Despised
and ostracized, the Swedish community of Waffen-SS volunteers
long gathered in secrecy on “The Day of the Fallen,” for
obscure ritualistic annual gatherings at a cemetery in a
Stockholm suburb.
Since the 1990s, the rituals have not needed to be clandestine: the few, now
very elderly survivors now head to Sinimäe, Estonia, where
they feel they are now getting the honor to which they are
entitled. Here, Swedish, Norwegian, Austrian, German and
other Waffen-SS veterans from Western Europe meet up with
their Estonian comrades. The annual gatherings include those
who volunteered for ideological reasons, and who are today
actively passing on the experiences to a new generation of
neo-Nazis.
In previous years, Mart Laar, the
Estonian minister of defense sent official greeting to the
veterans. Estonian government endorsement of these events
means in effect that an EU member state is underwriting the
Waffen-SS veterans’ own claims that they constituted a pan-European
force, who were moreover pioneers of European unification.
According to the Tageszeitung, this
March the Estonian parliament will consider a law, which
would formally designate the Estonian Waffen-SS veterans
as “Freedom Fighters.” The law, promoted by Mart Laar’s right-wing
nationalist Isamaa party, represents a fourth attempt by
the Isamaa to pass such a law. Previous efforts were made
in 2005, 2006, and 2010. Last winter the Estonian prime minister
Andrus Ansip sent the Estonian Waffen-SS veterans a letter,
in which he thanked them for their service to the Estonian
people.
In doing so, Estonia would confirm
its leading role in rehabilitating the Waffen-SS. Across
Europe, Waffen-SS veterans and their admirers are following
the developments in Estonia and Latvia. Nowhere in Europe
have these veterans been recognized by governments . The
Estonians and Latvians were (and are) breaking a taboo, setting
a precedent for others to follow.
This is all therefore not some internal
Estonian affair. It should be recognized that the developments
have been treated rather sloppily, even in a sensationalist
way by the media. The terms Waffen-SS and Nazis have been
used interchangeably, and the actual history is often confused.
Certainly, being a veteran in the Estonian Waffen-SS does
not equate to being a Nazi. Admirers of the Estonian and
Latvian Waffen-SS usually emphasize that most of their members
were conscripted, i.e. its members had no choice. For how
many of its members this is correct, we do not know.
The 20th Waffen Grenadier Division
of the SS (1st Estonian) was established on the orders of
Heinrich Himmler in May 1944. It was established through
expanding, by conscription, the 3rd Estonian SS Volunteer
Brigade, formed in May 1943. This unit consisted of Estonians
who voluntarily pledged their lives to Adolf Hitler. The
issue of whether the members of the Waffen-SS volunteered
or not is important. The Nuremburg Tribunal ruled that the
Waffen-SS was a criminal organization, but did not extend
this designation to those forcibly conscripted into the Waffen-SS.
Admirers of the Estonian Waffen-SS
veterans typically refer to them as generic “Freedom Fighters,”
without much of a discussion of the nature of the freedom
they fought for. This is also typical for the apologetic
narrative. The bad guys were always someone else. This is
strictly about honor and pride, never about ideology. We
recognize this from other parts of Europe. In Austria, well
into the 1980s, the Germans were the bad guys. In Germany,
the apologist argument went, the Wehrmacht was clean, the
Waffen-SS were the bad guys. Maintaining their innocence,
the Hilsgemeinschaft auf Gegenseitigkeit der Angehörigen
der ehemaligen Waffen-SS (HIAG), the society of the Waffen-SS
veterans in Germany, presenting its activities as “apolitical”
claimed they were clean, that the true criminals were the
Allgemeine SS.
Like their Scandinavian comrades,
the German Waffen-SS veterans perceive themselves as a victimized
and misunderstood group, second class citizens, victims of
victors’ justice. They have generally not been entitled to
state pensions for veterans.
Outside of Europe, Waffen-SS veterans
have been more successful in gaining acceptance for their
own narrative. In Canada, government authorities, in the
name of multiculturalism have agreed to share the construction
cost for monuments with the association of the Ukrainian
veterans of the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS
(1st Ukrainian), better known at the Waffen-SS Galizien.
Public institutions of higher education institute endowments
in the honor of Ukrainian Waffen-SS volunteers.
To the disappointment of the extreme
right, former Ukrainian president Viktor Yushchenko (in office
2005-2010) did not follow up his rehabilitation of the most
important interwar Ukrainian fascist organization, the OUN,
with a rehabilitation of the Waffen-SS Galizien. To the Ukrainian
far right, Latvia and Estonia have become a source of inspiration
and an example to emulate. Much like the current Estonian
prime minister, Andrus Ansip, the leading Ukrainian ultra-nationalist
party, the All Ukrainian Association Svoboda, which dominates
local politics in several Western Ukrainian cities, denies
that honoring Waffen-SS veterans has anything to do with
neo-Nazi ideology.
In April 2011 Svoboda celebrated the
68th anniversary of the establishment of the Waffen-SS Galizien.
Lviv was decorated with billboards referring to the veterans
of the Waffen-SS Galizien as “the treasure of the nation,”
accompanied by the slogan “They defended Ukraine.” The far
right marched through Lviv with cries like “Galicia – Division
of heroes!,” and “One race, one nation, one Fatherland!”
In time for the Euro 2012, a Waffen-SS Galizien taxi company
was established.
These processes are interlinked. The
Estonian and Latvian governments’ partial recognition granted
their presumably heroic Waffen-SS veterans is part of a larger
narrative of apologetics and obfuscation.
The handling of the Soviet bronze
soldier saga in Tallinn provides an illuminating illustration
of double standards. This author has a certain understanding
about why a monument to Soviet soldiers, which turned into
a rallying point for victory celebrations by Soviet veterans
and parts of the Russian-speaking community in Tallinn would
be regarded as problematic. Furthermore, there is no doubt
that Estonia, and its democratically elected government is
within its full rights to organize its own public space,
which means determining what sort of public memorials should
decorate its capital city. The removal of the bronze soldier
and the relocation of the graves of Soviet solider was motivated
partly by references to its ideological significance. There
is no denying the horrendous crimes carried out by the Soviet
authorities, particularly between 1940-1941, and 1944-1949.
Unfortunately, much of the criticism
of the Waffen-SS cult in Estonia comes not only from Russian-speakers
in Estonia, but also from Russian authorities who have instrumentalized
this critique to political ends. These would be well advised
to acknowledge Stalinist atrocities against Estonians, which
those who objected to the presence of the bronze soldier
in the center of Tallinn saw the statue of symbol for. By
the same token, it difficult to see how official designation
of Waffen-SS veterans by a EU member country would not an
ideological act.
In fact, a Nazi victory, for which
the Waffen-SS was employed, would have meant the permanent
disappearance of Estonia, the population of which was earmarked
for destruction by the Generalplan Ost, which stipulated
that only 50% of Estonians could be Germanized. That discussion
would have thereby precluded this discussion in the first
place.
Thus, that government that has itself
profiled from an elaborate victimization narrative making
Estonia a European center of gravity for Waffen-SS nostalgists
is deeply ironic.
Unlike most plants, these sort of
cults grow in the shade. The Estonian government does not
want international exposure on this. Yet, that is exactly
what is needed.
The nostalgia for the Waffen-SS “freedom
fighters” is not merely an Estonian concern It is a European
concern. It is an international concern. algemeiner.com
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