2oth estonian ss division reunion?

[Dimas]

Yes it is

[Paul D]

Definately Nugiseks signature i have over 20 signed photos of him,

regards

Paul

[Wuerstenfuchs]

Thanks for the info. I think I was trying to give that foto away. I didn't realize Nugiseks signed it. Sure can't tell by looking at it.

[Paul D]

Unfortunately Nugiseks is not on that photo anywhere si i'm not sure why he has signed it !!

[Wuerstenfuchs]

unfortunately nugiseks is not on that photo anywhere si i'm not sure why he has signed it !!

maybe he is the one who took the foto?

[Flamm]

Interesting position, now all the SS vet's say that they decided to fought firstly against USSR then against a Reich , but what do the SD and Gestapo? Just gave the weapon and say- yes we allow to kill Soviets and then we allow to see the 20 Divb SS as the Reich's enemy?
The veterans are now is a part of political games... Both sides start fightings again....
As one guy told: before the last withness is alive- no one can write a true history...
Because all the whitness are firstly got an "politically right" lessons- then start speak.

[Paul D]

I suspect Herr Dorr or someone else took the photo not Nugiseks, Harald will probably have been at the meeting with other Estonian veterans and as he is a Ritterkreuztrager was asked to sign the photo.

regards

Paul

[Adrian Stevenson]

An article which my wife Lez found this morning:

Russians protest at Estonia SS calendar - Telegraph

I have copied the text & pic from the article here in case the link dies in the future:

The 2009 calendar, which sold out in three days in the capital Tallinn before being reprinted, is illustrated with 12 reproductions of SS posters used during the war to attract Estonian volunteers to join the elite Nazi force which fought the Red Army. It pictures soldiers in German uniforms and helmets with collar badges used by Estonian members of the SS.

The uniforms show a large E bisected by a sword, rather than the notorious double lightning flash symbol of the SS.

The calendars have provoked an angry reaction from members of Estonia's Russian community who make up a quarter of the country's 1.3 million people.

Nikolai Pechatnov, a Russian historian living in Tallinn, said they were a revolting reminder of the wartime service in the SS of tens of thousands of Estonians.

"If the calendar stated that this was propaganda for the SS and detailed historical facts that would be acceptable. But when you look closely at this calendar you will not find any of the well-known SS symbols, they have been replaced with Estonian division signs.

"In fact, the Estonian SS did wear uniforms with Nazi SS symbols on them. Young people who see these calendars today could be forgiven for thinking Estonians had nothing to do with the SS."

He said that the calendar lacked any historic explanation linking the Estonian SS division - members of which had to swear an oath of allegiance to Adolf Hitler - to the Nazis, or that it consisted of what he called "punitive" battalions.

Although the Estonian SS division, founded in 1944, is not thought to have been involved in atrocities against civilians, earlier in the war Estonian police units are believed to have been used by the Nazis to murder Jews.

Aimur Kruuse, 38, managing director of the calendar's publisher Grenader Grupp, insisted that it did not support or propagate Nazi ideas and that the calendar was "not about the SS".

"People like military history and next year we may do something connected with Russian or German war history," he said.

He added that most of the Estonians fighting for the Nazis were not volunteers but were forcibly drafted into the SS - a fact that was recognised after the war at the Nuremberg trials that ruled that conscripts into the elite Nazi force who had not committed atrocities were not considered war criminals.

Although he admitted that the subject could provoke a negative reaction in Russia, he said it was important to understand Estonian history. The Estonians, like their Finnish neighbours, took up arms against the Red Army to try to protect their freedom.

"Estonian soldiers did not have the chance to fight during the Second World War in Estonian uniforms," Mr Kruuse said. "The members of the legion tried to bring freedom to Estonia, or to give their families time to escape to the west before the Red Army returned to kill them or send them to Siberia."

He added that when Estonian independence was briefly re-established in September 1944 some Estonians in German uniform turned their weapons against both the Germans and the Red Army.

A British authority on the SS, the filmmaker Andrew Mollo, said that Estonia had already been occupied in 1940 by the Red Army before the Nazis invaded and that those who joined the SS were regarded as anti-Bolsheviks fighting for their homeland.

"Of course, it did not do them any favours that in fighting Bolshevism these Estonians allied themselves with Hitler," he said.

"The Estonian SS were very different from SS units in other Baltic countries; they fought for the independence of their country and suffered immensely. The fact that they were brought under the SS umbrella was not their fault."

[Paul D]

Unfortunately Ade this is an ongoing problem in Estonia which occures on a yearly basis , if it's not the calender it's the Estonian SS Veterans meetings / monuments .

It is a severe problem for the Estonian government to try and bring together some of the Estonian and Russian parts of the population which i could post on for much longer but it will get into a political debate much of which goes far beyond our historical brief here !!

Suffice to say i have some great friends in Estonia from both ethnic groups but mostly Russians but not everyone is as enlightened as Dimas and the Espenlaub guys .

I was in Tallinn last May talking to two very attractive Estonian girls , when i said i was off to Narva for the rest of my trip they looked puzzled and asked Why ? as there were only Russians there !!!

regards

Paul

[Dimas]

So guys, let stop political debates, we are historians