Hundreds march with Nazi SS veterans in Latvia

Arutz Sheva ^ | 16/3/18

[Eleutheria5]

Police arrested a man for displaying a poster of soldiers killing Jews at the annual march by local veterans of two SS divisions that made up the Latvian Legion during World War II.

The man was arrested Friday morning on the margins of the annual march of the Remembrance Day of the Latvian Legionnaires — soldiers from the 15th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS and the 19th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS (the 1st and 2nd Latvian, respectively.) A handful of veterans flanked by hundreds of supporters waving Latvian flags gathered around Freedom Monument for the march under heavy police guard.

The march in Latvia, a member of the NATO alliance and the European Union, is currently the only public event in Europe and beyond honoring people who fought under the SS banner. Occurring amid rising tensions with Russia, it is part of numerous expressions across Eastern Europe of admiration for people, including Holocaust perpetrators, who collaborated with Germany against the Soviet Union.

Several protesters from the “Latvia without Fascism” group demonstrated against the event by carrying signs reading “They fought for Hitler” and “if they looked as Nazi, and act with Nazi – they were Nazi.” None of those protesters were arrested.

.....

[The_Media_never_lie]

How about no Nazi symbols, and no Soviet or communist symbols, including no Che posters?

[Cronos]

LR, I don't know anything about Waffen SS members from Germany who were honorouble men -- I'm going to read the book that TallahasseeConservative suggested, but to me until now a Waffen SS man from Germany or of German origin from the East WHO JOINED BEFORE 1944 (i.e. was a volunteer) was a beast who killed innocents and not an honorable soldier like many in the Werhmacht. I need to read more before I change that opinion of mine about German SS guys

As to the Latvians it seems that they were forced into this and they don't have any other group to celebrate.

The day was "Remembrance Day of the Latvian Legionnaires " - meaning specifically Latvian soldiers who fought for Latvia against the Soviets. it is not to honour the SS.

[CaptainMorgantown]

How about no Nazi symbols, and no Soviet or communist symbols, including no Che posters?

---

I’m down with that.

If you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao, you ain’t gonna make it with anyone anyhow.

[TallahasseeConservative]

Would the RAF and USAAF uniforms be a symbol of the atrocity visited on the innocent civilians in Dresden? Germany was a defeated nation by February of 1945 and Dresden had no military significance. Roughly 22,000-25,000 Germans died in one night, but I guess they were all Nazis, so that makes it ok.

[TallahasseeConservative]

The Soviets didn’t go around shooting children? You really believe that?

[Cronos]

Leon Degrelle volunteered.

There are circumstances - if someone was forced into the SS (like some German boys in 1945) and didn't commit atrocities, then they should be forgiven.

There are circumstances - the highest volunteer rate of a group of people to join up with the SS were the SudentenlandGermans -- and then you need to read how the local germans were treated by Czechs in the years 1919-1938. And then you need to read about Czech history and their struggles against germanization. Very few things are simple black and white - and one of those black-white things is "anyone who kills an innocent of their free will, not matter what the reason, what background, whatever; that person has grieviously sinned"

There are people who managed to be righteous even under the most trying of circumstances -- Karl Plagge

[Cronos]

the Nutzis were monsters yes, killing children.

The Soviets also did kill children. They were also monsters

The bloodlands of Eastern Europe were stuck between two equally evil monsters.

[Leaning Right]

> The day was “Remembrance Day of the Latvian Legionnaires “ - meaning specifically Latvian soldiers who fought for Latvia against the Soviets. it is not to honour the SS. <

The key word here is “ Legionnaires”. That word was NOT chosen randomly. The two Latvian SS divisions were collectively known as the Latvian Legion. So yes, they are specifically and deliberately connecting the Waffen SS to the celebration.

By the way, I’m not saying here that the individual Latvian members of the SS were all (or even mostly) evil people. Even Wikipedia gives them a pass on that. What I am saying is that the Waffen SS as a whole was an evil, odious organization.

The Latvians would do well to jettison any connection with the SS. Celebrate the individual patriots if you wish. Don’t celebrate their organization.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latvian_Legion

P.S. If you want to know more about the Waffen SS, I suggest you not start with any book written by some apologist. Start with the links in my post #17.

[Cronos]

Cap’n - I’m not sure that the Latvians took an oath toshitler.

[Cronos]

I agree with you that the SS as a whole were evil. Until I read Tall's post I believed that every SS German volunteer was evil (and I need to read what Tall proposes before I change my mind)

But the Baltic guys did not have a choice to join any other army group to fight the Soviets. And they wanted to fight the Soviets.

[Uncle Miltie]

Millions of Americans support COMMUNISM which murdered far more people than did Nazism.

[Leaning Right]

> The Soviets didn’t go around shooting children? You really believe that? <

That is what you picked to challenge my post #17? You passed over all the links about the Waffen SS massacring civilians?

Anyway, I’m sure that there were instances of Soviet troops shooting children. Such atrocities probably occurred in every army during WW II, the Allied armies included.

But only the Waffen SS massacred children as a matter of course, over and over again. The atrocity record of the Wehrmacht doesn’t even come close. Only the Waffen SS would cram old men, women, and children into buildings, then set fire to those buildings.

And I’m not talking about the Einsatzgruppen here. Every one of my links in post #17 references an “honorable” front-line unit.

[TallahasseeConservative]

LOL. So anyone who disagrees with current orthodoxy is an apologist? Do you not realize that the Soviet prosecutors at the Nuremberg Trials were a part of the same government that committed genocide against the Ukrainians by starving them to death? So folks who committed genocide, were condemning to death those who were also committing genocide. Seems a bit hypocritcal, no?

The American Prosecutor, Robert Jackson, was also the committee chair in New York for Woodrow Wilson’s campaign, you know that same guy who invited the Klan to the White House. Also Von Ribbentrop was convicted and hung. Why? He was nothing but an Ambassador.

Maybe the US should be careful about throwing stones.

[TallahasseeConservative]

“Only the Waffen SS would cram old men, women, and children into buildings, then set fire to those buildings.”

Except that the RAF and USAAF did exactly that in Dresden and Hamburg, but it was from the air, so that’s ok.

[QualityMan]

also, make the distinction between the Allgemeine SS and the Waffen SS....

While the waffen SS did their share of battlefield atrocities against soldiers and civilians alike, it was the other branch..the Allgemeine SS that was responsible for “The Jewish Question”, and the administration/execution of the Final Solution. At the cessation of hostilities, no distinction was made, and anyone in an SS uniform was considered to be a criminal by the Allies.

There were many SS troops that fought honorably..they had a well-earned reputation for being tough opponents on the battlefield...east and west. The war in the east was particularly brutal, as it was considered as much an ideological struggle as it was a conquering struggle, at least by Hitler and the OKH.

For the soviets, it was a war of purely survival.

[SoCal Pubbie]

“Would the RAF and USAAF uniforms be a symbol of the atrocity visited on the innocent civilians in Dresden?”

I see that the spirit of Howard Zinn lives on past the grave. Dresden was a major rail and communications center, had 110 factories and 50,000 workers in the city supporting the German war effort, and had a weapons depot. Dresden did have a military significance. Frail old Jewish men and women and their grandchildren, not so much.

[Leaning Right]

> Maybe the US should be careful about throwing stones. <

We disagree a lot here. But we certainly agree on that. Not only do the victors get to write the history, they get to hide their own crimes.

As I’m sure you know, the Soviets committed many atrocities on their way to Berlin. Thousands of rapes, and many murders as well. No Soviet soldier ever stood in the dock for any of those crimes.

[Eleutheria5]

“If any of them did commit holocaust atrocities then they would ahve been punished by now.”

There is a long list of holocaust criminals who committed heinous crimes and were given token punishments, such as “one year’s loss of honor.”

[TallahasseeConservative]

I’m talking about the killing of civilians in large numbers. The Nazis did it, the Soviets did it and to an extent, the British and Americans did it. History is always written by the Victor.

[TallahasseeConservative]

Howard Zinn and I have nothing in common. Pointing out uncomfortable facts is not historical revisionism. By February of 1945, Germany was on it’s knees. Even the memo issued to RAF airmen on the night of the raid, suggested that Dresden was to be used to “show the Russians what Bomber command can do.” Was the interment of German Americans and Japanese Americans wrong? Facts are facts. Thousands of innocent German Men, Women and Children died, some of those frail and old, as well.