[Alberta's Child]

I've known quite a few people who are descended from families that immigrated to the U.S. from Eastern Europe after World War II.

When you talk to them, you get a picture of a lot of ethnic groups who made a calculated, sincere decision that being occupied by the Nazis was preferable to being occupied by the Soviets.

[Leaning Right]

you get a picture of a lot of ethnic groups who made a calculated, sincere decision that being occupied by the Nazis was preferable to being occupied by the Soviets

Yep. But we must add something else to the mix. The treaties after WW I shifted a lot of borders in eastern Europe. Many ethnic groups went along with the Nazis in the hope that these "unfair" borders would be redrawn in their favor.

Plus, if you didn't at least appear to cooperate with Germany, you risked being crushed, then occupied.

Hungary from 1939 to 1944 is a good example of all this.

[Cronos]

The ones who made the choice of the lesser evil (Nazis) vs Soviets were the Finns, Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians — and scarily, they were correct, the Communists were worse.