Europe vs. Russia, nearly a century of conflict and some modern day payback. [View all]

[GRACIEBIRD]

Just wanted to talk about the European vs. Russia issues we're seeing now.

It's not new.

It goes back to before WW2 but let's start in WW2.

From the 1930's on there was a strong Anti-Bolshevik movement in most European countries including France, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Spain, Italy, Netherlands and of course Germany and Austria.
This anti-Bolshevik sentiment became anti-Semitic as there was a Jewish face attached to Bolshevism in much of the propaganda.

As the war in Europe in progressed, many of these countries came under German rule. The German Waffen-SS (the military arm of the SS, not to be confused with the Concentration Camp SS) recruited foreign volunteers for nation specific volunteer SS divisions. For example, the French SS division, the 33rd Waffen Grenadier SS numbered some 11,000 soldiers in 1944.

The volunteer SS soldiers were fervent anti-Bolshevik. They joined the Germans as a way to fight for a free Europe. The memoirs of a famous French SS volunteer is named “Por L'Europe” (For Europe)

Particularly passionate were countries who had been under the yoke of Soviet oppression before like the Baltic nations. In Estonia the Russian military juggernaut moved west from Russia into Estonia in 1944 to chase the Germans out of the Baltic. Germany responded by placing the III (Germanic) Panzer Corps in Estonia. This was a majority volunteer SS army of several divisions including Estonian, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, French, Dutch and other volunteers.

The III (Germanic) SS Corps fought so heroically in Estonia that a group of 20,000 European volunteers fought off a Russian force of 130,000 soldiers for months. In fact the volunteer SS soldiers were never defeated and ended the war in the Western Baltic region in a pocket of resistance.

Needless to say the Russians were not fond of these volunteer soldiers and most that surrendered after the war were simply murdered or sent to Siberia to disappear. After the war the Soviets absolutely brutally crushed the hearts and souls of the people of the Baltic states, Western Poland, Czechoslovakia and anywhere else they controlled.

So, the bottom line... the bad blood between what some people call Eastern Europe (the Baltic, Czech Republic and Poland is actually central Europe) and Russia is unimaginable.

In Estonia the volunteers of the Estonian Waffen SS are heroes. They have a memorial and an annual parade. In fact the 70th anniversary of the Battle of the Tannenberg will be a national holiday this summer.

There is a strong right-wing Nationalist movement in Europe and their primary motivation is an anti-Russian one. Europe has been waiting nearly a century for some payback against the Russians and now you're seeing Ukraine fighting to free itself from the Russian yoke. Oh and yes, there was a volunteer Ukraine SS division during the war too.

Just a little trivia... at the very end in Berlin in May, 1945 it was not Germans who were defending Hitlers bunker. It was mostly French, Dutch, Norwegian, Swedish and Danes.