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SS pins were for sale in flea markets in other former Warsaw Pact countries back then. My impression was that the Soviet occupation must have been an exercise in bestial mediocrity for people to be pining for the Germans.

Looking at the last 15 months, that was correct.

The Kremlin appears to be in autodestruct mode. All because millions of Ukrainans didn't want to resume participation in Soviet stupidity.

Yugoslavia was not Warsaw Pact. In fact, Tito’s entire defense structure was in preparation for a possible Soviet invasion. During WWII, the Croats were more Nazi than the Nazis. They had a Treblinka before the Germans did, only it was for Serbs. They happily turned over their Jews to the Germans for shipment out to their death camps and ran their own death camps for Serbs and Roma. The Croats were so horrifyingly bloodthirsty they shocked even their SS minders, who reported their disgust back to Berlin. When Roosevelt learned of how the Croats behaved, he declared they should never have their own country.

The Bosnian Muslims were likewise allied with the Nazis. Izetbegovic served in the Young Muslims. Mein Kamf is still popular in several Muslim countries. Before the wars of the 1990s, the Bosnian Muslims were mostly secular, but then, well, things kinda changed. To the dismay of normal sane Bosnian Muslims.

In Croatia it had nothing to do with Soviets and everything to do with a nasty sort of nationalist revival echoing the only time it had been “independent” in history, when it was an “independent” puppet state of Hitler’s. There was never any real “de-Nazification” there, just Tito’s Brotherhood and Unity thing. So it came bubbling up at independence. Nazi stuff in the markets, coffee bars decorated with photos of Hitler and Pavelić and Nazi symbols. Revival of Nazi-era slogans and sings. Heil Hitler salutes. Streets and squares named after Nazi-era leaders, etc. Some parallels with the neo-Nazi thing in Ukraine, but not exactly the same.

In exactly which former Warsaw Pact countries were these pins being sold? I certainly never saw any in Hungary during the 1990s, and can’t imagine the Czechs going for that stuff. The West Germans would have spanked the East Germans if they saw that stuff. So that leaves Poland, Bulgaria, and Romania.