Posted on 08/03/2013 10:55:04 AM PDT by Kid Shelleen
Ukrainians dressed in Nazi SS uniform trudge through trenches and fire model rifles in a reconstruction of a key battle against the Soviets during World War II. An Orthodox priest leads a ceremony for fallen soldiers of the Nazi unit, sprinkling his blessing over several men sporting swastikas who lower a coffin in a ritual reburial.
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More than 20 years since gaining independence from the Soviet Union, Ukraine remains painfully divided over the legacy of World War II and the actions of Ukrainian nationalist fighters, who are honored as heroes by some and condemned as traitors by others. Some of those fighters served under or cooperated with the Nazis, seeing a chance to overthrow the Soviet regime, while others fought both the Red Army and the Nazis.
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Any body who would hold truck with the arabs....
What a terrible dilemma thee people faced; defend your country with your oppressors (Russian Communists) who slaughtered millions of your own people just a few years before, or work with the Nazis, your “liberators” (well, for at least until the Russians were defeated and then, being Slavs, the Ukrainians would be “second class” slaves to the Nazis). Talking about choosing between two evils to survive...no wonder to this day there is issues on both sides. Bummer.
A Romanian neighbor said the same thing of their country. Sided with the Nazi’s first - then with the Soviets when it looked like they would be the winner. But the Soviets didn’t let them forget that they had first sided with Hitler. (I THINK that is how it went - or vise-versa).
I had a great uncle that was in the Russian army in WWII. Afterwards he had problems immigrating to this country.
If the Germans had been smart, and not treated the Ukrainians as terribly as the Soviets, they would have had millions of volunteers and workers and not had to waste so many resources on occupation of the Ukraine. Might have actually tipped the balance in their favor.
There's naught new in any of that: the Ukraine, some of the richest agricultural land in the world, has been invaded from all directions and fought over for millennia.
If the Germans had been smart, and not treated the Ukrainians as terribly as the Soviets, they would have had millions of volunteers and workers and not had to waste so many resources on occupation of the Ukraine. Might have actually tipped the balance in their favor.
You're right, Kozak, and if they'd been cunning as well as smart, they'd have put off trying to invade the Soviet Union until they'd solidified their grip on Western Europe and neutralized the English.
Blind hatred never sees very far ahead.
Yeah, ‘can’t help but feel sorry for the Ukrainians. Rock and a hard place.
The Germans were welcomed as liberators — at first. Germany recruited Waffen SS in the areas where they’d kicked out the Soviet occupiers, and the armies on both sides weren’t fussy about collateral damage during the war years, covering a lot of territory.
Well said. Hitler directed the war like a bus driver makes all his stops on time.
Those were difficult, terrible times for the small nations of eastern Europe. One thing they had to keep in mind was the fate of Yugoslavia.
When, in early 1941, the Yugoslavs rejected an alliance with Hitler, Yugoslavia was invaded and occupied.
So to keep at least some independence, many eastern European leaders made a deal with the devil, so to speak.
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Seems FR’s don’t know much about WWII. Germans armed and unformed a million man Russian army. Towards the end of WWII they fought the SS with German arms freeing Prague. The Czechs turned them over to the Russians after thanking them. They were all killed
The so-called Vlasovites. Also the Cossacks of Von Pannwitz. Some made it to the West - New Jersey.
Most of them were POWs.
Death was the alternative for many of them.
During the Revolution (the Russian one), my family was made up of anarchists. When the Bolsheviks looked like they were winning, they fought with the Mensheviks. When it looked like the Mensheviks were winning, they fought with the Bolsheviks.
Stalin was evil and would kill you.
Hitler was evil and would kill you.
So which side were the good guys on? The average Soviet soldier didn’t really start fighting until Hitler had made it apparent that he intended to kill them all either way. The odds that Stalin would kill them started looking more acceptable.
After the news arrived back (via non-official reliable sources) that most everyone who had surrendered in the summer of 1941 was dead and civilians were being liquidated, the Russians accepted death and began to take a real stand.
“What a terrible dilemma thee people faced; defend your country with your oppressors (Russian Communists) who slaughtered millions of your own people just a few years before, or work with the Nazis, your “liberators” (well, for at least until the Russians were defeated and then, being Slavs, the Ukrainians would be “second class” slaves to the Nazis). Talking about choosing between two evils to survive...no wonder to this day there is issues on both sides.”
Anyone who fought the Bolsheviks under any flag was choosing the lesser of two evils; the numbers bear out their decision.
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