Putin is turning Russia back into USSR

[CCIP]

I know what he's doing.




And if you still didn't clue in, likewise -

The problem is not the fact that they're commemorating resistance to Soviet occupation. The problem is how and through what. They could do it without using Nazi organizations connected to massive atrocities. They could also do it without trying to make present-day Russians somehow feel guilty of it, and without disenfranchising vast populations of Russians on their territory who were born and raised there.

I think a good parallel to this particular gesture would be if Finland raised a monument to their glorious role in assisting the siege of Leningrad.

[Happy Times]

Originally Posted by CCIP

And which side are you on?

Newsflash: Waffen SS was acknowledged as part of the Nazi organization at Nuremberg and universally condemned. There is no excuses for Waffen SS. Of course not every SS soldier participated in an atrocity, but they were very explicitly signing up into this work. These were Waffen SS soldiers, no more, no less. They share the responsibility for the "humanitarian work" done by Waffen SS on the Eastern Front.

There were Estonian units in the Soviet army fighting against the Germans on the other hand, and this is a monument to this battle specifically - not to NKVD, not to the Soviet army in their role as occupier. There is a big difference.

Again, I repeat, there is NO excuses for Waffen SS. There is no excuses for honoring an essentially Nazi legacy. I don't care HOW you raise your goddamn hand to honor them, you just don't do that. There is no excuses for dishonoring a legacy of those fighting against the Germans and their allies, period.

Happy Times, don't go overboard, please. There is a difference between recognizing history and defending Nazi organizations. Myself nor Type941, nor most Russians, deny the wrongs done by the illegal Soviet occupation of the Baltic. But this just doesn't measure up with Nazism.

Im in the side of truth, not some perverted mockery of history. Well United States recognized the special nature of the Baltic SS units, they defended them. Estonians fighting for USSR were volunteers and considered traitors, wich they were. USSRs crimes compare well with those Nazis did. You dismiss valid points i made, about Russias lack of condemnation of USSRs crimes, in one sentence. Convinient. Are you suggesting i shouldnt honor my countries history in WW2? Then we might have a serious disagreement.

[CCIP]

Originally Posted by Happy Times

about Russias lack of condemnation of USSRs crimes, in one sentence.

What other condemnation do you need, for crying out loud? Maybe they should apologize for fighting Germany, too?

What do modern Russians have to do with this? Even Mr. Putin was born after WWII. This is history. This has been acknowledged, now let's stop dishonoring it and pestering today's Russians over it.

I don't care about the "special nature". The US can say lots of things; I see 27,000,000 dead Soviet citizens in World War II. And I think they're rolling over in their mass graves from these kinds of gestures. I understand the Estonians had it hard; but that doesn't excuse their contribution to the Nazi war plan. Again, "tragedy of small nations" is my explanation, and I sympathise with this. But one atrocity doesn't automatically cancel out another. You can join the Waffen SS with your "special nature", and you're still in the Waffen SS to me.

[Happy Times]

Originally Posted by CCIP

What other condemnation do you need, for crying out loud? Maybe they should apologize for fighting Germany, too?

What do modern Russians have to do with this? Even Mr. Putin was born after WWII.

I don't care about the "special nature". The US can say lots of things; I see 27,000,000 dead Soviet citizens in World War II. I understand the Estonians had it hard; but that doesn't excuse their contribution to the Nazi war plan. Again, "tragedy of small nations" is my explanation, and I sympathise with this. But one atrocity doesn't automatically cancel out another. You can join the Waffen SS with your "special nature", and you're still in the Waffen SS to me.

The nerve some people have Fack you!

[Happy Times]

http://forum.axishistory.com/index.php Read! All you ignorant SOBs! Myth isnt a fact. Il leave this thread for good.

[CCIP]

Where did I get it wrong? Teach me.

For one, I'm more than familiar with the history of this; I don't think I'm missing the facts here. There's Soviet, post-Soviet and Western takes on the history under my belt; and I've read the little Legion book too. And I've got relatives in Tallinn. So it's not as though I'm pulling a "mighty Russia for the win!" here.

(by the way, my apologies, the "you" in my last sentence was non-referential, sorry if it ended up the wrong way)

[edit]

Thanks for the link. Interesting site, but again, I stress - I know the facts, and I am NOT in any way, shape or form defending anyone here. I'm simply pointing out the indefensible; the rest is fact. One fact is that the Soviet occupation was a crime. Another fact is that Waffen SS is part of an even bigger crime, no matter how you slice it. And the most important fact is that one person's life is not worth more than another's. Defending one's own nation while agreeing to a systematic elimination of another's is barbaric; the Soviets had no plans for eliminating the Baltic - just (very forcefully) making it fall into the same system, whereas the Nazi organization of which Waffen SS is part of had very clear plans for eliminating the peoples of the USSR.

Honoring Waffen SS is honoring independence at the cost of genocide. It's as simple as that.

[Happy Times]

Originally Posted by CCIP

What other condemnation do you need, for crying out loud? Maybe they should apologize for fighting Germany, too?

What do modern Russians have to do with this? Even Mr. Putin was born after WWII. This is history. This has been acknowledged, now let's stop dishonoring it and pestering today's Russians over it.

I don't care about the "special nature". The US can say lots of things; I see 27,000,000 dead Soviet citizens in World War II. And I think they're rolling over in their mass graves from these kinds of gestures. I understand the Estonians had it hard; but that doesn't excuse their contribution to the Nazi war plan. Again, "tragedy of small nations" is my explanation, and I sympathise with this. But one atrocity doesn't automatically cancel out another. You can join the Waffen SS with your "special nature", and you're still in the Waffen SS to me.

So Estonia lost more people of its population in proportion than USSR but thats just part of the "tragedy of small nations". Do you understand how that sounds? Why wouldnt the Balts joined the Germans in 1941? They were under Soviet occupation, trains leaving to Siberia with whole families, when they came. So Russia honors all the "good history" that USSR left but not the ugly? How come Germans born after the war cant pick and choose their heritage? Is it their burden to carry? Just admit that you want to exercise the "winners" right to write history as you see fit.

[CCIP]

What's with the Germans? I love the Germans. I'm not going to go up to a random German and make them apologize for World War II. Nor will any sane Russian. I'm 1/4 German myself.

Russians are not the winners. They got equally badly treated under Stalin, just like everyone else - it wasn't based on nationality, unlike Hitler. How do I get it through to you that the Soviet system is NOT a Russian empire, it's an empire of the Bolschevik party, an organization which from the beginning was composed of a large variety of people of many nationalities. Oppression was based on dissent from it, and not simply on the fact that someone was Estonian, Russian or whatever. Quite reversely from the system the SS was part of, no?

Of course it's part of the "tragedy of small nations" - that's why it's a tragedy. That automatically implies that they were more or less inescapably screwed from the beginning. It doesn't mean I agree they can be run over. That's not meant to undermine their suffering, which I AGAIN - for at least the 3rd time in this thread - acknowledge and sympathise with.

Of course you don't "honor" the bad history - you don't put monuments glorifying it and put flowers on them - you make conclusions from it.

I understand why the Balts joined the Germans in 1941. And you should understand why any Russian doesn't like that. Because there were very distinct plans for the "Slavic Untermensch". The Soviets, by contrast, only wanted an "Estonian/Latvian/Lithuanian SSR".

Anyway, I don't understand why we're fighting here. It's not like I'm saying "Estonians = bad", or that Estonians must absolutely forget the Waffen SS - hell no! But the Germans have their own way of honoring Waffen SS - by having museums and monuments to the Holocaust. Why the Estonians don't follow suit, along with putting up monuments commemorating Soviet atrocities, is beyond me.

[joea]

Originally Posted by CCIP

Honoring Waffen SS is honoring independence at the cost of genocide. It's as simple as that.

That about sums it up. :hmm:

[STEED]

Originally Posted by joea

That about sums it up. :hmm:

Good point.

[Type941]

To Happy Times.

Looks like you are showing your semi nashionalist side again. Whose side are you on anyway? Juding by your numerous comments, I suspect you are rather sympathetic to the browns.

...
Disinformation at its best. Right. i didn't even look at the priest, the point is the monument in modern europe to a fashist regime that YOU approve. For people like YOU there is a double standard in the world.

And we've been through this before. What feking condmemntation you want to hear AGAIN? They did it. In 1991. They do it again it makes you warm and fuzzy for 3 days then you ask again? What do you REALLY want? Korelia? May be you want all Slavs living in Russia to herd into a big feking boat, go to arctic pole, and live there? Either go fight for it, or forget it. It won't happen. Territory is changed, new borders, etc, etc. Arrghhh!!! Why should I appologize for my parents? Why should Russia appologize for Stalin? WHY? What stupid logic is this!?!!


Your father smoke pot in university in the hippy days. Now let's prosecute your arse for that, Happy Times? That's how your logic works here, or dare I say, does not.

It's absurd to me, and I will never understand people like you because of that blind lack of logic, appologism to nazism and double standards. I may be fought few times in my life in highschool, since I don't think fighting changes much, but I swear for this pro nazi stance anyone deserves a good punch in the face! Or a roundhouse kick if you are Chuck Norris.

[CCIP]

I also want to stress the point again that the idea that Russia should be held responsible for the deeds of the Soviet state is flat-out wrong. There are many Russians, individual people, who were responsible for Stalin's regime - even if the head of it was Georgian and many high officials in it were of various other Soviet nationalities. But the Soviet empire, even being focused around Russia, was not Russian as such; and Russians, being the largest population group, took their proportional share of suffering and repression. Who will apologize to them? The USSR is gone. Dead states don't apologize. Likewise, most of those who fought in the Baltic during WWII are gone. Dead people don't apologize.

The former Estonian SS member that I met didn't apologize - he buried his past in regret and lived out a productive life in Canada, and when Russians (i.e., my family) came to buy his house, he left it in good condition and told us how we should tend the garden. Neither we nor him bore any animosity towards each other, and that was the end of it.

[Type941]

meanwhile recently a high school instutuion was opened in estonia that was with german slant (languages, philosophy, etc, etc). The owners put portaits in the hall of the shcool featuring waffen SS legionaires. Then invited the german embassy. You can imagine how shocked never mind embarassed the poor ambassador was. He recommended it was taken down, since, ehem, it's kind of illegal in germany and he felt it sends a totall wrong message in german school. The portraits were taken down.

So my kid goes to school with nazis on walls. How amazing is that? ....

Yes, it's all politicial, on national level there is little animosity between NORMAL people. I at least don't interact with any crazy nazist estonians, then again I work in a bank and crowd there is more or less educated, successful and open minded. May be on some construction yard there are debates, but not at my work place. To us it's like "politicians seem to think they solved all our problems, and now thankfully found one more they can deal with - the statue on a grave of soviet soldiers" - especially this statue, considered one of the best examples of neo soviet art, where the soldier is not the all conquering monster, but a sad looking guy with face down and mourning fallen comrades.

[joea]

Type941 and CCIP, seeing those monuments treated like that makes me really sad and choked up. Especially with the line about the sadness of the soldier...reminds me of a case of vandalism of a British military cemetary in France a couple of years or so ago.

[Happy Times]

Type 941 Im am not a brown faschist, a Nazi. pretty insulting when you know im pro Israel. Its you who that defends red faschists, Bolseviks. It isnt a facking competition, who killed more. Its the fact that both were criminal but the other is still honored. And it isnt the Estonians. They arent remembering Waffen SS but their relatives that fell fighting against USSSR. False history being taught at russian schools, whitwashing a totally criminal history. Its symbols presented every year in many events. Its a fact that Stalin said that all Finns should be all moved to Siberia. How many have to die to make it matter? Perverse. Fact is that USSR was evil and its a shame that other allies collaborated with this country. They left a democratic country between two murderous regimes and by they miracle survived the war. Well, your not that far, im coming to Estonia this summer. Il PM my plans when i know better, so that you can come and try give that punch. But otherwise im leaving this forum for good.