O P I N I O N
by Leena Hietanen
Estonian ultranationalists traditionally celebrate Hitler’s victory on the Sinimae Hillls in eastern Estonia annually at the end of July. This year is no exception. The festivities are slated to start on the 27th of July at Sinimae.
As usual, the Estonian government is quietly giving its blessing to the proceedings. Old Estonian Waffen SS Legionaries gather on the hills to commemorate their participation on the Second World War on the side of Nazi Germany. In the battles of Sinimae Hills during the spring and summer of 1944 Estonian Waffen SS soldiers together with their fellow pro-Nazi combatants from Scandinavia, Belgium, Holland and Germany halted the progress of the Allied/Soviet front for half a year in the Eastern part of Estonia postponing the collapse of Nazi-Germany and condemning untold civilians to ongoing Nazi atrocities. Almost half of a million Hungarian Jews lost their lives in Auschwitz thanks to Estonian Legionaries. They would have survived had the Soviet advance not been tied up the Germans’ prime allies among the Estonian fascists.
Government officials have stopped publicly attending the party, for PR reasons, but every year the guest of honor is the ex-Foreign Minister of Estonia, Trimive Velliste. Also young people, neo-Nazis from Estonia and Scandinavia are increasinginy joining the festivities.
Atmosphere is Changing
The ultranationalists in Estonia are facing tougher times as the euphoria around the EU seems to be diminishing. Local elections are scheduled for October and the polls show that Estonia is turning to the left, meaning that so-called pro Russia parties (those that advocate normal relations) are winning. Some Baltic politicians and parties have been somewhat opportunistic — yesterday pleasing the west, tomorrow perchance bowing down to the east, depending on where the money comes from in the shortest of terms. Local elections do not change the course of the government. Still ultranationalists continue in power at the national level.
Top nationalist, Mart Laar, former prime minister and former defense minister, the father of the “Valentine Day´s Law” that has done Estonia’s reputation some palpable damage, is out of the game. He got a stroke just in the wake of the adoption of the Valentine Day´s Law last year on 14th of February 2012. Laar is the man behind the rehabilitation of the forces of Nazi Estonia of 1941-1944, and particularly the infamous Waffen SS.
Generation to Retire
The man behind the equation of red and brown in the European Parliament, MEP Tunne Kelam is leaving the European Parliament this term. Kelam is a party colleague of Laar. They both belong to the right wing nationalist party called Fatherland. Kelam and his American ex-pat wife Mari-Anne Kelam are also people who could some day be held to account for their “witch hunts” against former communists (in the widest sense everyone work ever held a job in Estonia during the Soviet peiod). Kelam is the initiator of the resolution to commemorate in mix-and-match fashion “the victims of the Totalitarian regimes” on 23th of August, which was accepted in the EU Parliament in 2009.
The “notorious” American ex-pat president Toomas Hendrik Ilves, said to have US intelligence connections, is supporting the county´s ultranationalistic policy. He thinks that the Holocaust is a tool of Kremlin that exists only for Putin to use to compromise the Baltic people in the information war between east and west. In Estonia there are more and more weary comments about this president and business people are really tired of him. Most of the Estonians are waiting him to leave the presidential post but they won´t be rid of him until 2016. So there is plenty of time to see Holocaust Obfuscation go on for some years unchecked.
Some anonymous internet commentators put an equation mark between overzealous Western intelligence agencies who fail to see that danger of Nazi adoration, and the chain Laar-Kelam-Ilves. These names have to be remembered when you look for the ones who are responsible for the attempts to delete the Holocaust from European history. It’s not all Lithuanians and Latvians.