Yes, both groups were caught up in a situation that was bigger than them. I don't think I would blame Estonians who fought for either side. The options on the table were not exactly great, and the painful memories should not be allowed to continue to divide the Country - what happened was sad enough and the men caught up in it can't be blamed for things they weren't responsible for.
Funny thing about history is that "collective blame" works for most people. No doubt that the situation was tragic for most of the people (not only Estonian soldiers) involved and I am happy that we cleared this question. Both sides fought with determination and belief and Estonians in Red Army and Red partisan units fought for their ideals (unlike what you said earlier):
So they voluntarily helped totalitarian communism invade and enslave their own people. That just makes it worse.
Good for them, they were forcefully conscripted into the winning totalitarian regime of mass murderers.
That goes for the Nazis as well as the anti-fascists. But the hard-left and hard-right will try to make political capital out of a tragedy, like they normally do.
It would be hard for them to refrain from it, thats true. Kudos to you
Thanks
My pleasure.
These actions can be described as horrific, and maybe a step too far. But they fall short of being mass murder. It's understandable that the Allies didn't want to give the German or Japanese war machines a chance to recover, that would only have delayed the outcome of the war and allowed the Eastern front to stabilise in the case of Dresden, which was an important transport link.
What the entire city was a trasnport link?
So I don't agree that they were as bad as mass murder, although I agree they were horrific and awful events.
I still dont agree with you here.
Dresden was about to fall to Soviet forces (as Keningsberg which was also bombed by Allies quite heavily) so it unfair to claim that the "German war machine would recover" if those cities were not bombed.
Hiroshima and Nagasaki could have been discared as targets in favour of a military base for example. I still consider it to be un-nesseasry cruelty towards civilian population, such as were mass killings of Soviet people in occupied territories.
Nazis shouldn't be exploiting these events, but sometimes the lunatic fringe have to be tolerated and allowed to speak. They often embarass themselves better in this way than if you offend all the veterans by trying to control a minority of trouble-makers. Some people are always going to accept Nazi ideas, we just have to be realistic about it and realise that destroying our freedom or attacking an entire group of veterans isn't the solution.
It is hard to calculate what concrete results these meetings achieve in embarassing or strengthening that ideology. What may work not in Britain or Ameria would work in other places. This is why some countires like Germany or Austria have laws against this sort of thing.
This makes it sound like the matter was simply America's distaste for a government. It was far more than just that - the Iraqi regime had invaded a neighbouring Country and tried to annex it in an unprovoked attack.
This is largely true, but you do NOT wait 10 years weakening the regime and then make them pay. You certainly don't use a bogus excuse of weapons of mass destruction. NONE were found. I think this is just a matter of opinion. I don't think you should wait for 10 years before jailing a guy for assault if you already made him pay just after the event. Which is why I am let to beleive that:
simply replacing a government unfriendly to America with one more convenient
is actually true.
What you said about Vietnam was true. Here though, you appear to be comparing "Realpolitik" to the American defence of Kuwait and South Vietnam. The Realpolitik defence is simply a default position to cover aggression and immorality.
Not exacly. Realpolitik here is not about justying Nazi war crimes as such, it is more about not backing down when your enemy would take advantage of it. I fail to see how this could happen:
The Nazis would have justified nearly all of their actions through this concept"
(if you can explain more that would be great)
As the case of Estonia shows, ignoring all international principles for the excuse of
Realpolitik can create a legacy of hatred and suspicion that endures for generations.
Like I said, Realpolitik is doing what you have to do because your opponent would surely do the same. Estonia, as sad as it is, is not a subject, but an object of politics.
History could have gone another way. Britain and France would quite happilly have signed a defensive pact with either Germany or Russia, if either party had shown themselves to be trustworthy enough.
I tend to disagree (again it is a matter of opinion). GB and France were interested in Germany and USSR fighting each other so that they could come out on top.
Russia could have signed a defensive pact with Poland and the Allies and achieved its security that way.
I think I know the political realities of that time better than you. There was NO way in hell the Poles would have allowed Soviet troops on their soil or any sort of defensive pact with the Soviet Union. After the Russian Civil war there was a lot of bad blood between USSR and new nation-republics (most of them became states for the first time in history).
There were many alternatives but totalitarian regimes, based on suspicion and aggression, tend not to think of negotiation, compromise and diplomacy as means of achieving security, but rather think about security through dominance instead.
Europe became quite totalitarian just prior to WW2. I do not mean only Nazi Germany and USSR. I think this was to do with how people percieved that a global conflict was coming.
Yes I think it is right. They are only SS veterans because all foreign troops were automatically under the command of the SS instead of the Wermacht. It doesn't mean they were committed Nazis. Most Estonians will rally around their old soldiers and defend their national pride, it doesn't mean they are lovers of the Third Reich, it is simply a Nation's right to respect it's history and war dead.
I think its about how they express themselves during these commemorations. Estonians are of course free to do what they feel is right, but most countries look down on the SS that is known to be a criminal organistion. It could be painfull to see that Nazi Germany was a better option to some Estonians than Soviet Union, estpecially if you see the ideals of both nations involved. Mass shootings of USSR were horrible, but I've never known anything as horrible as people being manufactured into soap or nations being declared "judenfrei" and therefore "progressive". It is indeed tragic that Estonian veterans had to fight for that ideology.
I am also not sure if Soviet veterans enjoy the same political stats as Nazi was veterans. I should check that question. I am not sure if Victory over Nazism exists as a national holiday in Estonia (I should ask
Yekim), but I hope that Soviet and Nazi veterans at least have equal rights to express themselves if by the standards of modern Estonian government they both are considered to be on equal moral footing.
Remember that every nation made mistakes, not just Estonia. Britain and Russia have complex moral histories as well. We still respect our veterans and our history though.
I think nonconformist sait it best.
We don't respect the SS-Britische Freikorps
There are some things that we just cannot accept. Its an opinion
Also Western-Europe will never understand the Soviet crimes because they had to fought only against Nazis but Eastern-Europe got kicked by Soviets too and for them most cases Nazis were more liberators and Soviets were aggressors.
So Holocaust was better than Soviet concentration camps?
