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Regards,

Gordon
History Vault Bookshop
FortressScotland-http://s2.photobucket.com/albums/y20/Historian/

Some very nasty things indeed went on in the Baltic States, also many Concentration Camp personnel were from non-German countries such as these.

I can imagine that confronting their past is not going to be at all easy for these countries.

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"Stand by to pull me out of the seat if I get hit" - Guy Gibson

These countries must face there past horrors and move on. Nice to see the young folk in Germany are now getting on with their lives.

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Regards, Richard

Makes me wonder what the "sprighly grandfather with blue eyes" did to make fuhrer.

Later

hehe funny, but it is good to dsee them move on

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"Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning." -Winston Churchill

I would whole heartedly support the veterans had they been part of regular Wehrmacht units but you can't be too sure about an SS kamfgruppen on the Eastern Front and I can understand why the Russkis would take issue with it.

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Read Felix Steiner's book "die freiwillige"

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'We march. The enemy is retreating in transport. We follow on foot.' Lt.Neil McCallum 5/7 Gordons 19th November 1942

In the case of the Eastern European countries like Latvia and Estonia, which were overrun by the Soviets in 1939 and then again in 1944, it was a real dilemma. I think it was the same dilemma that many Germans found themselves in the 1920s and 1930s: between a rock and a hard place (National Socialism and Communism). Do you think that Germany would have been better off going Communist? (just a rhetorical question. I'm not advocating that they would or that the Nazis were any less evil). The Waffen-SS had an advantage over the Wehrmacht in recruiting outside the borders of the Reich proper. They also built propaganda about the war being a European crusade against Bolshivism. Many Europeans joined; believing this. Many Western European countries, like Belgium, Holland, Denmark, etc. figured they'd better get aboard with Germany if they were to claim their spoils from a conquered Russia, etc. And remember that the Waffen-SS also conscripted people, often with the threat of sending the recruit and his family back to Germany as slave labor. In the East I think it was even more the fear of life under the Soviets. They had lived under the heel of Stalin for a couple of years before the Germans came through. The Latvians knew what it was like to live under Stalin. They didn't know what Hitler was really like but to them it seemed the better alternative. It's not our place to judge them for what they did some 60 years ago. They were in a squeeze box -- which part of Hell do you want to suffer in?

I do not have a problem with the veterans of the Waffen-SS in any of the foreign countries, especially in the East. I believe they were fighting for their countries and their freedom.

Bob

Definitely a parade that brings mixed feelings about it.

However the Russians should read first about what they did in 1940 in Latvia before they start commenting more. It´s not always "It was Stalin who did it" you know.

The Baltic countries faced three phases of purges. 1940 when Russians entered, 1941 when Germans entered and 1944 when Russians entered again.

For example read this:

http://www.vm.ee/estonia/kat_459/pea_174/991.html

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Kai: "It´s not always "It was Stalin who did it" you know."

Well it certainly was in 1940 and again in 1944. I can image life under Soviet rule even after Stalin wasn't a bowl of strawberries.

What was it like in Finland after Finland dropped out of the war, and then afterwards?

Bob

That is a long story, Bob, but here is something that gives rather a "nice" picture of the situation.

http://www.country-data.com/cgi-bin/query/r-4585.html

All in all I suppose we were "allowed" to have our freedom because we had shown how stubborn we can be and also it was rather good politics for the USSR to have a "western" country next to it and show how good relations they could have with such a country ( especially during the cold war ).

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