the Estonian Army Johan Laidoner was captured by
the NKVD and deported together with his spouse to the Town of Penza.
Laidoner died in the Vladimir Prison Camp, Russia on March 13, 1953.
[27] President of Estonia, Konstantin Pats was arrested and deported by
the Soviets to Ufa in Russia on July 30, he died in a psychiatric
hospital in Kalinin (currently Tver) in Russia in 1956. 800 Estonian
officers i.e. about a half of the total were executed, arrested or
starved to death in prison camps.
<deletions>
</quote>

In a nutshell, the Soviets liquidated those elements of the Estonian
military that they felt they could not trust.

Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupation_of_Estonia_by_Nazi_Germany

<quote>
<deletions>
Most Estonians greeted the Germans with relatively open arms and hoped
for restoration of independence. Estonia set up a government
administrations, led by Juri Uluots as soon as the Soviet regime
retreated and before German troops arrived. Estonian partisans that
drove the Red Army from Tartu made it possible. That all was for nothing
since the Germans disbanded the provisional government and Estonia
became a part of the German-occupied "Ostland". A Sicherheitspolizei was
established for internal security under the leadership of Ain-Ervin Mere.
In April 1941, on the eve on the German invasion, Alfred Rosenberg,
Reich minister for the Occupied Eastern territories, a Baltic German,
born and raised in Tallinn, Estonia, laid out his plans for the East.
According to Rosenberg a future policy was created:
1. Germanization (Eindeutschung) of the "racially suitable" elements.
2. Colonization by Germanic peoples.
3. Exile, deportations of undesirable elements.
Rosenberg felt that the "Estonians were the most Germanic out of the
people living in the Baltic area, having already reached 50 percent of
Germanization through Danish, Swedish and German influence".
Non-suitable Estonians were to be moved to a region that Rosenberg
called "Peipusland" to make room for German colonists. [2]
The initial enthusiasm that accompanied the liberation from Soviet
occupation quickly waned as a result, and the Germans had limited
success in recruiting volunteers. The draft was introduced in 1942,
resulting in some 3400 men fleeing to Finland to fight in the Finnish
Army rather than join the Germans. Finnish Infantry Regiment 200 AKA
(Estonian: soomepoisid) was formed out of Estonian volunteers in Finland.
With the Allied victory over Germany becoming certain in 1944, the only
option to save Estonia's independence was to stave off a new Soviet
invasion of Estonia until Germany's capitulation.
<deletions>
</quote>

It should be obvious that any Estonian military personnel or structures
that the Soviets would have spared in 1940 would have been regarded with
the utmost suspicion and considered as primary targets for liquidation
by the Germans as they set up governmental structures in Estonia during
the latter half of 1941. Neither was Nazi Germany known to react
benevolently when its efforts to recruit volunteers for the Cause in
occupied countries were met with limited and qualified success. The
*soomepoisid*, draft-dodgers and traitors to be punished appropriately
from the German standpoint, constitute clear and unambiguous testimony
to Estonian antipathy to their Nazi occupiers and the policies they were
implementing in Nazi-occupied Estonia.

Elagu Eesti!

Tervitustega,
Eugene Holman
.