Ukrainian SS Memorials UK

[citybythesea]

They have these victory parades over the last 80 years, reaffirming the defeat of the nazis………..
But wait, they’re not defeated afterall and have re-emerged…..Holy shit the plot thickens!
They weren’t defeated, a bit like a baddie at the end of a movie.

(Except movies plots are less far fetched)

 

[Rammstein]

I am sure Apache looks like a camper version of this guy

but with a much tinier rod .....

 

[SAFCOldie]

A large percentage of East European "refugees" and former pows who were allowed to stay in the UK after WW2, were forner volunteers into the Waffen-SS or Special Action groups. The govt knew about it and did very little. Most of the communities that exist today, in various parts of the country, if they date from post WW2 are descendants of these people.

Some were conscripted but lots volunteered because they hated the Soviet Union, were vehemently nationalistic and most times open to Nazi anti-semetic properganda.

Majority of the time, especially during the early stages of the holocaust when it was mass shootings, it was locals, the neighbours, who did the killing not the Germans. They simply oversaw it and provided logistical assistance.

That's very interesting to be fair.

 

[Jap Stammer]

It sounds as though you are saying the SS were a canny bunch of lads

Bert Trautmann likes this.

 

[John Steed]

Is this thread to try and justify Russia's invasion of Ukraine? It doesn't justify it in the slightest.

 

[Jap Stammer]

His lack of understanding that not everyone was necessarily fighting for the same thing in WW2 is evident in this thread though.

A quick google on this subject reveals that the SS Galizien division was formed from Ukrainian volunteers with the stipulation that they would only ever be deployed against the Soviets on the Eastern Front.

Quite how so many of them ended up being captured by the Western allies is unclear - can't imagine the Russians being so magnanimous as to hand over any captured SS men to the West.

 

[si73]

Bert Trautmann likes this.

Was a Fallschirmjäger (Paratrooper), Luftwaffe not Waffen-SS. I believe he was classed as a Nazi because he volunteered to fight and not a conscript.

A quick google on this subject reveals that the SS Galizien division was formed from Ukrainian volunteers with the stipulation that they would only ever be deployed against the Soviets on the Eastern Front.

Quite how so many of them ended up being captured by the Western allies is unclear - can't imagine the Russians being so magnanimous as to hand over any captured SS men to the West.

They all fled west because they knew capture by the Soviets was almost an automatic death sentence. The fighting on the Eastern front was a lot more brutal and bloodthirsty in terms of no quarter being given. That is not to take away from the horrors that were going on everywhere.

That's very interesting to be fair.

The book I mentioned is a good one. It's really clear about the fact that it was a European (Eastern particularly but also involving France, The Netherlands and most other Western nations too) wide event and plenty of other peoples were very happy to get involved once the Germans got the ball rolling.

A quick google on this subject reveals that the SS Galizien division was formed from Ukrainian volunteers with the stipulation that they would only ever be deployed against the Soviets on the Eastern Front.

Quite how so many of them ended up being captured by the Western allies is unclear - can't imagine the Russians being so magnanimous as to hand over any captured SS men to the West.

The Cossacks who served under the Germans were another group. They were viewed as Soviet citizens and although they surrendered in Czechoslovakia to British troops, we then turned them over to the Red Army, who began to execute them in front of the British soldiers.

 

[Tuono]

It sounds as though you are saying the SS were a canny bunch of lads

Nah, just saying there were a lot more SS soldiers around in more places than people realise.

 

[PinzaC55]

Nah, just saying there were a lot more SS soldiers around in more places than people realise.

Thats profound.

 

[si73]

They have these victory parades over the last 80 years, reaffirming the defeat of the nazis………..
But wait, they’re not defeated afterall and have re-emerged…..Holy shit the plot thickens!
They weren’t defeated, a bit like a baddie at the end of a movie.

(Except movies plots are less far fetched)

Patriots or Nazi collaborators? Latvians march to commemorate SS veterans

There's parades and wreath laying in the Baltic States for former SS volunteers still. Tons of people think of them as national heroes because they fought the Soviets. It's not as gone away as it would appear.

 

[Horatio Pugwash]

I'll have to take a proper ganda into all of this!

On a similar vein

There's a good documentary on netflix called Ordinary men which is about the SS Einsatzgruppen. It documents the formation of these death groups from as they put it ordinary men, bakers, policemen, milkmen. These groups were formed specifically for the systematic murder of Jews. It shows how the groups tended to be made up of three types of men, those that actively enjoyed the killing and torture, those that just did it as they considered it to be the right thing to do and those that didn't want to do it but went ahead and did it anyway.

The most revealing aspect was those that refused to murder the Jewish men, women and children weren't punished in any way. They were just allowed to leave the group with no repercussions which goes against the myth that they had to do it which tends to be pushed.

 

[Monty Pigeon]

A chap on Twitter has been doing a deep dive into the 'Ukrainian SS' stories that are suddenly all over social media. It's a concerted Russian propaganda campaign, exploiting awkward truths (yes, some Ukrainians saw the Soviets as their greater enemy, and fought against them with the Germans), half-truths, and blatant disinformation. All history is messy.

Good people do bad things, bad people do good things, and some people are posthumously misrepresented for contemporary political ends. Here's a map of memorials, museums, and other commemorations of individuals who, to some degree, collaborated with the Germans during WWII.

If the Russian argument that 'some Ukrainians collaborated with the Nazis during WWII, therefore Ukraine is a Nazi country' is taken to its logical conclusion, all of these countries are also Nazi and, therefore, Russia has the moral right to invade them.

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[citybythesea]

Patriots or Nazi collaborators? Latvians march to commemorate SS veterans

There's parades and wreath laying in the Baltic States for former SS volunteers still. Tons of people think of them as national heroes because they fought the Soviets. It's not as gone away as it would appear.

My point being is depite old allegiances it has nothing to do with current tensions. That conflict (ww2) was concluded. There’s no merit making historical links to the past when there was different circumstances to the Ukraine War. It doesn’t fit in with a current narrative to say people in Ukraine once upon a time fought against the Nazis…..,which they did, the focus these days overlook that and focus on those who fought with axis forces. All too convenient

 

[si73]

My point being is depite old allegiances it has nothing to do with current tensions. That conflict (ww2) was concluded. There’s no merit making historical links to the past when there was different circumstances to the Ukraine War. It doesn’t fit in with a current narrative to say people in Ukraine once upon a time fought against the Nazis…..,which they did, the focus these days overlook that and focus on those who fought with axis forces. All too convenient

Agree, there was also division between rival nationalist groups in Ukraine who fought with the Nazis as well as there being many Ukrainians who joined the Red Army or partisans to fight against them. History is hardly ever clear cut.