Concentration camps existed long before the Russian
revolution--there were even concentration camps operated by Imperial
Germany in its African colonies. So the German Nazis didn't need the
Soviets to teach them about concentration camps. Nor were the Soviet
camps a model for the Nazi extermination camps, the ones which are of
direct relevence to the Holocaust--indeed there was no model for such
operations. The Soviet Union certainly accounted for many crimes and the
mass starvation during the collectivization campaigns killed millions, but
this "the Commies did it first" line has been part and parcel of Holocaust
minimization campaigns in Germany and the Baltic countries
Saturday, June 4, 2011
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
Ohne lösung der Judenfrage, kein erlösung für Menschkeit
It is commonly claimed that the Nazis planned to kill "every Jewish man,
woman and child" within their sphere of control. It is first of all not
clear that there was a plan: Hitler made known his desire to get rid of the
Jews "so oder so", and his underlings acted according to their own
understandings of what he meant. The Foreign Office hatched two plans in
1942, the Heimschaffungsaktion and the Austauschaktion, respectively to
"repatriate" Jews with foreign connections and to exchange them for Germans
interned as enemy aliens. For example, before the first Aktion in Warsaw,
all Jews with foreign passports were rounded up and put in the Pawiak, from
where they were transported to the "holding camp" (Aufenthaltslager, AL) at
Vittel. Mary Berg, then 16, describes it all in her diary. Her family were
American citizens and were repatriated to the U.S. In Western Europe, there
were various classes of exemptions, e.g. Jews in mixed marriages.
"Prominenten" were kept in certain camps and it was not intended to kill
them. Yehuda Bauer describes various plans to exchange Jews for hard
currency or military goods in *Jews for Sale* Intention in Denmark was not to deport the Jews but to frighten them in to leaving, doing little or nothing to prevent their flight to Sweden - in other words, the Danish Jews weren't "rescued", they were expelled. So there was no consistency and no fixed intent.
woman and child" within their sphere of control. It is first of all not
clear that there was a plan: Hitler made known his desire to get rid of the
Jews "so oder so", and his underlings acted according to their own
understandings of what he meant. The Foreign Office hatched two plans in
1942, the Heimschaffungsaktion and the Austauschaktion, respectively to
"repatriate" Jews with foreign connections and to exchange them for Germans
interned as enemy aliens. For example, before the first Aktion in Warsaw,
all Jews with foreign passports were rounded up and put in the Pawiak, from
where they were transported to the "holding camp" (Aufenthaltslager, AL) at
Vittel. Mary Berg, then 16, describes it all in her diary. Her family were
American citizens and were repatriated to the U.S. In Western Europe, there
were various classes of exemptions, e.g. Jews in mixed marriages.
"Prominenten" were kept in certain camps and it was not intended to kill
them. Yehuda Bauer describes various plans to exchange Jews for hard
currency or military goods in *Jews for Sale* Intention in Denmark was not to deport the Jews but to frighten them in to leaving, doing little or nothing to prevent their flight to Sweden - in other words, the Danish Jews weren't "rescued", they were expelled. So there was no consistency and no fixed intent.
Saturday, May 14, 2011
“Hitler’s brides” from Finnish Lapland
Photographer Väinö Kannisto took a snapshot of what is described by the Helsinki City Museum as "a Finnish-German couple" in Helsinki in the spring of 1944. The identity of the couple in the picture, which is part of the collection of the Helsinki City Museum, had not been firmly established at the time the picture was published in the print-paper, but subsequently it has emerged that the bridegroom was in fact Finnish, and had served during the Continuation War of 1941-44 in the German Waffen SS Wiking Nordland Regiment. As the article notes, the vast majority of marriage applications were rejected by the German authorities. This did not prevent a good number of children being born out of these Finnish-German relationships.
-----------------------------
“Hitler’s brides” from Finnish Lapland
Hundreds of women in Finnish Lapland had wartime relationships with German soldiers
By Kristiina Markkanen
“Rassisches Treibholz” – racial driftwood – is the term used by Eduard Dietl, commander of Germany’s 20th mountain army corps, AOK Lappland, in reference to the Finnish and Norwegian women whom his subordinates wanted to marry. The year was 1942 and Finland fought in the Continuation War alongside Germany against the Soviet Union.
In 1941-1945 the number of German soldiers in Finland sometimes exceeded 200,000. Couple relationships were established and children were born. However, only a few of the couples were able to get married.
“With very few exceptions, the applications that have been submitted unfortunately involve representatives of neighbouring peoples of significantly lower value. The pictures shown almost exclusively depict racial driftwood, starting with girls showing strongly eastern features, all the way to an ugly ‘bride’ of inferior growth”, Dietl wrote in his guidelines on marriages.
Such women were not acceptable as mothers of German children. The AOK 20 annual report of 1943 reveals that 98 per cent of marriage applications were rejected. The prospective wives did not meet the political or racial standards.
German soldiers were allowed to marry and to produce offspring only with members of the German people. A general prohibition was imposed after the occupation of Denmark and Norway in 1940.
In his order, Dietl repeated the views of Fuehrer Adolf Hitler and the German office of racial policy. Nations were divided into three categories – the master race, or Germans, Germanic nations, and relative nations. Finns belonged to the last-mentioned category.
The marriage rules nevertheless had to be eased as the war progressed. In Norway and Denmark, the Germans actually started to nurture Scandinavian-German offspring by setting up so-called Lebensborn homes for the children of German soldiers. In 1943 marriage was even permitted with a few Finnish women who represented the “Nordic type”.
The rules were eased because the input of the Finns was needed on the battlefield. When Sweden announced that it would not take part in the war, Swedish men were denounced in German propaganda as soft and unmanly. At the same time, the military prowess of the Finns was praised, and there was talk of “honorary Aryans”. However, honorary Aryan status was not enough for marriage. In addition to the background of the women, the prospective husband’s military rank and his connections were of some significance.
The applications were sent through official channels to Hitler himself, who signed the papers for the marriages of which he approved. According to Hitler, the women did not look particularly beautiful on the basis of the photographs, and he is said to have quipped that hopefully the soldiers who are in love don’t overthrow him when they realise what kinds of women they have married after the initial passion has faded.
This story reinforces the myth that has been established in Finland around the women who consorted with Germans. For instance, in the documentary film Auf Wiedersehen Finnland by Virpi Suutari (see linked story), the morality of some of the women who went along with the Germans was criticised by Kaisu Lehtimäki; Kaisu herself went to Germany for political reasons.
In studies on the war years, marriages and engagements have often been mentioned only in passing. Various rumours have circulated about the relationships, but little actual researched information has been available. Hardly anything has been known about actual marriages. The couples usually settled in Germany after the war and “disappeared”. In practice, permission to marry was given only to the daughters of so-called “good families”, who were often Swedish-speaking, who had sufficiently Aryan features, and whose new husbands were often high-ranking officers.
A few society weddings were held in Helsinki, for instance, with photographs appearing in newspapers.
When Ernst Zuckschwerdt, who served as an aide-de-camp at the German headquarters, married Eva Gripenberg, the daughter of a Helsinki noble family and member of the Lotta Svärd women’s auxiliary forces in the spring of 1943, the event was covered in the Swedish-language magazine Mänads-Revy .
Engagement and wedding announcements published in Finnish newspapers are part of the research material of a recently completed study by the National Archive on the children of foreign soldiers.
With the help of his research group, the head of the project, Lars Westerlund, found more than 200 engagement and marriage announcements, most of which appeared in Helsinki dailies, especially in Uusi Suomi and the Swedish-language Hufvudstadsbladet. Such announcements were rarely seen in Helsingin Sanomat or provincial newspapers.
Based on the announcements and archive sources, Westerlund concludes that there must have been hundreds, if not as many as a thousand marriage applications.
The announcements suggest that Finnish women were particularly attracted to men who served in the Luftwaffe, and in maintenance units of the army. Sailors and a few SS men also seem to have had time for dating. The husbands were usually lower-ranking officers. The professions of the women, if they were mentioned, were often “office workers”, or “office assistants”.
As permission to marry was only given to a few, the best that the more ordinary girls could do was to have an engagement announcement published in a newspaper. Such announcements became marriage substitutes of sorts. Westerlund also believes that one reason for an engagement announcement may have been the discovery that the hopeful bride-to-be was pregnant, and the purpose of the announcement may have been to put an emphasis on the seriousness and honourable intent of the relationship.
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 8.5.2011 (176)
pick from YLE: & about that in JPost
WILL HOLOCAUST CRIMES OF FINNISH VOLUNTEERS IN UKRAINE GO UNPUNISHED?
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Monday, December 6, 2010
aryan pride - arajs, sandberger,grese & kramer
viktor arajs ( latvian war criminal)
sandberger in the center, left of him - Aaro Anthoni SEPO
chief, finland. tartu 1943.
from EE 13/08/2010
Im Theater: SS-Führer Martin Sandberger (In der Mitte) 1942 in Estland mit SA-Brigadeführer Otto von Haldenwang (links) sowie Aaro Anthoni, Chef der finnischen Sicherheitspolizei, und Oberstleutnant Hans Gosebruch. Das Foto wurde im Vanemunie-Theater in Tartu aufgenommen.
Im Theater: SS-Führer Martin Sandberger (In der Mitte) 1942 in Estland mit SA-Brigadeführer Otto von Haldenwang (links) sowie Aaro Anthoni, Chef der finnischen Sicherheitspolizei, und Oberstleutnant Hans Gosebruch. Das Foto wurde im Vanemunie-Theater in Tartu aufgenommen.
Pühalik hetk: Võidupüha tähistamine Tartus Vanemuise teatris, juuni 1942. Esireas vasakult: kindralkomissariaadi 1. peaosakonna ülem SA-Brigadeführer Otto von Haldenweg, Soome julgeolekupolitsei ülem Aaro Anthoni, Martin Sandberger ja Tartu välikomandant.
sandberger and local kids
sandberger - sd chief
SS-Offizier Martin Sandberger als Angeklagter: Als Leiter des Einsatzkommandos 1a und Kommandeur der Sicherheitspolizei (SiPo) und des Sicherheitsdienstes (SD) in Estland war der SS-Standartenführer eine der treibenden Kräfte des Völkermords im Baltikum. Im Nürnberger Einsatzgruppenprozess wurde er 1948 zum Tode verurteilt, dann zu lebenslanger Haft begnadigt und 1958 freigelassen. Im gleichen Jahr musste er im Ulmer Einsatzgruppenprozess gegen Bernhard Fischer-Schweder und andere Mitglieder des "Einsatzkommandos Tilsit", das 1941 in Litauen gewütet hatte, als Zeuge aussagen.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,687922,00.html
http://einestages.spiegel.de/external/ShowTopicAlbumBackgroundXXL/a6901/l6/l0/F.html
vorbildlichen exemplaren
ss specimen
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