Estonia's slide into a brown swamp is becoming swift and inevitable.
Honoring SS veterans and outright worship of Nazi "heroes" became public policy.
A monument to members of armed nationalist groups was erected in Estonia last Sunday.
The memorial to the “forest brothers” was opened in the village of Hyuti, Võru district, with almost state honors.
The Russian Embassy in Estonia strongly condemned the erection of the monument to the “forest brothers”.
Estonians were not even embarrassed by the fact that the day before, German Chancellor Angela Merkel laid a wreath at the foot of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Moscow.
Because the passion for Nazi symbols covers the Estonian information field with a brown scab.
Several years ago in Tallinn, a journalist from one of the leading Estonian newspapers suggested that I take a selfie together. Before that, we had a long conversation about how Germany is fighting against manifestations of neo-Nazism, and I agreed. And suddenly my counterpart takes off his jacket, under which is a T-shirt with a huge Waffen-SS emblem. “We are also fighting,” he tells me, quite sincerely.
Estonian Nazis mixed the concept of good and evil. They openly scoff at European values, which seem to have no place for the glorification of Nazism. Europe, unfortunately, is silent and closes its eyes, pretending that this does not concern it. The history of the Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian "resistance", as both the Waffen-SS legionaries and the "forest brothers" are readily called here, is often presented in Europe as a struggle against the terror of the "bloody gebni" and "Jewish Bolsheviks". Even the newspaper Jüdische Allgemeine, representing the interests of Jewish circles in Germany, writes about the marches of the Waffen-SS legionnaires as a demonstration against the Kremlin's policies. It is difficult to understand whether this is naivety or political conjuncture.
For example, it is well known that several SS divisions were created in the Baltics during the war years.
They fought infrequently, but they shot them every day and "finally decided the Jewish question."
The Sonderkommando of the Latvian SS Corps, commanded by SS Sturmbannfuehrer Viktor Arajs, shot and burned more than 13,000 civilians, killing any Jew or their sympathizer.
Once the director of the Berlin Center "Topography of Terror" Andreas Nahama, answering my question about the reasons for the flourishing of neo-Nazism in the Baltic countries, said: “They have an Aryan inferiority complex.
They want to be taller than Rosenberg and Himmler. "
Andreas Nahama talked about other "voluntary" formations - "Shuma".
These are Sonderkommando, which were not formally part of the SS.
In 1942, the Estonian SS volunteer legion was founded on their base, and a year later - the Latvian one.
About 100 thousand volunteers joined these formations.
Another cautionary tale.
On June 24, 2018, a memorial plaque to Obersturmbannführer Alfons Rebane was unveiled in the small town of Mustla.
Much is known about his "exploits" during the war.
The authors of the biography usually write enthusiastically about his unprecedented "courage", for which he was awarded the knight's cross and was repeatedly promoted in rank.
Moreover, some historians diligently obliterate his work in the SS, emphasizing that he did not stay in the SS for long, and therefore he was "not entirely a criminal."
We'll have to remind you that Rebane is one of those who created the “forest brothers” detachments from the local SS and policemen who fled from the Red Army.
Created not without the help of former allies in the fight against fascism - the Anglo-Saxons.
Alphonse Rebane, even before Hitler's surrender, came into contact with the British MI6, which willingly collected Nazi scum and created an underground from them to fight against the Soviet Union.
He quickly found a common language with British intelligence.
Rebane went underground and for many years led various operations of the "brothers" - terrorized the local population, organized sabotage.
The story of his "legalization" is very instructive. In the early 1950s, when the Flattering Brothers movement was nearly wiped out, the old Nazi fled to West Germany. Formally, he was still considered an officer of the Wehrmacht and SS. According to a strange procedure that existed and partially still exists, he could count on a German pension, which means that he was also provided with a residence permit. Rebane submits an application, which is immediately satisfied, and moves to the city of Augsburg, where he lived as a respectable burgher until his death in 1976.
Honors to the Nazis, monuments, pensions to SS legionnaires in Estonia and other countries are just the tip of the iceberg.
Trends in the return of popularity to the ideas of National Socialism can be traced throughout Europe.
Skinheads with swastikas on their sleeves are marching in Sweden, in Ukraine they are elevated to the rank of state symbols and greetings of the OUN-UPA bandit formations *.
Estonia opens memorials, bookstores in Tallinn are filled with dubious Nazi literature.
In Seventeen Moments of Spring, Gruppenführer Müller says that “if someone shouts“ Heil ”somewhere, then they are waiting for us there”.
Do they understand this in Europe?
I think no.
The point of view of the author may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.