Why Russians Fear Nazis So Much
They have a lot of good reasons.
There is a giant disconnect between the USA and Russia when it comes to Nazis. I often feel that Americans look at Russians and react with a Seinfeld phrase, “what’s the DEAL with this fear of Nazis?”
What makes this discussion even more problematic is that, in order to understand the Russians’ obsessive fear of Nazis and Nazism, we need to go back to World War II, or what the Russians call “The Great Patriotic War.” This is of course ancient history to Americans.
But when you think about it, just the names we give the war belies a massive difference in how we regard it. For the Americans, it is the “second” in a series of conflicts; for the Russians it is THE war that defines them.
Why is that?
What most Americans fail to realise is that it was the USSR that defeated Nazi Germany, and they did so at great cost. In all, 27 MILLION RUSSIANS DIED in WWII. Compare that with just 250,000 Americans and 400,000 British.
27. MILLION. RUSSIANS.
It means that every family in Russia lost at least one loved one. We see the big parades that they hold in Moscow every year, filled with thousands of people carrying photos of the people they lost. Imagine how that would change our lives. Imagine if you, me and every other American had lost someone in the war. Imagine how strong that bond would be, how unifying and uniting such a thing could be. How we could all communicate and empathise with each other at least on that level, no matter where you were from.
That is how it is in Russia. And it is a tragedy that the world has forgotten this.
The US always had a much more blasé attitude towards Nazis. Perhaps this was because, unlike the Russians, America had a very large cohort of Germans living amongst us. German was, they say, the second most spoken language after English for much of America’s early history.
The US even had its own Nazi organisation all through the 1930’s, called the German American Bund. It had thousands of active members and was best known for holding a rally in Madison Square Garden in 1939 with 20,000 American Nazi members in attendance.
Needless to say, there was no such things going on in Russia at the time.
But the divergent views toward Nazis really became apparent in post-war Europe. In the Soviet zone, Nazis were ruthlessly hunted down, tried, imprisoned and/or executed. If you had been a member of the Nazi Party, it was patently impossible for you to find a job in East Germany. Any job of importance was reserved for good socialists (of which there were many).
On the US side, however, it was a different story. In addition to projects such as Operation Paperclip, which saw 100’s of Nazi scientists spirited away to the US to work on such projects as the space program, the Americans decided to use Nazis in all areas of government and civil society in Western Germany. Most notably, they established the West German Intelligence Service (BND) by simply assigning it to a Nazi spymaster named Reinhard Gehlen.
The Gehlen Network — Nazis recruited to spy on an erstwhile “ally”
Major General Reinhard Gehlen headed the Foreign Armies East section of the Abwehr (Nazi Germany’s Intelligence Service), directed towards the Soviet Union. After the War, Gehlen negotiated an agreement with the United States which allowed his operation to continue in existence despite post-war de-nazification programs. The group, including his immediate staff of about 350 agents, was known as the Gehlen Organization. Reconstituted as a functioning espionage network under U.S. control, it became CIA’s eyes and ears in Eastern Europe and in the Soviet Union. His network came to employ over 5000 ex Nazis and SS officers throughout Eastern Europe and Russia.
NATO — does it really mean “Nazis Are Taking Over”?
The US courting of Nazis was not restricted to scientists and the clandestine services. It also manifested in NATO. When the US first formed NATO, the Supreme Commander for Central Europe was a post reserved for French Generals. Once the French left NATO, however, this key command was given to a series of NAZI GENERALS.
Some examples:
Hans Speidel was Chief of Staff to Nazi General Erwin Rommel during WWII. NATO made him Supreme Commander of ground forces in Central Europe in 1957. He was opposed by De Gaulle because of his activities against the Resistance and French Jews in Paris in 1942, such appointments may have led to France’s decision to leave NATO.
Adolf Heusinger helped plan invasions of Poland and France as Chief of staff for the Nazi army. He was responsible for millions of brutal fascist murders. NATO appointed him Chairman of the NATO Military Committee in 1961. The US made him a Commander in the US Legion of Merit.
Johann von Kielmansegg was General Staff Officer to the Nazi army’s high command during WWII. NATO made him Commander in Chief of Allied forces in Central Europe in 1966.
Jürgen Bennecke served as 1st General Staff Officer of the Nazis’ 100th Jäger Division, and saw distinguished service in the Eastern Front in WWII, particularly in the Siege and Battle for Stalingrad. In 1968 he was made Commander in Chief, Allied Forces Central Europe. Imagine how the Russians felt, seeing this man, who had helped kill over a MILLION RUSSIANS at Stalingrad, now facing off against them once more.
To Russian leaders, who were all veterans, it must have seemed like a bad dream.
Johannes Steinhoff fought for the Nazis as a fighter pilot in WWII. NATO made him Chairman of the NATO military committee in 1971.
Ernst Ferber was a Major in the Nazi army and group leader of the Nazi army’s supreme command organizational department. NATO made him Commander in Chief of Allied forces in Central Europe in 1973
Karl Schnell was a Nazi army General Staff Officer in WWII. NATO made him Commander in Chief of Allied forces in Central Europe in 1975 — the year Vladimir Putin started his career in the KGB.
Franz Joseph Schulze received military honors from Hitler during WWII while fighting in the Nazi army. NATO made him Commander in Chief of Allied forces in Central Europe in 1977.
Ferdinand von Senger und Etterlin was a tank commander in the Nazi army during WWII. NATO made him Commander in Chief of Allied forces in Central Europe in 1979.
As you can see from the photo on the right, by the 1980’s the old Nazi Generals were just too damned old to hold the command positions in NATO. I am sure, however, that the US would have kept on using Nazis in perpetuity if they could.
Now I can imagine eyes rolling, and my American compatriots saying, “so what? The enemy of my enemy is my friend, and these Nazis were already used to hunting and killing Russians, so why not use them?”
That is, after all, the point I am making.
Nazism and Russophobia in Ukraine — a special case
When Putin talks about “de-Nazification” of Ukraine, he is not joking, nor is he making up a threat that does not exist. In many areas of Europe, Nazis were never properly routed out, reformed or eradicated. Nazi beliefs still thrive. And for every Nazi in Europe, they know who their enemy is: RUSSIA. The Russians to them are “Untermenschen” — direct descendants of the Mongol Hordes.
In Ukraine, there is a rich and potent history of Russophobia dating back centuries. But this hatred for all things Russian really came to the fore in the 20th century.
In WWI, when the European-leaning, Greek Catholic Ukrainians, living in Western Ukraine (what is known as Galicia), who were enthusiastic members of the Austro-Hungarian Empire at the time, were enlisted by Vienna to round up Eastern Orthodox, ethnic Russians, and herd them into camps. This was of course at a time when Austria was at war with Russia.
In fact, the very first “concentration camp” to appear in Europe was built by the Austrians at Thalerhof in 1914, and was used to incarcerate ethnic Russians from Ukraine in the most horrible of conditions.
From Wikipedia:
The Austro-Hungarian authorities imprisoned leaders of the Russophile movement; those who recognized the Russian language as the literary standard form of their own Slavic language varieties and had sympathy for the Russian Empire. Thus, the captives were forced to abandon their identity as Russians, or sympathies for Russia, and identify as Ukrainian. Captives who identified themselves as Ukrainians were freed from the camp.
Sound familiar?
WWII and the rise of Nazi Germany was a positive boon for the Western Ukrainians (Galicians). The Nazis marched into Western Ukraine in 1941, and by 1943 it was decided to create a special SS Division of Russian-hating Ukrainians to send off to the Eastern Front. The 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS (1st Galician) was born. The Galizien Division saw action on the Russian Front from 1943 to 1944. As the war would down, this Nazi SS Division was “renamed” by the Germans to the “Ukrainian National Army.” This unit was comprised of 220,000 battle-hardened, Nazi-indoctrinated Ukrainians, who hoped that this new military force would help them establish Ukrainian independence after the war ended.
THIS is why Nazism is so popular in Western Ukraine. The “Galicians” believed that the ticket to their own independence lay in allying with the Nazis and killing the Russians.
After the war, the Brotherhood of Former Soldiers of the First Ukrainian Division of the Ukrainian National Army was formed to help pursue this goal. Its head office was located first in Munich, then transferred to New York at the end of the 1950s, and finally to Toronto in the mid-1960s. The brotherhood has national organizations and local branches in Germany, Canada, the United States, Argentina (!!), and Australia.
The Toronto branch seems to be the most active, and Canada’s Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland was often in trouble because of her family’s close connections with this and other radical Ukrainian far right groups.
SO … Once you dig around a bit, it becomes easy to see why Russia and Putin consider Ukraine to have a serious “Nazi Problem”.
#End
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Norman Finkelstein was spot-on when he said that Germany deserves to get absolutely crushed for sending troops to Ukraine to fight Russia. Unfortunately, the reactionary mainstream liberals do not care about the facts. And the majority of modern Jewry's sympathies with Nazi-controlled Ukraine is even more mind-boggling-stupid to behold: https://forward.com/opinion/483624/why-do-jews-cry-when-zelensky-speaks-ukraine-zelensky/
Interesting how Americans, British and French are perfectly comfortable with nazism these days.