By Sonja Van den Ende*
History Repeats Itself The Baltic States and Ukraine are the Root of the Current Problem
Part I
FEB 28, 2024
The residents of the Baltic states, after massively embracing the Nazi ideology during the occupation of the Germans in WWII, thought Hitler would help them gain independence. Nothing could be further from the truth, Hitler and his party members regarded the “people from the east”, the Slavs, as a subordinate race, a step higher than the Jews, so the “strong” could be used as slaves in the fields or other menial work. Photo: WWII Traces, Times of Israel – members of the Latvian Legion, Getty Images, editing: Mirjam©Photo
History
Many men from the Baltic states and Ukraine volunteered in the SS or other parts of the German army. The German army had too few men to do the “dirty business”, such as the mass murder of Jews, Gypsies, prisoners of war, political opposition, Russians and communists. So the SS used these Baltic and Ukrainian men for pogroms and killing of men, women and children, like Babi Yar and other places.
The anti-Communist sentiment was just as strong as the anti-Semitic feeling. These two hatreds run like a red line through the ideas of then and now in the majority of the population of the Baltic states and Ukraine. The men who worked in the police (SS) traveled with the German army and tracked down communists, Jews and others. They were responsible for killing thousands of people during Operation Barbarossa. They were known even among the Germans as the most fanciful and barbaric murderers.
The German-led invasion of the Soviet Union began at 3:15 am, on 22 June 1941, with an enormous artillery barrage along the Nazi-Soviet frontier. The USSR’s hierarchy had counted on it being too late in the year for German forces to attack, despite warnings to the contrary. During the attack’s opening phase, much went according to plan for the invaders. Operation Barbarossa: Analyzing the fighting – Part 1 – Global Village Space
The local population of the Baltic States, ( also Finland later about that in part II) and Ukraine was responsible for the murder of all these people (not just Jews) they were the ones who largely made possible the holocaust and the killing of communists, undesirables, gypsies, Russians and political opposition, without them the number of deaths would have been much lower and not so brutally.
“History reveals freedom, dies when people take it for granted, yet everywhere in the world there are many who take for granted the right to speak, the right to worship and the right to go about their daily occupations without fear of arbitrary arrest. Indeed there are many who take for granted all the priceless privileges of freedom and are careless about preserving them”.
Lithuania
In Lithuania, the new Lithuanian recruits of the Germans were so enthusiastic that within hours of signing up, the pogroms, confiscating houses, plundering and of course the killing started. The Lithuanian TDA Battalion, was a paramilitary battalion organized by the Provisional Government of Lithuania in June–August 1941 at the start of Operation Barbarossa. Members of the TDA were police officers and especially infamous for their white armbands. The TDA was was taken over by the Nazis and reorganized into the Lithuanian Auxiliary Police Battalions. The original TDA eventually became the 12th and 13th Police Battalions. These two units played an active role in the mass murders of the Jews in Lithuania and Belarus. The first mass murder by shooting the Jewish population took place in Lithuania, near the city of Kaunus. The TDA battalion’s members killed about 26,000 Jews between July and December 1941 and many other “undesired elements”.
In 1942 the new 13th battalion was reassigned to combat Soviet partisans near Pskov and Tver and retreated with the losing Wehrmacht in 1944. Its members were captured by the Red Army, or hid in Lithuanian forests. Photo: Eight members of TDA on trial in 1961 (found guilty and executed). Photo: wikipedia
In 1941 the Nazis launched a ferocious assault on the Soviet Union, called operation Barbarossa, which included Lithuania. A man named Anton Gecas, like many other Lithuanians, saw the Nazis as liberators. The Nazis were welcomed with flowers and open arms. Gecas and other volunteers, signed up for the German formed police battalion, the 12th Auxiliary Lithuanian Police Battalion. Anthony Gecas held a position of command and responsibility. He was a platoon commander. He, therefore, knew what was planned, he gave the orders and was one of the largest war criminals of Lithuania during WWII.
Another Lithuanian notorious Nazi collaborator was Antanas Impulevičius-Impulėnas, an officer in the Lithuanian Army, reaching the rank of major in 1940, and a Nazi collaborator. After the occupation of Lithuania by the Soviet Union, he was arrested by the NKVD. He was released during the uprising of June 1941. Impulevičius joined the Lithuanian Schutzmannschaft and commanded the 12th Police Battalion. His unit was sent to Belarus, where it took part in mass executions of the Jews, mainly in Minsk and Kletsk. In 1944 he moved to Germany and in 1949 he moved to the United States, never to be trialed and died in freedom.
Leniency of a war criminal in Scotland
The Scottish regional government this week (2000) rejected a Lithuanian request for the extradition of Nazi war criminal Anton Gecas (aka Antanas Gecevicius) on health grounds. According to medical reports, the 85-year-old is unable to understand the charges or attend a court hearing. He has been hospitalized since two strokes in May. The Simon Wiesenthal Center in Israel, on whose latest list of wanted Nazi war criminals Gecas is second, has regretted the decision. It asked the Scottish authorities to regularly review Gecas’s state of health and called on Lithuania to conduct the trial in the defendant’s absence. He was never punished for his warcrimes and died in freedom”.
The Baltic States – Lithuania – the Most Fascist states of Europe Tracing back to World War Two
The Baltic States, the unknown history about the second world war to understand the current situation in Ukraine. Photo: Yad Vashem, Getty Images, Religiousreader.org, editing: Mirjam©Photo I have often written about the Nazi past of Ukraine, but it is even worse in the neighboring countries of Russia and Belarus: Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, also in … Meer lezen overThe Baltic States – Lithuania – the Most Fascist states of Europe Tracing back to World War Two
Latvia
Pērkonkrusts (Thunder Cross) was a radical nationalist party in Latvia. The Communist Party was declared illegal in 1920 and Pērkonkrusts rules until it was their turn to be declared illegal (by the Soviets) in 1934 and about 800 members were imprisoned for radical ideas about nationalism. Karlis Ulmanis, its head, was a staunce nationalist, who espoused the slogan “Latvia for Latvians” which meant that Latvia was to be a Latvian nation state, not a multinational state with traditional Baltic German elites and Jewish entrepreneurial class. With the rise of Nazism in Germany, members of Pērkonkrusts served in the Latvian Legion.
Karlis Ulmanis is still popular in his homeland. Many Latvians see it as a symbol of their country’s independence in the interwar period or associate it with Latvia’s economic boom in the 20th century. A sign of Ulmanis’ continued popularity in Latvia may be the fact that his great-nephew Guntis was elected President of the newly independent Republic of Latvia in 1993. The monument to Karlis Ulmanis stands a little way outside the historic old town of Riga. Photo: Wikipedia
Each year since 1998, veterans of the World War II Latvian Legion and their family members have gone to memorial services in churches and cemeteries in Latvia on March 16 to remember fellow soldiers who died in the war. During the German occupation of Latvia (1941-1944), more than 100,000 Latvians were (voluntary) conscripted into combat units that fought against the Red Army on the Eastern Front.
This annual commemoration of Latvians wearing German uniforms with nazi signs and proud to fight against the Soviet Union has sparked political controversy and some minor protests and modest international media attention. Largely due to the Latvian interpretation of the whitewashing of their crimes, saying that it was all misunderstandings about the historical role of the Latvian Legion during the Second World War they were forced, they say, but this was not the case at all. If that were the case, why would they commemorate their service in the German army on March 16 every year until now? Many witnesses also spoke out against them, more about his in Part II.
The Latvian Legion, known as “the Latvian Voluntary SS Legion”, which was formed under the German Waffen-SS (Schutzstaffel), and the 15th and 19th Latvian Legion Divisions formed in 1943, were conscripted voluntarily and were responsible for the Holocaust in Latvia, by killing Jews, communists, gypsies and political opponents, without them this probably would not have happened on a large scale as it did!
But history is being rewritten, Latvia (and the other states as well) is trying to do this with the help of all kinds of European Union funds. Latvia is a full member of the EU and can simply continue to spew its Russian hatred, conceal and justify the Holocaust committed by its own people, as can be read here.
Estonia
In Estonia, about 1942 500 volunteers had signed up for the Legion until 1943, volunteers immediately joined the Nazis. Many of them were assigned to the “einzatsgruppen” who are infamous and known for murdering thousands of Jews in the pits. The “einzatsgruppen” were in turn part of the Schutz Staffel (SS), headed by Reinhard Heydrich “Stellvertretender Reichsprotektor of Bohemia and Moravia”, who was killed by partians in Czechia. Estonia, in contrast to Lithuania, was not an area of traditional Jewish settlement. On the eve of World War II, Estonia had fewer than 5,000 Jews, out of an population of one million. After the German invasion, 3,000 Estonian Jews managed to save themselves by leaving with the retreating Red Army. Many of the 1,000 Jews who remained were soon killed. By 1943, the Germans had set up several labor and death camps in Estonia, and Jews from other areas were sent there.
The Nazi German authorities exploited occupied Estonia for their war effort, and in 1941–1944 murdered tens of thousands of people (including indigenous ethnic Estonians, local Estonian Jews, Estonia’s Romani people, Russians, Soviet prisoners of war, Jews from other countries, and others). Photo: Estonian Legion – Wikipedia
Hitler’s Killer Police When the Nazis entered Ukraine and Lithuania, they were often greeted as liberators from Soviet occupation, and these countries proved to be fertile grounds to recruit militia units for some of Adolf Hilter’s atrocities. To be seen on YouTube.
Ukraine
In Ukraine it was even worse than in Lithuania. Ukraine was immediately overrun by the Wehrmacht by Operation Barbarossa, the most infamous of which was of course the SS battalions (still German in Ukraine later volunteers conscripted), which had orders to round up and kill all Jews, communists, gypsies, political opponents and Russians (POW).
In Lvov, before the Russians withdrew (Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union), many prisoners who had already collaborated with the Nazis were found dead in prison, without investigation (just like almost now) the blame was placed on Russia. The population radicalized and accused not only the Russians but also the Jews and started pogroms and committed terrible murders. After all, the indoctrinated ideology at the time was that all Jews were communists, an invention of the Nazis. The Germans who had invaded Lvov stood there, watched and approved it!
But the violence and disorder was so great that the Germans, a people of order and discipline, with a penchant for documenting everything, were themselves shocked by this violence! The order was given to disarm these collaborators, also in Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, and to house them in so-called police battalions, as the Germans (still) have a hand in discipline, as already happened in Lithuania.
Postwar Ukrainian SS-Galizien Division Criminal Members were Refugees in Britain and Canada
Members of the SS-Galizien Division and the AZOV battalion, who worship their ancestors in the SS, as the People of the Donbass say: “they are real Nazis” Photo: Telegraph, YouTube, Twitter, editing: Mirjam©Photo. At the end of World War II 8,500 Ukrainian members of the SS-Galizien Division, soldiers who had committed the most heinous crimes … Meer lezen overPostwar Ukrainian SS-Galizien Division Criminal Members were Refugees in Britain and Canada
A notorious war criminal was John Demjanjuk. He was a Ukrainian-American who served as a Trawniki man and Nazi camp guard at Sobibor extermination camp, Majdanek, and Flossenbürg. Shortly before his death, he was tried and convicted in Germany as an accessory to the 28,060 murders that occurred during his service at Sobibor.
Survivor testimonies and the coming to terms with the Holocaust in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia, called the case of the Ukrainian nationalists, was investigated. The question, if and to what extent the Ukrainian nationalists murdered Jews in Volhynia and eastern Galicia during the Holocaust, has haunted Ukrainian communities in various countries of the Western world during the entire Cold War, also the Russians and Europeans. It also puzzled German historians of Eastern Europe and Nazi Germany. Historians, although in theory responsible for investigating and clarifying such difficult aspects of the past, have for various reasons not investigated them or they investigated only other aspects of the Holocaust in Ukraine.
During the German invasion,the Jewish population in Volhynia was approximately 460,000. About 400,000–450,000 Jews and 100,000 Poles (men women and children) in Volhynia were massacred by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army and Ukraine collaborators. Poles recall massacre by Ukrainian nationalists – Prensa Latina (plenglish.com)
The Ukrainian diaspora created a narrative that depicted Ukrainian nationalists as anti-German and anti-Soviet freedom fighters who did not kill or harm Jews during World War II. But it is known that this is the not the case and slowly but surely the facts are emerging that they killed many Jews, Russians, Poles, political opposition, communists and gypies. It also explains the current situation in Ukraine and Europe, especially the Baltic States, Finland and Western Europe.
Survivors from Western Ukraine and Volhynia, have had a fairly clear opinion about the role that Ukrainian nationalists (Nazis) played in the Holocaust during the German occupation of Eastern Galicia and Volhynia. The survivors also left behind a tremendous amount of testimonies. Some of them were collected before the end of the war, others immediately afterwards, and still others only in the 1990s or later. The West, the so-called allies, ignored the voices of survivors and marginalized their stories, and some communities and countries, such as the Baltic States, even presented them as a political campaign against Ukraine. Since the start of the Special Military Operation (SMO) in Ukraine, these facts have been distorted even more, the press and politicians (in the West) admitted that there are many (neo) Nazis living in Ukraine, this has now been rewritten since 2022.
History Repeats Itself – the USA – Alabama Huntsville the City of Nazis – Operation Paperclip
Part II
March 12, 2024
In part one it was about Europe and the Baltic states, after massively embracing the Nazi ideology during the occupation of the Germans in WWII, thought Hitler would help them gain independence. This article is about the US and the hidden secret of Alabama. Photo: WWII Traces, Times of Israel – members of the Latvian Legion, Getty Images, Wikipedia, editing: Mirjam©Photo – History Repeats Itself The Baltic States and Ukraine are the Root of the Current Problem – Part I – – DEVEND.ONLINE
The Secret of Alabama, USA
The city of Huntsville which is located in northern Alabama. It is here where German scientists developed NASA, the renowned organization responsible for the first US mission to the moon, which they secretly founded after World War II and from here the US’s new rockets were developed. Operation Paperclip is still little talked about today in Huntsville, the US and Europe.
In Huntsville you can get everything from Germany, Bratwurst, Beer, Oktoberfest, probably dirndls and much more. The second and third generations of Germans”: the children of the engineers and scientists who, after developing V-2 rockets for the Nazis, invented the rockets that took Americans to the moon. NASA would conduct a total of six moon landings as part of the Apollo program, with Apollo 17 concluding the program in 1972. It was the headquarters of National Aeronautics and Space Administration called NASA.
Their fathers, led by the legendary Werner von Braun, surrendered to the Americans at the end of the war and were taken to El Paso, Texas under ‘Operation Paperclip’, a secret Cold War program to capture the world’s brightest scientists of the Third Reich and send then to the US. There in Huntsville they lived their lives in luxury and worked on the US space program, most of these scientists were Nazis, some of the inventions at the time in Peenemünde, Germany, were used for further development at NASA.
The Peenemünde Army Research Center was founded in 1937 as one of five military testing grounds under the German Army Weapons Office (Heereswaffenamt). Several German rockets from the Second World War were developed there, including the V-2 rocket (Wunderwaffen). Photo: Wikipedia Peenemünde Army Research Center – Wikipedia
As for the Peenemünde team, when it became clear that Germany would lose the war, General Dornberger and Werner von Braun “decided that it would be best to seek out the Americans, especially since they wanted to continue working on rockets after the war. They heard that the Americans were interested in their work and thought (well thought) that they could continue to live their lives in freedom.
Some German scientists were sent to White Sands, New Mexico to form the basis of America’s new rocket program and others to Huntsville, Alabama. The Nazis’ most important scientific and technical personnel, including Walter Dornberger (director of Peenemünde East) and Werner von Braun, were sent to America. Both play a crucial role in the development of America’s rocket and space programs. Which to this day are the most important for America’s technological progress. All wars waged by the US after 1945 can be traced back to the technological development of Nazi Germany, modernized, but they formed the basis, the Nazis from Germany in America.
Werner von Braun (left in civilian clothes) and Walter Dornberger in the middle (without glasses) were the most important top Nazis that America “imported” in their Operation Paperclip, to make America the most advanced country in technology and space travel. Although the Russians quickly overtook them, just think of Sputnik and the first man in space Yury Gagarin. Without Nazi science, America would never have become the “great” superpower (now declining) as they were. How Much Did Wernher von Braun Know, and When Did He Know It? | Air & Space Magazine| Smithsonian Magazine
Another scientist who came to Huntsville Alabama through Operation Paperclip is a man named Theodor Karl Vowe, his grandson tells the story in the video below and shows a conversation with his surviving mother, who was born in Nazi Germany and documents that he kept in the trunk of his car the contracts from Theoder Vowe and NASA. Note: This grandson, probably he and many Americans (Europeans) still speak “badly” about Russia and still live in the ideology of the Cold War and the Second World War.
Of course, all the high-ranking Nazis claimed when they came to the US via Operation Paperclip that they knew nothing about “slave labor” or concentration camps. This also applies to Werner von Braun and his subordinate Theodor Karl Vowe. But is this so? What did they know? It is known that Werner von Braun knew, it was a certain thing. In a subdivision of the Peenemunde research facility, was a testing ground called Camp Dora, in Nordhausen (Thüringen), the Harz Mountains (which I visited) it is very clear that he knew and even worse participated in these crimes.
In December 1944, as the Soviet armies closed in, the labor and extermination camps in Germany began to empty. Many thousands were forced on death marches where thousands of people died, the marches went through many villages in the Harz, Clausthal-Zellerfeld, Altenau, Braunlage to the south with the final destination of Nordhausen. The Harz moutnains were the scene of one the final battles and hiding places of the Nazis. 20. April 1945: US-Truppen stürmen den Brocken | NDR.de – Geschichte – Chronologie – Kriegsende
Many documents show that Werner von Braun must have been in the camp Mittelbau-Dora in Nordhausen several times and, among other things, selected prisoners in the Buchenwald concentration camp. At the Allies’ only trial on the Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp in 1947, Wernher von Braun was neither charged nor heard as a witness. In Peenemünde, forced laborers were used for rocket production, as well as in the other factories, the Rax works in Vienna, Austria and at Zeppelin in Friedrichshafen (Germany). In 1940, Von Braun was joined the Schutzstaffel (SS) on Usedom – the island on which Peenemünde was located. He later became head of NASA and was a hero in the USA.
When it was difficult to produce weapons due to bombing raids, V2 production was relocated to the Kahlstein tunnels near Nordhausen am Harz in 1943. Prisoners at the Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp had to assemble the rockets. Around 20,000 people were killed – far more than the military use of the rocket. Photo: Allied soldiers shown Nordhausen – National Archives Washington
The US Army Center of Military History’s White Sands Missile Range Museum holds one of the most complete, original V-2 rockets in the world today. Developed by the German rocket team led by Wernher von Braun and General Walter Dornberger, the V-2 was one of Hitler’s “Wunderwaffe” weapon but came into use too late in the war to be of any significance. Considered one of the world’s first modern “terror” weapon.
The mission of the US WSMR Museum is to collect, preserve, interpret and display the Army’s story in New Mexico and the role the Army played in operating the Missile Range to integrate Department of Defense, other Federal agency, and international test activities that contributed to the advancement of missiles and rockets, the emergence of the nuclear age, the winning of the Cold War, and our Nation’s continued strategic dominance on the global stage.
It is clear that without these Nazis from Germany, America would not have become a superpower in the field of technology, nuclear power and all the wars that we experienced from the Americans after 1945 might not have taken place in this way.
Of course, the descendants of these Nazi scientists are not responsible for the actions of their fathers and grandfathers, provided they condemn them of course. In the case of Theodor Vowe’s descendant “Theo” grandchild, this is not the case. He idolizes his grandfather and, due to his indoctrination, still lives in the atmosphere of the Second World War, the Cold War and “hates” Russians. This has a negative impact on the American population, who due to their poor education (ordinary population) hear all this propaganda, just like in the Baltic states (part I) and Ukraine, resulting in the current situation we see now.
People in Europe, the Baltic states, but also in Ukraine and Poland, in fact in large parts of Europe, still live with the legacy of the Second World War, where the Allies (Americans etc) were the “heroes”, the Russians still have some credits received for liberating Europe. But this turned into fear and hatred of the Russians during the Cold War and the old Nazi ideology resurfaced and has now reached its peak in Europe and America. The spirit of the past revives! We see new fascism in Europe and the US, maybe the Second World War never ended and we are still in it!
Voormalige nazi-explosievenfabriek, codenaam “Werk Tanne” staat nog overeind
DONEER EN STEUN ONS WERK DONATE AND SUPPORT US: IBAN: NL10 SNSB 0902 6349 33 Tijdens een stevige boswandeling in mijn “nieuwe woonomgeving” rolde ik van de ene in de ander verbazing, ik kwam een afrastering tegen waarop een bord stond “Verboten … Meer lezen overVoormalige nazi-explosievenfabriek, codenaam “Werk Tanne” staat nog overeind
Emma Olive 