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| 1944: Two days of 'neutrality'. How the Estonian president escaped from our army | ||||
| 2024-09-23 | ||||
| Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Andrey Zvorykin [REGNUM] On the morning of September 22, 1944, units of the 8th Rifle Corps of the 2nd Shock Army entered Tallinn – or rather, stormed in. In 24 hours, the Soviet riflemen covered a distance of 100 kilometers. The surprise factor worked. The Tallinn operation of 1944, carried out from September 17 to 26 with the aim of defeating the enemy on Estonian territory and liberating Tallinn, part of the strategic Baltic operation of 1944. Residents talk with Soviet tank crews who liberated Tallinn. The fighters captured 25 Nazi planes, 185 guns, and in the port, a dozen and a half ships on which the Nazis kept prisoners of war and civilians ready to be sent to the Reich. The 8th Rifle Corps was called Estonian, and not without reason. In this almost 20,000-strong unit - with the 221st Tank Regiment and the Tazuya Air Squadron attached to it - 70% of the personnel were, in fact, Estonians. This in itself refutes the established idea that the inhabitants of the Baltic republics who were capable of holding arms either joined the “forest brothers” or “collaborated” with the Nazis in menial jobs, or even in the ranks of the Estonian SS Legion. The fighters who liberated Tallinn were commanded by Lieutenant General Lembit Pern, an ethnic Estonian, although originally from the Stavropol region. His predecessor in this post, Major General Jaan (Ivan Markovich) Lukas, had been a career officer in the army of the “bourgeois” Estonian Republic until 1940. But in modern Estonian – and more broadly, Western – historiography, liberation from Nazism is presented as a Soviet (read: Russian) invasion followed by the restoration of the pre-war “occupation.” It is claimed that the Red Army did not drive out the Nazis in the Baltic operation, but stopped an attempt to restore Estonia's independence. Which, to put it mildly, is not entirely true. SWING FOR THE EIGHTH STRIKE By September 1944, the Red Army had been victoriously advancing west for more than six months, also known as "Stalin's Ten Strikes."
The Baltic offensive operation, which became the eighth strike, began to be prepared in the winter of 1944. Lembit Pern recalled in his memoirs, “ In the Whirlwind of the War Years ”: On February 20, at a meeting in Krasnoye Selo, the commander of the Leningrad Front, General of the Army (future Marshal) Leonid Govorov, set the task: by May 1, the 8th Estonian Rifle Corps must be fully prepared for entry into battle on Estonian territory. Andrei Zhdanov was also present at the same meeting as a member of the front’s military council. According to Pern’s memoirs, he “gave a high assessment to the open letter “Why We Fight for Soviet Estonia,” published on December 7, 1943, which was signed by 382 officers who had previously served in the Estonian bourgeois army and transferred to serve in the Red Army.” The declared goal was to restore the pre-war status quo: Estonian statehood in the form of a Soviet republic.
Let us recall that Estonia, like the other two Baltic republics, became part of the USSR in 1940. After the German invasion of Poland, this region could well have become next in Adolf Hitler's plans to expand "living space" to the east. By that time, Lithuania had already felt some of the German aggression, having given up Klaipeda – or, in German, Memel – to Hitler in March 1939, even before the start of World War II. In June of the same year, the three Baltic states hastened to conclude non-aggression pacts with Germany. As the Western patrons of the Balts, Britain and France, withdrew, the region found itself in the Third Reich's gravitational field. Winston Churchill, who was then in opposition, lamented: "Hitler managed without difficulty to penetrate deep into the weak defenses of the belated and half-hearted coalition directed against him." Taking into account the possible appearance of the Wehrmacht somewhere near Narva already in 1939, the Soviet Union could not afford to “surrender” the Baltics. In August 1939, after Moscow's negotiations with London and Paris on collective security had failed, the USSR concluded a non-aggression pact with Germany (the last in a series of similar agreements by the Germans). According to the Molotov - Ribbentrop Pact, Estonia and Latvia were in the Soviet Union's sphere of influence. The pact allowed the Soviet Union to gain time, and the Baltic peoples to remain untouched by World War II for the time being. From September 28 to October 10, 1939, non-aggression treaties were signed between the USSR and the three republics, which included agreements on the deployment of Soviet military bases on the territory of the latter. Yes, not all Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians sympathized with the Bolsheviks (although, on the other hand, one can recall the Latvian Riflemen, Litbel, the first Latvian SSR, the Estonian Labor Commune and the Tallinn Uprising of 1924). But, firstly, in 1939, Moscow assured that it would not interfere in the politics of the “bourgeois republics” – or more precisely, right-wing authoritarian regimes. And secondly, the prospect of integration into the Reich could please the Ostsee (Baltic) Germans, but not their former subjects - the indigenous peoples. As early as 1938, the Czechoslovak ambassador to Latvia reported: "It is easy to see that the majority of the Latvian people are anti-German. Such anti-German sentiments date back to the times of the Baltic barons... In the event of war, Estonia... would rather side with Russia than with Germany."
In post-war Estonia, the events of June 1940 were known as the June Revolution. Dictator President Konstantin Päts agreed to Moscow's demands to accept additional troops and ensure a change of government. On June 19, Prime Minister Jüri Uluots resigned. On the evening of June 21, after a series of mass pro-Soviet rallies, Johannes Vares-Barbarus, a modernist writer and left-wing politician, was appointed the new Prime Minister. On August 25, Estonia joined the USSR as a union republic. Sovietization lasted exactly one year. "TO PREVENT CLAIMS TO THE CREATION OF STATES" On August 28, 1941, Tallinn was occupied by the Wehrmacht, and the Germans occupied all of Estonia by early September. The "new order" can be judged by the instructional letter from Reich Minister for the Eastern Territories Alfred Rosenberg to the head of the Reichskommissariat Ostland (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus) Heinrich Lohse dated June 21, 1941: "The Reich Commissioner of the Ostland must prevent the emergence of claims to the creation of Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian states independent of Germany. It is also necessary to constantly make it clear that all these areas are subject to German administration." At the same time, as everywhere in occupied Europe, there were collaborators. Dr. Hjalmar Mäe, appointed to lead the “Estonian self-government” under the command of the General Commissioner of the Estland District, SA Obergruppenführer Karl-Sigmund Litzmann, “assisted” in organizing 25 concentration camps on Estonian territory. During the work of the “self-government”, the Nazis and their accomplices from the paramilitary organization “Omakaitse” (“Self-Defense”) destroyed 61,000 disloyal civilians, 64,000 Soviet prisoners of war and actively participated in the “solution of the Jewish question”. However, when the recruitment of “volunteers” for the Estonian SS Legion began in the spring of 1943 (they managed to recruit 5,300 volunteers, with a large number of deserters), the collaborators were not entrusted with the task - this was done by German officials of the Reichskommissariat. In February 1944, amid a series of defeats on the Eastern Front, the occupiers rebranded themselves – instead of “self-government,” former Estonian politicians who had collaborated with the Reich were allowed to create the “National Committee of the Estonian Republic” (NKE). It was then that former Prime Minister Jüri Uluots emerged from oblivion – the Germans entrusted him with the leadership of the committee. Modern Estonian historians emphasize that in April 1944, Uluots was elected acting president of Estonia at an underground meeting. But he was more notable for his agitation for joining the 20th SS Volunteer Infantry Division (1st Estonian). Incidentally, in 1999, the agitator Uluots was included in the list of the hundred greatest Estonians of the 20th century. Estonian SS men had previously "distinguished themselves" in punitive expeditions in the Pskov region and Belarus - in shooting civilians, looting, destroying several Belarusian villages and mass deportation of "Ostarbeiters" for slave labor in Germany. Now they had to "defend" Estonia from the advancing Red Army. HOW THE GERMANS MADE A STRATEGIC MISTAKE In July 1944, the Red Army successfully advanced towards the former Soviet-Estonian border. On July 24, the prelude to the liberation of Estonia began – the Narva operation. The enemy, fearing encirclement, began to retreat from the region to the fortified Tannenberg line. On July 25, the 2nd Shock Army of the Leningrad Front under the command of Lieutenant General Ivan Fedyuninsky, with the support of the Baltic Fleet, crossed the Narva River. The city of Narva was liberated the following day, and by July 30, Soviet troops had reached the heavily fortified Tannenberg line, which halted the offensive. By September 6, south of the Narva direction, the Tartu offensive had achieved success, leading to the liberation of the city of Tartu in southeastern Estonia and the creation of a second bridgehead suitable for an offensive deep into enemy territory. The Germans expected that the Narva direction would be the main one for the Red Army. More of our troops were concentrated there (136,000 people), and Narva was much closer to the capital of Estonia, Tallinn. But the Soviet command had a different view of the situation: the Red Army’s plan was to encircle the Wehrmacht units in Estonia. For this purpose, the entire 2nd Shock Army, consisting of more than 100,000 people, over a thousand guns and about 4,000 armored vehicles, was secretly transferred to the Tartu direction on the eve of the start of the operation. Here our troops were confronted by part of the German Army Group North, the Narva operational group, consisting of two corps, the main part of which defended the Narva Isthmus (the transfer of the 2nd Shock Army was not noticed by the Germans). The operation began on September 17, 1944. After the first Soviet attacks, the German command realized its strategic mistake, and therefore on the same day the Germans began evacuating troops from Estonian territory. By the evening of September 20, General Filipp Starikov's 8th Army and the 2nd Shock Army, advancing from the Narva and Tartu directions, joined forces in the area of the city of Rakvere, having advanced 70 kilometers. The next day, the offensive on Tallinn began. And at that very moment, on September 18, Jüri Uluots proclaimed “Estonian independence.” On September 20, the main Wehrmacht forces left Tallinn. The capital of the republic was in the hands of the NKE for two whole days. "President" Uluots appointed his subordinate Otto Tief as prime minister (his government is now considered legitimate). The Tief cabinet managed to do the following: hang a small national flag in the city center on the Long Hermann tower next to the large Reichskriegsflagge - the German military flag, declare "neutrality in the current war" and even publish two issues of the newspaper "State Herald". It was not possible to assemble a national army for a good reason: all those who wanted to “fight Bolshevism” fled towards Latvia along with the retreating Wehrmacht. Therefore, on September 22, Soviet troops occupied the city without resistance. "President" Jüri Uluots managed to escape to neutral Sweden on September 20, the rest of the government was less lucky. Six people were arrested, five of them were sentenced to various terms, Jaan Maide, the chief of staff of the collaborationist "Omakaitse", appointed "commander-in-chief of the Estonian army", was shot for collaborating with the Nazis. During the subsequent military actions, units of the Estonian pro-German militia, numbering about 2,000 people, nevertheless attempted to attack the Red Army, but to no avail. By September 26, the entire territory of the Estonian SSR, except for the Moonzund Islands, was liberated. Soviet troops entered Latvian territory, where they joined up with units of the 3rd Baltic Front of Colonel General Ivan Maslennikov fighting there. BANDERA'S SLOGAN AGAINST THE BRONZE SOLDIER In a week, Soviet troops managed to occupy the entire territory of mainland Estonia (they advanced about 40 kilometers per day); success was achieved due to the competent interaction of all types and branches of the military. The Germans, despite significant losses, still managed to evacuate most of their troops to Latvia, where they would be surrounded in the Courland pocket until May 1945. But this was already agony. The defeat of the Nazis and their collaborators in 1945 cannot be “retroactively cancelled”. But the memory of the joint fight against Nazism can be formatted. The attitude of the post-Soviet authorities of Estonia towards the Bronze Soldier became a symbol of this revision of the results of the war. Immediately after the collapse of the USSR, the eternal flame at the monument to the liberators of Tallinn was extinguished, then the plaques with the names of the fallen soldiers were removed (instead, a plaque was installed that reads “Fallen in World War II” – which can be understood to include SS legionnaires), and finally, in 2007, despite public protests, it was removed from Tõnismägi Hill in the center of Tallinn to a military cemetery on its outskirts. In April 2022, vandals got here too – they painted a swastika on the monument in yellow paint, and, characteristically, wrote “Glory to Ukraine!” on the pedestal. The hatred that the symbolic memory of the fight against Nazism continues to evoke suggests that this fight, including in the Baltics, remains relevant. Against the backdrop of this scandal, politician Mart Helme (former Estonian ambassador to Moscow and future head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs) declared: “Today’s Russia is a growing monster, the likes of which the world has never seen in its history.” The question arises: how did Russia, which 80 years ago gave up thousands of lives to free Estonians from slavery, “deserve” such an unflattering review. Especially from those for whom Nazi collaborators are not monsters, but “fighters for independence.” | ||||
| Posted by:badanov |