Uldis Šmits on national socialism and communism

[Phlegethon]

Latvijas Avīze - Latvia

Uldis Šmits on national socialism and communism

Efraim Zuroff, director of Israel's Simon Wiesenthal Centre, has criticised plans by the European Parliament to declare August 23 a day of commemoration for victims both of communism and national socialism. Uldis Šmits disagrees in the daily Latvijas Avīze: "The argument is that such a move would play down or trivialise the crimes of national socialism. Of course that would be truly objectionable, but would that really cause people to forget the Holocaust, as Zuroff fears? He has also said in Riga that the victims of both regimes should not be commemorated in a common occupation museum. Of course one could grade totalitarian crimes and give the victims different statuses, but that doesn't make the acts of Hitler and Stalin any less inseparable. ... The Red Army disappointed Polish hopes and failed to help [during the Warsaw Uprising in the summer of 1944]. Later this betrayal on Stalin's part was hushed up or reinterpreted. Some 200,000 civilians died in the Uprising, and the Germans almost completely destroyed Warsaw. ... And the deportations, the Katyn massacre and the occupation of the Baltic states were certainly anything but banal." (12/08/2009)

[Inese]

Efraim Zuroff can talk what he want in Latvia people think about victims of Russian war and occupation and not much about NS victims --- you know, normal Latvian were not often NS victims only the jewish population , but normal Latvian were victims of Russians!! A big difference for our culture of remembrance

[Phlegethon]

You nazis! Shame on you!

[Óttar]

I think the downplay of Communist crimes exposes the hypocrisy of people who are pre-occupied developing the idea of Nazi exceptionalism, as if the Germans of the "Taetergeneration" were robotic baby-eating aliens instead of human beings like you and me; subject to the conditions and environment of their time. All the super-rich movers and shakers, along with the political and academic establishment were proponents of eugenics, and other Nazi policies. NS Germany could have just as easily been NS America, NS Great Britain, NS France etc. Indeed one wonders why the Allies didn't ally with the Germans against the USSR, considering the ancient cultural links between Germany and England. Instead the British formed a power bloc with the French (), the same people whom they've been fighting at various points since 1066.

Stalin killed more people than Hitler. How come we are not regaled with his crimes in High School? It makes me sick to see old Soviet monuments in modern Germany along with the monuments to dead Communist prisoners. Those Germans are subject to a self-loathing sickness when they exalt the deeds of the conquerors, the very people who murdered their own citizens and brutally raped German women.

It also makes me sick to hear a former citizen of the DDR (East Germany) refer to Soviet occupiers as "liberators."

Why is it someone can walk down the street with a red hammer and sickle flag T-Shirt without getting the living crap beaten out of them? Freedom of expression? Well, see what happens when someone walks down the street wearing the National Socialist blutfahne.

[Brännvin]

Both systems and armies committed atrocities.

[Cato]

Both systems and armies committed atrocities.

Atrocities have been committed throughout history and in all civilizations and cultures. It's as if Hitler was the sole exception, a monstrous one, in a world of utopian peaceniks. Neverminding that I can name other tyrants, from many different nationalities and periods of history: Qin Shi Huang, Genghis Khan, Pol Pot, Domitian, Sulla, Cromwell (just to name a few). The nutzis just get scapegoated because they had it out for the Jews (a big no-no, since the chosen are God's especial arsekissers).

[Jarl]

Latvijas Avīze - Latvia "The argument is that such a move would play down or trivialise the crimes of national socialism. Of course that would be truly objectionable, but would that really cause people to forget the Holocaust, as Zuroff fears? He has also said in Riga that the victims of both regimes should not be commemorated in a common occupation museum. " (12/08/2009)

I think the man is correct. Equalising Nazi and Soviet war crimes makes little sense as the mechanisms through which they were implemented differ a lot. The nature of these crimes was often different in itself too. I do not think any such lumping together would contribute towards better understanding of the two totalitarian systems in question. Quite the opposite, it would blur the boundaries and belie the fact that NS attempted to eradicate whole nations using industrial means. For that purpose a whole, highly sophisticated, system was devised. Jews, Gypsies and Slavs were to be up-rooted, assimilated or exterminated... in the long run. The fact that Stalin was responsible for death of more people than Hitler makes no sense, as he was in charge of the Soviet Union for nearly 25 years, compared with Hitler's 11 years as Fuhrer.

I can't think of any modern country where Soviet crimes would be down-played. They are certainly not trivialised in England. As for former Eastern block countries - here a very strong reaction took place after the disolution of the USSR. This reaction bases on a very harsh and negative approach to communism and Soviet history, sometimes to a very extreme degree at which everything connected to communism and USSR is criticised per se.

As for Latvia. An invading power violating the laws of a sovereign country is still a ruthless occupier. NS certainly exterminated less Letts than communism, however given the chance to realise Hitler's plans, the fate of Latvia after WWII would be far from promising:

http://www.dac.neu.edu/holocaust/Hitlers_Plans.htm

PLANS FOR THE BALTIC NATIONS TOP

According to Nazi intentions, attempts at Germanization were to be undertaken only in the case of those foreign nationals in Eastern Europe who could be considered a desirable element for the future Reich from the point of view of its racist theories. The Plan stipulated that there were to be different methods of treating particular nations and even particular groups within them. Attempts were even made to establish the basic criteria to be used in determining whether a given group lent itself to Germanization. These criteria were to be applied more liberally in the case of nations whose racial material (rassische Substanz) and level of cultural development made them more suitable than others for Germanization. The Plan considered that there were a large number of such elements among the Baltic nations. Dr. Wetzel felt that thought should be given to a possible Germanization of the whole of the Estonian nation and a sizable proportion of the Latvians. On the other hand, the Lithuanians seemed less desirable since they contained too great an admixture of Slav blood. Himmler's view was that almost the whole of the Lithuanian nation would have to be deported to the East.

Whatever happened, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia were to be deprived of their statehood, while their territories were to be included in the eastern area of German settlement. This meant that Latvia and especially Lithuania would be covered by the deportation plans, though in a somewhat milder form than the Slav - "voluntary" emigration to western Siberia.

It was one nation deliberately embarking on a policy whose aim was to wholly eradicate other, weaker nations, along with their language and culture. Exterminating, up-rooting or deporting whole nations... A monstrous policy. However cruel and horrible were the crimes of communists in Latvia, they canno't be treated as an excuse to trivialise the crimes of NS.

[Inese]

You know , no person know Hitlers plans after war and the author want to show all in a bad light because it can not be that Hitler and Germany are some thing else than total evil!! Latvia had a good relationship to Germany and East Prussia was very near to Latvia ---- Latvian and German are strong linked in the history with the Ostbesiedelung and Teutonic Order i was writing about it a little back!! I am very sure that there was no plan to deport ethnic Latvians out from Latvia to east maybe only the slavic Russian parts!!

You are only angry that the plan for Poland was not nice but it was your politicians who provokated the war and had ideas how fast the polish army is in Berlin!! I only say the name of your war minister Tadeusz Kasprzyck and what he said that Poland do not need to defend itself because Poland only knows attack and that you will win!! lol ^_^ Slogan of Polish politicians and media was " Marsz na Berlin! Marsz na Berlin! "
Yes your country provokated the war but Germany was the wrong oponent for Polish power fantasies. 4 weeks and you was done ---- no worry we learned in school how the war has begun and your Poland is not inocent!

[Óttar]

What about the German Czechs who were displaced from Czechoslovakia after the war, despite the fact that their families had been there for 900 years? It was the Germans who built Prague into a great world class city. Yet the Germans are never lauded or recognized for their accomplishments. The entire Spanish colonization of the Americas was carried out with German built ships, German banks, and German built mines. Indeed, the Spanish armada was German built.

[Cato]

Hitler this, Hitler that, he gets the blame for everything that the nutzis did, like he was an all-powerful brainiac. There was some stupid show on the History Channel years ago called Hitler's Henchmen or somesuch, which kind of suggested that Goebbels, Himmler and the rest were puppets dancing to the tune of an insane mastermind. In truth, Hitler was, indeed, the leader of Germany, but he was also the frontman for a gang of political ne'er-do-wells who, for the most part, had private agendas that often didn't agree with what der Fuhrer had in mind. For example, I've seen names like Eichmann and Goebbels tossed out there as the true mastermind of the Holocaust™, in addition to the usual suspect of Hitler. Whenever I see a report on the "evil" atrocities or "genocidal" plans of the nutzis, I just roll my eyes.
The victors write the history books, and the nutzis were on the losing team. Thus, the history books, all of which are sanitized and PC of course, forget to mention such loverly events as the firebombings of Dresden and Tokyo or the raping excursions of the beastly Red Army as they plowed through eastern Europe into Germany. Then there's the case of two cities by the name of Hiroshima and Nagasaki...