How can anyone who knows history, especially country leaders, not realize in WWII that Russia was one of the Allied powers which means they fought against the Nazis, so this man fighting the Russians was of course, fighting for Germany/Hitler, against his own country. It is inconceivable to me that Canada's leaders and Zelensky did not know this. It is a disgrace.
How can anyone who knows history, especially country leaders, not realize in WWII that Russia was one of the Allied powers which means they fought against the Nazis, so this man fighting the Russians was of course, fighting for Germany/Hitler, against his own country. It is inconceivable to me that Canada's leaders and Zelensky did not know this. It is a disgrace.
Just don't forget that Hitler and Stalin signed a non-agression pact (that incuded provisions for dividing Poland) before Russia became an Ally. It was all really complicated in Ukraine before WWII -- they had virulent anti-Semites while also having thriving Jewish populations, much of which were decimated by German and Ukrainian Nazis. Nothing is clear-cut and straight-forward about the Ukraine.
Yeah, that statement holds true for the US. They (USA) had virulent anti-Semites (especially in the State Department) while also having thriving Jewish populations (NYC, Milwaukee, LA, etc.). Luckily, the American Nazi Party didn't get to decimate those.
That's not a good analogy. While there certainly was (and is) anti-semitism in the US, and especially in the State Dept., the Am. Nazi Party had no power and, to my knowledge, did not engage in seriois violence against Am. Jews. Progroms against Jews occurred regularly in Ukraine and Beloruss in the early 20th c., and that level of violence continued through and after WWII. Moreover, the violence against Jews in the US was never sanctioned by the government as it was in Ukraine. Not saving European Jews during WWIi is not an equivalent to the slaughter of Jews committed by Ukrainians at that time.
I don't think you got the point I was trying to make. Let me try to be more clear about it. There is a tendency to call Ukraine and large part of its population Nazi, based some seemingly on-point descriptive facts. However, those same facts are very applicable to the the US, it has virulent anti-Semites in government, it has its own <national> Nazi Party that marches in different places in the country, yet no one calls the US a Nazi country based on these facts, but does call modern day Ukraine Nazi based on those same "facts".
The statement you made above is not factually correct. If you replace Ukraine with Russia, it will become factually correct. State sanctioned anti-Semitic violence occurred in the Russian Empire, in its different constituent parts - Russia, Poland, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova (Bessarabia), etc. Ukraine could not have sanctioned violence against the Jews as you claim as it was not a sovereign entity to do so. It was a part of the Russian Empire and then USSR. There was no slaughter of Jews committed by Ukraininas at "that" time. There was slaughter of Jews committed by Russia, USSR, Germans, USSR again, which was carried out by Russians, Germans, Belarussians, Poles, Ukrainians, Tatars, Latvians, Czechs, Hungarians, etc. The US specifically turned around ships full of Jewish refugees trying to escape and sent them back to German-occupied Europe to face certain death in the gas chambers (lets not sugar coat with "not saving European Jews" the very specific and clear policy choices to send Jews to certain death made by a very anti-Semitic US government, they didn't have to do much saving as you put it, just to let those poor people disembark). The French would turnover their Jews to the Gestapo to be sent to extermination camps, etc. It was a wholly European and US affair, everyone played their part. Except that, you know, Ukraine wasn't a sovereign country to make government decisions on anti-Semitic policy, as opposed to the US or Germany or USSR, which were and did make those decisions.
I do understand what you are saying, but I'm fairly certain that you are incorrect on at least 2 grounds. First, to say that the Ukraine did not exist in the 1930s is not accurate. The Ukrainian people lived in the geographic area known as Ukraine for centuries. The USSR formally defined the borders of the Ukraine in the 1920s when the USSR was setting the borders for all the Soviet states based on ethnographic, demographic, and cultural factors. See "Empire of Nations: Ethnographic Knowledge & the Making of the Soviet Union," by Francine Hirsch. By WWII, the Soviet state of Ukraine encompassed most of the world's Ukrainian population. Certainly Ukrainian state employees and actors participated in was crimes against the Jews; I believe there is no dispute that Ukrainian military and law enforcement helped round up Jews and send them to their deaths. As I previously stated, I understand that not all Ukrainians took part in the war crimes against the Jews, but enough did to cause the slaughter of a huge percentage of its large Jewish population.
Second, to compare the actions of the United States government to that of the Ukrainian government is repugnant and suggests to me that perhaps you've been reading some revisionist history that is simply not accurate. The US is not perfect and made mistakes, but it was largely responsible for reversing the tide of German victories, defeating the Axis powers, and liberating the few Jews who survived the Holocaust. (I understand the Soviet Union also played a significant role in defeating Germany, but not one as great as the US.) Whatever wrongs and mistakes the US made, they pale in comparison to the huge amount of good the US did during WWII to win the war and then rebuild Europe. The Ukrainian state supported the slaughter of a large part of its sizeable Jewish population and lacks a record of mitigating efforts that could potentially off-set its war crimes.
The US welcomed approx. 2 million Jewish immigrants in the first quarter of the 20th century, a huge number given the population at the time. Few other countries were as welcoming to the Jews as the US, and the only ones that came close to the US, like the Austro-Hungarian Empire, could not protect its Jews from Hitler. Among the millions of Jews who were welcomed by the US were my grandparents and I would be fool if I were not eternally grateful to the US for that.
Again, your first premise is borne of incorrect understanding. Ukraine was not a state. The state was the USSR. Ukraine was an administrative part of that state. The USSR was not a federal system like the US (it was also not like the EU, which you appear to perceive it to be). The policy was set at the USSR level, not at the Ukraine level. For any official to attempt to set policy at Ukraine level was a sure-fire way to end up in the Gulag, as that would be perceived as a direct attempt to undermine and subvert the monopoly of the Communist Party of the USSR to set policy on anything and everything in the USSR. The fact that this needs to be explained tells me that your understanding of the subject matter is extremely limited.
Second, I did not compare the actions of the US government to those of Ukraine (again, you can't compare it to Ukraine, as the US government as a sovereign state could set its own policy, but Ukraine could not). I simply wondered out loud if your prickly insistence on calling out, and overblowing, every perceived sleight from Ukraine towards Jews extended to the examination of US actions in bringing about the destruction of large numbers of Jews during WWII. To me, that role is more egregious, because again, the US could set its own policy and chose not to, but Ukraine did not even have the option of setting its own policy. I hope you see the difference here. Its like the laws on the duty-to-act. They apply to a 25 year old who is considered an adult, but they don't apply to a 14 year old, who is considered a minor.
Thirdly, " (I understand the Soviet Union also played a significant role in defeating Germany, but not one as great as the US.)". This quote is just beyond ridiculous, and tells me you have a less than rudimentary understand of the topic. This is the equivalent of saying the Civil War in the US was won in the West. No. The West was an important area of operations with repercussions for the wider war, etc. and provided an opportunity for Grant to come into his own. But that war was also going to be won or lost in the East, where the overwhelming majority of belligerent forces were situated. And here someone like you comes along and says, the Civil War was won in the West, the Eastern theater (I don't know, like Sherman's March to the Sea) played a significant role in defeating the Confederacy, but not as great as the West. To any serious student of the Civil War that would just identify the author of such a statement as a complete naive on the topic. (On a serious note, compare and contrast Operation Bagration with Operation Overlord in terms of number of troops involved on both sides, number of munitions, etc. to get an idea of what the war in the Eastern theater was like. And then take heed that Bagration took 3 months to put together, not the 2.5 years that Overlord did.)
So no, the Ukrainian state did not support the slaughter of Jewish population as there was no Ukrainian state. That basic foundational fact you got wrong. Plenty of ethnic Ukrainians participated in all sorts of war crimes against the Jews, just like plenty of Russians, Belorussians, Poles, and every other nationality in Eastern Europe. And plenty Russians, Belorussians, Ukrainins, Poles, and every other nationality in Eastern Europe helped them. But as a matter of state policy, no, Ukraine didn't have one, as again, it was not a state.
I am happy that your ancestors landed safely in the US. My Jewish grandparents only got there in the 1990s, having gone through the German ghettos, guerilla warfare to liberate their homeland, and a lifetime of discrimination in the USSR. So my understanding of the topic is informed by a lifetime of study of that time and place as a History major, plus a lifetime of conversations with my grandparents, parents, etc. who have lived through it.
Oh, Zelensky knew. It is not at all a secret in Ukraine that their WWII heroes were Nazis. They hated (and still hate) Russia enough that it's not viewed as a problem. The Azov Battalion is not really so much neo-Nazis as a symptom of people who never *stopped* being Nazis.
In other words, Putin (whom I don't support!!!!!) wasn't just blowing hot air when he talked about Nazis in Ukraine. Of course he tried to overstate the seriousness of the problem. But he wasn't making up something out of whole cloth.
Zelensky knew for sure. Any Ukrainian who fought "the Russians" (USSR) in WW2 did so in a Nazi unit. In the case of Hunka - the Waffen SS 14th Grenadier Division. But they have statues to Stepan Bandera there, so...
You are factually incorrect. The USSR and Germany were allies for 1 year and 10 months during WWII. It was very possible to fight "the Russians" and not be a Nazi. For instance, as part of the Polish army, while USSR in concert with Germany were conquering it. Or as part of the Ukrainian partisan movement in 1939 and 1940 as the Russians were summarily executing Ukrainians and deporting them to Gulag.
I agree that it’s possible that a Ukrainian (USSR citizen) fought against the USSR in the circumstances you described, though the comparative numbers compared to Ukrainian collaborator units under German control are way fewer.
Of course, those are well known. They even had their own generals. They generally met bad ends since they were turned over by the Western Allies to the USSR after their surrender in the West. Dutch, Belgian, French, Norwegian, Estonian, Latvian, etc…lots of German occupied nations filled out German volunteer units fighting the Soviets. Many because of fervent belief in anti-communism, which is understandable.
But the subject here is a former Ukrainian SS soldier being honored in the Canadian Parliament. Knowing that so many Ukrainians served with the Germans against the Soviets that should have been the first question asked.
I think Zelenskyy was blindsided. He would have assumed that such guests are properly vetted, so he wouldn't have expected a blunder of such magnitude.
Most Canadian politicians really are that ignorant of history. But the deputy PM, Chrystia Freeland, absolutely knew who Hunka was because her own grandfather was a Ukrainian Nazi. She should have stopped it, and I can't speculate about why she thought that it wouldn't blow up the way it did.
There is an interesting podcast on the Hub (which looks at Canadian politics from a right of center position) regarding this issue. Mind, right of center in CN is not very right.
Back to Trudeau: His authoritarian tendencies are where so-called progressives are headed with their demonizing, censoring, and attacking those with whom they disagree. Trudeau would have us believe that he is never wrong and always blames others for his mistakes. Sound familiar? For a very good discussion of this latest debacle in Canada listen to Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi’s podcast this week.
Actually no, Russia and Germany were not allies during WWII. The pact you made mention of wasn't a pact that made them allies (fighting on the same side). The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was a non-aggression treaty wherein Russian and Germany would not attack each other.
The pact also quietly partitioned Central and Eastern Europe: the Germans were supposed to do their own conquering of Central Europe, while the Russians expanded the Soviet Union. The Germans broke the treaty 1 year and 10 months later when they launched Operation Barbarossa.
ETA: Calling someone a brainless twit, and then getting the wrong historical facts doesn't make Celia look like the brainless twit.
Oh, FFS, this is so dumb I'm not even going to explain anything to you. Suffice it to say that this is exactly the version of the "truth" that the communist party drilled into us during history lessons in USSR. Now repeated by lunatic lemmings like you in the West.
They literally had a military parade together, after carving up Poland from east and west, working in concert to strike Polish forces from both sides while coordinating with each other. That is some mental gymnastics you have to go through to manage to NOT call them allies. But rather than your strenuous interpretation, lets just rely on primary sources, such as the Pravda headline reporting on the topic. Here, I even googled it for you https://www.litfund.ru/news/11692/
Pravda. You mean the newspaper owned and operated by the Soviet Communist Party? That Pravda? Pravda. All the news that Joseph Stalin saw fit to print.
You made the argument that they were not allies. I provided a factual rebuttal to show that your argument is incorrect. You are now saying what exactly? That Pravda did not speak for Stalin, who considered it a military alliance?
Come on, try harder, this used to be taught in 10th grade World History. The Second World War started on Sept. 1, 1939. Germany and USSR had an alliance that ended by the fact of Germany invading USSR at 3:15 AM on June 22, 1941. For that 1 year and 9+ months they were allies. Its not that complicated. Even for an American.
i'm a conservative, you dingbat, I don't believe in triggers, safe spaces, and gender woo. I do, however, have a brain and desire to learn. Unlike many people on here, clearly
This comment is unnecessarily intemperate and insulting. Disagreement with points of view is one thing. Calling someone “a brainless twit“ is another thing entirely.
oh boo hoo. She calls my people "nazis" for fighting the communist scourge with what meager choices we had available at the time, and you're bleating on about "intemperate"? Who is the snowflake here?
That period in Eastern Europe is ugly as f**k. Lots of people initially joined up with the Germans against USSR - because by then, the Soviets have been cleansing out and deporting millions of us for nearly two decades. So, please, fold it into four corners and shove it where the sun don't shine!
Its funny how a lot of people make fun of liberals as snowflakes. Yet, when one of the main cohort uneducated here gets called out for spouting patently ridiculous falsehoods, everyone rushes to defend her feelings, rather than attempting to figure out the facts. Presenting false facts is not having a disagreement on a point of view. Presenting false facts is just that, a wrong understanding of a complex topic. Which deserves to be called out as such. When you indulge people talking out of the a** about topics they don't have a rudimentary understanding of, you end up with the gender-as-a-spectrum and safe spaces.
Oh, Zelensky knew. <She has no way of knowing that. Can't call it a fact.>
It is not at all a secret in Ukraine that their WWII heroes were Nazis.
<This is not true. The Ukrainian Nazi myth of part of Kremlin propaganda. It has the same veracity is calling the US a Nazi-loving country because there are some people that march with tiki torches in the US>
They hated (and still hate) Russia enough that it's not viewed as a problem.
<This is not true. More than 50% of the Ukrainian population had a very favorable view of Russia. Until it started shelling residential buildings with artillery, that is>.
The Azov Battalion is not really so much neo-Nazis as a symptom of people who never *stopped* being Nazis.
<Ukrainians as a people were never Nazis. There were some sympathizers. (Like Charles Lindbergh, and Joe Kennedy and you know, the whole American Nazi Party. But no one was ever dim-witted enough to use those facts to call Americans Nazis.) It is factually incorrect to project that on to the whole nation. Especially given that Ukrainians suffered more than Russians, proportionally, from the Nazi's. Making this claim is just beyond the pale factually and ethically.>
In other words, Putin (whom I don't support!!!!!) wasn't just blowing hot air when he talked about Nazis in Ukraine.
<He was, see above about the tiki torches thing>
Of course he tried to overstate the seriousness of the problem. But he wasn't making up something out of whole cloth.
<He was, that's what he does. He takes pride in lying, its a professional skill that he is very proud of. One has to be a certain kind of stupid to take anything he says at face value at this point, after 25 years of documented lying>.
See, everything she said was inaccurate. May I suggest changing your news sources away from Russian shills like Tucker Carlson or Douglas MacGregor (or that idiotic comedian that goes on Joe Rogan talking about Ukraine and Russia). Those are highly educated men (not the comedian on Joe Rogan) that are highly compensated for spreading bullshit. People that then repeat it for free just come across as grossly ignorant.
It's a fact that Zelensky knows the Azov Battalion and the country in various amounts ascribe to nazi ideology. He's talked about it numerous times. He's stopped talking about it since he cancelled elections in Ukraine.
I can agree with Churchill that "during war, the enemy of my enemy is my friend." But that ideology stuck in areas of Ukraine, it didn't go away, and as soon as the USSR collapsed in 1990-91, it reappeared instantly. Not like it was a secret. Even the Klitschkos talked about it publicly clear back when they were still active. Ukrainian emigres are not shy about telling how pervasive it is.
I haven't watched 2 hours of fox news in 30 years and haven't owned a television in 10. My sources for geo-political news haven't been American since Bill Clinton used CNN as his source to obliterate Bosnian culture.
By the way, "the ideology" is stuck in Russia no less than in Ukraine, and reappeared with the breakup of the USSR. Only in Russia it morphs more into the Russia for Russians variety, but once they get Russia cleansed, the rest of their thinking is straight out of Mein Kampf. Which is the reason Wagner actually has a large number of Russian Nazis/Nationalists fighting to advance that goal.
Because a common refrain of the Russia-shilling "influencers" in the US is that Ukraine is full of Nazis. I see it repeated often by people that know next to nothing about Ukraine on this site, as a justification to stop supporting Ukraine and allow Putin to conquer it.
From first-hand experience, Ukraine does not have a Nazi problem. Yes, in a country of 40 million, you will always have 100K that will be idiots of various kinds and persuasions. It plays into Kremlin propaganda to talk about "the Nazi" problem in Ukraine, because it muddies an otherwise clear cut moral issue, and thus accomplishes the propaganda's goal, which is not to convince, but to sow doubt. Let me suggest a hypothetical, after Chancellorsville (the 2017 version), there were two years of conversation and constant questions to the US president about white supremacists in the US. To a lay person (or to a bad faith actor) it would suggest that the US suffers from a white-nationalist/Nazi ideology epidemic. Which in fact is not the case. But looking at the number of mentions from an outsider's perspective, you'd get the impression that it was a major political movement. It appears this is the case with Ukraine. For a variety of reasons, there is a coalition of isolationists/reflexive contrarians/ignorant "useful idiots"/paid Russian agents/shills who are focused on keeping the Nazi conversation front and center with regards to Ukraine. When in fact it has the proportionate weight there as white-nationalism does in the US.
Chancellorsville is the site of a Civil War battle. You probably mean Charlottesville which event was promptly put to use to spread propaganda. I get it. But using propaganda against an enemy during war is one thing; using propaganda against their own citizens is disgusting.
I doubt there are significant numbers of russian shills on this site. Instead what I find a lot of, are 'disinformation experts' who talk endlessly about 'russian shills,' who likely work for some random intelligence agency and who are getting paid to promote war for profit. It's all about blasting the good old die Partielinie.
I never said there are a significant number of Russian shills on this site. But there seem to be a large number of people that listen to Russian shills and repeat their talking points, which are not based in reality. Like the fact that Ukrainians are Nazis. The war for profit? This one? Please... Iraq, Afghanistan, probably. This one is just saving Americans money, instead of spending it to dispose of the 80s stockpiles, they just shipped it to Ukraine and got rid of it that way. On a serious note, there are righteous wars. This is one of them. Many are not. But adults have to be able to different contexts rather than defaulting to "war=bad". The Civil War was worth fighting, so was WWI, so was WWII, so was Korea (just visit it if you have doubts). This one is worth fighting for too.
I swear to God, I don't know how or why these people read The Free Press. TFP is a nuanced outlet that I feel does its best to present all arguments and tradeoffs in conscientious way. The comment section, meanwhile, is something straight out of Breitbart. It's frankly astonishing.
This is not a dialog, lol. This is just same people trotting out the same conspiracy theories in bluntly primitive way. And breathlessly asserting that they are the only ones with "critical thinking" - while laundering propaganda from their own sources.
Are there good, intelligent commenters on here? yes, for sure - many. But too many I read and clutch my head in despair.
For the product of the American education that you are presenting to be, here is a Cliff notes version:
Sept. 1 1939, Hitler attacks Poland based an agreement with USSR made in Aug. 1939 to split it up.
Sept. 17 1939, as Poland is fighting Germany on its western side, the USSR strikes Poland in the back on the eastern side, quickly occupying that part of the country. Germany and USSR carve Poland up along the lines of their Aug. 1939 agreement. They have a joint Red Army/Wehrmacht parade in Brest. There are pictures, feel free to Google.
1939-1941 USSR commences a cleansing program sending hundreds of thousands of people in Poland that are the wrong class (i.e. have an education) and political persuasion (i.e. not Communist) including ethnic Ukrainians living in eastern Poland, to the Gulag. This gets slowed down/interrupted when the Germans invaded the USSR in June 1941, and reengages when the USSR reconquers the territory of Ukraine from the Germans and resume their class/ethnic/ideological cleansing well into the 1950s.
Needless to say ethnic Ukrainians resisted, fought against the USSR occupiers and their repression for years. So when Russia attacked in 2014 and 2022, it simply triggered historical memories within the Ukrainians. So, contrary to your simplistic understanding, it is in fact very possible to be a Ukrainian, to have fought the Russians, and to not be a Nazi.
If I may make a suggestion, quoting the Putin apologist that is Tucker Carlson and his ilk to educated people simply presents you as a simpleton buffoon. I'd suggest stop doing that unless that is in fact the impression you want to convey.
Certainly. I wasn't responding to this particular individual's situation, but to seeing several people here confidently proclaim that unless a Ukrainian was fighting for the Soviets, he was a Nazi. It just felt necessary to disabuse lay readers of this simplistic notion confidently proclaimed by ignorants.
Speaking of shallow seabeds... Stalin never believed that pact. He predicted it would be broken, and he was correct about that, although it was faster than he expected. It was done to buy time. Meanwhile the slave labor camps of Siberia were populated, and solved the Hobbesian problem of lazy slaves and motivating intellectual work by systematically killing those who didn't give it their best, each year. That industrial might of Siberia is how WW2 was won. Stalin had, however, killed the army officer corps who could prosecute a war well. The rest is the grim history of the Nazi's slow loss to Russia, millions dead, and then the Iron Curtain. Still today there is justifiable paranoia about invasion of Russia by Europe.
The Nazis were received as liberators at first. But it became apparent that they had worse designs on Ukraine than Stalin. Some did join in with Nazis successfully.
A ramble: Always wondered how one could be a US communist after Stalin (the great hope of US communist) joined with Hitler who fought against German communist to gain power.
Not stupidly. It was cynical realpolitik. The allies should have turned on Russia near the end. Churchill would have been happier with that. But, the US couldn't demonize uncle Joe. And the huge number of communist sympathizers in US media etc. made it politically unviable to turn coat.
How can anyone who knows history, especially country leaders, not realize in WWII that Russia was one of the Allied powers which means they fought against the Nazis, so this man fighting the Russians was of course, fighting for Germany/Hitler, against his own country. It is inconceivable to me that Canada's leaders and Zelensky did not know this. It is a disgrace.
Just don't forget that Hitler and Stalin signed a non-agression pact (that incuded provisions for dividing Poland) before Russia became an Ally. It was all really complicated in Ukraine before WWII -- they had virulent anti-Semites while also having thriving Jewish populations, much of which were decimated by German and Ukrainian Nazis. Nothing is clear-cut and straight-forward about the Ukraine.
Yeah, that statement holds true for the US. They (USA) had virulent anti-Semites (especially in the State Department) while also having thriving Jewish populations (NYC, Milwaukee, LA, etc.). Luckily, the American Nazi Party didn't get to decimate those.
That's not a good analogy. While there certainly was (and is) anti-semitism in the US, and especially in the State Dept., the Am. Nazi Party had no power and, to my knowledge, did not engage in seriois violence against Am. Jews. Progroms against Jews occurred regularly in Ukraine and Beloruss in the early 20th c., and that level of violence continued through and after WWII. Moreover, the violence against Jews in the US was never sanctioned by the government as it was in Ukraine. Not saving European Jews during WWIi is not an equivalent to the slaughter of Jews committed by Ukrainians at that time.
I don't think you got the point I was trying to make. Let me try to be more clear about it. There is a tendency to call Ukraine and large part of its population Nazi, based some seemingly on-point descriptive facts. However, those same facts are very applicable to the the US, it has virulent anti-Semites in government, it has its own <national> Nazi Party that marches in different places in the country, yet no one calls the US a Nazi country based on these facts, but does call modern day Ukraine Nazi based on those same "facts".
The statement you made above is not factually correct. If you replace Ukraine with Russia, it will become factually correct. State sanctioned anti-Semitic violence occurred in the Russian Empire, in its different constituent parts - Russia, Poland, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova (Bessarabia), etc. Ukraine could not have sanctioned violence against the Jews as you claim as it was not a sovereign entity to do so. It was a part of the Russian Empire and then USSR. There was no slaughter of Jews committed by Ukraininas at "that" time. There was slaughter of Jews committed by Russia, USSR, Germans, USSR again, which was carried out by Russians, Germans, Belarussians, Poles, Ukrainians, Tatars, Latvians, Czechs, Hungarians, etc. The US specifically turned around ships full of Jewish refugees trying to escape and sent them back to German-occupied Europe to face certain death in the gas chambers (lets not sugar coat with "not saving European Jews" the very specific and clear policy choices to send Jews to certain death made by a very anti-Semitic US government, they didn't have to do much saving as you put it, just to let those poor people disembark). The French would turnover their Jews to the Gestapo to be sent to extermination camps, etc. It was a wholly European and US affair, everyone played their part. Except that, you know, Ukraine wasn't a sovereign country to make government decisions on anti-Semitic policy, as opposed to the US or Germany or USSR, which were and did make those decisions.
I do understand what you are saying, but I'm fairly certain that you are incorrect on at least 2 grounds. First, to say that the Ukraine did not exist in the 1930s is not accurate. The Ukrainian people lived in the geographic area known as Ukraine for centuries. The USSR formally defined the borders of the Ukraine in the 1920s when the USSR was setting the borders for all the Soviet states based on ethnographic, demographic, and cultural factors. See "Empire of Nations: Ethnographic Knowledge & the Making of the Soviet Union," by Francine Hirsch. By WWII, the Soviet state of Ukraine encompassed most of the world's Ukrainian population. Certainly Ukrainian state employees and actors participated in was crimes against the Jews; I believe there is no dispute that Ukrainian military and law enforcement helped round up Jews and send them to their deaths. As I previously stated, I understand that not all Ukrainians took part in the war crimes against the Jews, but enough did to cause the slaughter of a huge percentage of its large Jewish population.
Second, to compare the actions of the United States government to that of the Ukrainian government is repugnant and suggests to me that perhaps you've been reading some revisionist history that is simply not accurate. The US is not perfect and made mistakes, but it was largely responsible for reversing the tide of German victories, defeating the Axis powers, and liberating the few Jews who survived the Holocaust. (I understand the Soviet Union also played a significant role in defeating Germany, but not one as great as the US.) Whatever wrongs and mistakes the US made, they pale in comparison to the huge amount of good the US did during WWII to win the war and then rebuild Europe. The Ukrainian state supported the slaughter of a large part of its sizeable Jewish population and lacks a record of mitigating efforts that could potentially off-set its war crimes.
The US welcomed approx. 2 million Jewish immigrants in the first quarter of the 20th century, a huge number given the population at the time. Few other countries were as welcoming to the Jews as the US, and the only ones that came close to the US, like the Austro-Hungarian Empire, could not protect its Jews from Hitler. Among the millions of Jews who were welcomed by the US were my grandparents and I would be fool if I were not eternally grateful to the US for that.
Again, your first premise is borne of incorrect understanding. Ukraine was not a state. The state was the USSR. Ukraine was an administrative part of that state. The USSR was not a federal system like the US (it was also not like the EU, which you appear to perceive it to be). The policy was set at the USSR level, not at the Ukraine level. For any official to attempt to set policy at Ukraine level was a sure-fire way to end up in the Gulag, as that would be perceived as a direct attempt to undermine and subvert the monopoly of the Communist Party of the USSR to set policy on anything and everything in the USSR. The fact that this needs to be explained tells me that your understanding of the subject matter is extremely limited.
Second, I did not compare the actions of the US government to those of Ukraine (again, you can't compare it to Ukraine, as the US government as a sovereign state could set its own policy, but Ukraine could not). I simply wondered out loud if your prickly insistence on calling out, and overblowing, every perceived sleight from Ukraine towards Jews extended to the examination of US actions in bringing about the destruction of large numbers of Jews during WWII. To me, that role is more egregious, because again, the US could set its own policy and chose not to, but Ukraine did not even have the option of setting its own policy. I hope you see the difference here. Its like the laws on the duty-to-act. They apply to a 25 year old who is considered an adult, but they don't apply to a 14 year old, who is considered a minor.
Thirdly, " (I understand the Soviet Union also played a significant role in defeating Germany, but not one as great as the US.)". This quote is just beyond ridiculous, and tells me you have a less than rudimentary understand of the topic. This is the equivalent of saying the Civil War in the US was won in the West. No. The West was an important area of operations with repercussions for the wider war, etc. and provided an opportunity for Grant to come into his own. But that war was also going to be won or lost in the East, where the overwhelming majority of belligerent forces were situated. And here someone like you comes along and says, the Civil War was won in the West, the Eastern theater (I don't know, like Sherman's March to the Sea) played a significant role in defeating the Confederacy, but not as great as the West. To any serious student of the Civil War that would just identify the author of such a statement as a complete naive on the topic. (On a serious note, compare and contrast Operation Bagration with Operation Overlord in terms of number of troops involved on both sides, number of munitions, etc. to get an idea of what the war in the Eastern theater was like. And then take heed that Bagration took 3 months to put together, not the 2.5 years that Overlord did.)
So no, the Ukrainian state did not support the slaughter of Jewish population as there was no Ukrainian state. That basic foundational fact you got wrong. Plenty of ethnic Ukrainians participated in all sorts of war crimes against the Jews, just like plenty of Russians, Belorussians, Poles, and every other nationality in Eastern Europe. And plenty Russians, Belorussians, Ukrainins, Poles, and every other nationality in Eastern Europe helped them. But as a matter of state policy, no, Ukraine didn't have one, as again, it was not a state.
I am happy that your ancestors landed safely in the US. My Jewish grandparents only got there in the 1990s, having gone through the German ghettos, guerilla warfare to liberate their homeland, and a lifetime of discrimination in the USSR. So my understanding of the topic is informed by a lifetime of study of that time and place as a History major, plus a lifetime of conversations with my grandparents, parents, etc. who have lived through it.
Oh, Zelensky knew. It is not at all a secret in Ukraine that their WWII heroes were Nazis. They hated (and still hate) Russia enough that it's not viewed as a problem. The Azov Battalion is not really so much neo-Nazis as a symptom of people who never *stopped* being Nazis.
In other words, Putin (whom I don't support!!!!!) wasn't just blowing hot air when he talked about Nazis in Ukraine. Of course he tried to overstate the seriousness of the problem. But he wasn't making up something out of whole cloth.
Celia, I can't be sure based on your post...do you support Putin?
No, I don't.
Same with the Finns. They had a Finnish division with the NAZIs at Leningrad. The Finns, justifiably so, hated the Russians.
Literally EVERYBODY in that part of the world was justified in hating Russians. Every single nation
They were easy to hate.
Zelensky knew for sure. Any Ukrainian who fought "the Russians" (USSR) in WW2 did so in a Nazi unit. In the case of Hunka - the Waffen SS 14th Grenadier Division. But they have statues to Stepan Bandera there, so...
You are factually incorrect. The USSR and Germany were allies for 1 year and 10 months during WWII. It was very possible to fight "the Russians" and not be a Nazi. For instance, as part of the Polish army, while USSR in concert with Germany were conquering it. Or as part of the Ukrainian partisan movement in 1939 and 1940 as the Russians were summarily executing Ukrainians and deporting them to Gulag.
I agree that it’s possible that a Ukrainian (USSR citizen) fought against the USSR in the circumstances you described, though the comparative numbers compared to Ukrainian collaborator units under German control are way fewer.
Just on a related topic, do you have any sense of the numbers (people-wise) of Russian units that fought under German control against the USSR?
Of course, those are well known. They even had their own generals. They generally met bad ends since they were turned over by the Western Allies to the USSR after their surrender in the West. Dutch, Belgian, French, Norwegian, Estonian, Latvian, etc…lots of German occupied nations filled out German volunteer units fighting the Soviets. Many because of fervent belief in anti-communism, which is understandable.
But the subject here is a former Ukrainian SS soldier being honored in the Canadian Parliament. Knowing that so many Ukrainians served with the Germans against the Soviets that should have been the first question asked.
I think Zelenskyy was blindsided. He would have assumed that such guests are properly vetted, so he wouldn't have expected a blunder of such magnitude.
Most Canadian politicians really are that ignorant of history. But the deputy PM, Chrystia Freeland, absolutely knew who Hunka was because her own grandfather was a Ukrainian Nazi. She should have stopped it, and I can't speculate about why she thought that it wouldn't blow up the way it did.
There is an interesting podcast on the Hub (which looks at Canadian politics from a right of center position) regarding this issue. Mind, right of center in CN is not very right.
A Canadian think tank that has podcasts about Canadian politics
You brainless twit, Russia was literally allied with Hitler via Molotov Ribbentrop pact, until Hitler stabbed Stalin in the back.
Your understanding of the history of that part of the world is shallower than a dry seabed!
Back to Trudeau: His authoritarian tendencies are where so-called progressives are headed with their demonizing, censoring, and attacking those with whom they disagree. Trudeau would have us believe that he is never wrong and always blames others for his mistakes. Sound familiar? For a very good discussion of this latest debacle in Canada listen to Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi’s podcast this week.
Actually no, Russia and Germany were not allies during WWII. The pact you made mention of wasn't a pact that made them allies (fighting on the same side). The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was a non-aggression treaty wherein Russian and Germany would not attack each other.
The pact also quietly partitioned Central and Eastern Europe: the Germans were supposed to do their own conquering of Central Europe, while the Russians expanded the Soviet Union. The Germans broke the treaty 1 year and 10 months later when they launched Operation Barbarossa.
ETA: Calling someone a brainless twit, and then getting the wrong historical facts doesn't make Celia look like the brainless twit.
Oh, FFS, this is so dumb I'm not even going to explain anything to you. Suffice it to say that this is exactly the version of the "truth" that the communist party drilled into us during history lessons in USSR. Now repeated by lunatic lemmings like you in the West.
God have mercy on our souls.
They literally had a military parade together, after carving up Poland from east and west, working in concert to strike Polish forces from both sides while coordinating with each other. That is some mental gymnastics you have to go through to manage to NOT call them allies. But rather than your strenuous interpretation, lets just rely on primary sources, such as the Pravda headline reporting on the topic. Here, I even googled it for you https://www.litfund.ru/news/11692/
Pravda. You mean the newspaper owned and operated by the Soviet Communist Party? That Pravda? Pravda. All the news that Joseph Stalin saw fit to print.
You made the argument that they were not allies. I provided a factual rebuttal to show that your argument is incorrect. You are now saying what exactly? That Pravda did not speak for Stalin, who considered it a military alliance?
Come on, try harder, this used to be taught in 10th grade World History. The Second World War started on Sept. 1, 1939. Germany and USSR had an alliance that ended by the fact of Germany invading USSR at 3:15 AM on June 22, 1941. For that 1 year and 9+ months they were allies. Its not that complicated. Even for an American.
your brain is a dry seabed the deadea
You come across as a female Comprof.
don't insult Huggy like that , uncalled for
Confraud’s misplaced arrogance invites disdain. After today I’m returning to not responding to him that bothers him more.
Now, now Tanya, go to your safe place and take deep breaths.
i'm a conservative, you dingbat, I don't believe in triggers, safe spaces, and gender woo. I do, however, have a brain and desire to learn. Unlike many people on here, clearly
Thank you for your kind words.
This isn't about history. It is about being civil. She can disagree with someone but she doesn't have to be nasty and come on, you know that.
The brainless one is not Celia M.
This comment is unnecessarily intemperate and insulting. Disagreement with points of view is one thing. Calling someone “a brainless twit“ is another thing entirely.
oh boo hoo. She calls my people "nazis" for fighting the communist scourge with what meager choices we had available at the time, and you're bleating on about "intemperate"? Who is the snowflake here?
That period in Eastern Europe is ugly as f**k. Lots of people initially joined up with the Germans against USSR - because by then, the Soviets have been cleansing out and deporting millions of us for nearly two decades. So, please, fold it into four corners and shove it where the sun don't shine!
Its funny how a lot of people make fun of liberals as snowflakes. Yet, when one of the main cohort uneducated here gets called out for spouting patently ridiculous falsehoods, everyone rushes to defend her feelings, rather than attempting to figure out the facts. Presenting false facts is not having a disagreement on a point of view. Presenting false facts is just that, a wrong understanding of a complex topic. Which deserves to be called out as such. When you indulge people talking out of the a** about topics they don't have a rudimentary understanding of, you end up with the gender-as-a-spectrum and safe spaces.
how do you know these commenters have no understanding of that history?
nothing they said was incorrect.
Everything Celia said was factually incorrect.
no actually it was accurate.
my personal opinion is zelensky and nuland are systematically destroying ukraine to get rid of azov types. and of course, to get rich
but that's an opinion unlike Celia's comment which was fact.
Oh, Zelensky knew. <She has no way of knowing that. Can't call it a fact.>
It is not at all a secret in Ukraine that their WWII heroes were Nazis.
<This is not true. The Ukrainian Nazi myth of part of Kremlin propaganda. It has the same veracity is calling the US a Nazi-loving country because there are some people that march with tiki torches in the US>
They hated (and still hate) Russia enough that it's not viewed as a problem.
<This is not true. More than 50% of the Ukrainian population had a very favorable view of Russia. Until it started shelling residential buildings with artillery, that is>.
The Azov Battalion is not really so much neo-Nazis as a symptom of people who never *stopped* being Nazis.
<Ukrainians as a people were never Nazis. There were some sympathizers. (Like Charles Lindbergh, and Joe Kennedy and you know, the whole American Nazi Party. But no one was ever dim-witted enough to use those facts to call Americans Nazis.) It is factually incorrect to project that on to the whole nation. Especially given that Ukrainians suffered more than Russians, proportionally, from the Nazi's. Making this claim is just beyond the pale factually and ethically.>
In other words, Putin (whom I don't support!!!!!) wasn't just blowing hot air when he talked about Nazis in Ukraine.
<He was, see above about the tiki torches thing>
Of course he tried to overstate the seriousness of the problem. But he wasn't making up something out of whole cloth.
<He was, that's what he does. He takes pride in lying, its a professional skill that he is very proud of. One has to be a certain kind of stupid to take anything he says at face value at this point, after 25 years of documented lying>.
See, everything she said was inaccurate. May I suggest changing your news sources away from Russian shills like Tucker Carlson or Douglas MacGregor (or that idiotic comedian that goes on Joe Rogan talking about Ukraine and Russia). Those are highly educated men (not the comedian on Joe Rogan) that are highly compensated for spreading bullshit. People that then repeat it for free just come across as grossly ignorant.
It's a fact that Zelensky knows the Azov Battalion and the country in various amounts ascribe to nazi ideology. He's talked about it numerous times. He's stopped talking about it since he cancelled elections in Ukraine.
I can agree with Churchill that "during war, the enemy of my enemy is my friend." But that ideology stuck in areas of Ukraine, it didn't go away, and as soon as the USSR collapsed in 1990-91, it reappeared instantly. Not like it was a secret. Even the Klitschkos talked about it publicly clear back when they were still active. Ukrainian emigres are not shy about telling how pervasive it is.
I haven't watched 2 hours of fox news in 30 years and haven't owned a television in 10. My sources for geo-political news haven't been American since Bill Clinton used CNN as his source to obliterate Bosnian culture.
Why would you leap to conclusions like that?
By the way, "the ideology" is stuck in Russia no less than in Ukraine, and reappeared with the breakup of the USSR. Only in Russia it morphs more into the Russia for Russians variety, but once they get Russia cleansed, the rest of their thinking is straight out of Mein Kampf. Which is the reason Wagner actually has a large number of Russian Nazis/Nationalists fighting to advance that goal.
same in ukraine, germany, canada, and anywhere else. what's your point? that there are nazis everywhere in the world but not in ukraine?
That there are Nazis everywhere, but in the US "anti-war" narrative the ones in Ukraine get amplified/focused on out of all proportion.
Because a common refrain of the Russia-shilling "influencers" in the US is that Ukraine is full of Nazis. I see it repeated often by people that know next to nothing about Ukraine on this site, as a justification to stop supporting Ukraine and allow Putin to conquer it.
From first-hand experience, Ukraine does not have a Nazi problem. Yes, in a country of 40 million, you will always have 100K that will be idiots of various kinds and persuasions. It plays into Kremlin propaganda to talk about "the Nazi" problem in Ukraine, because it muddies an otherwise clear cut moral issue, and thus accomplishes the propaganda's goal, which is not to convince, but to sow doubt. Let me suggest a hypothetical, after Chancellorsville (the 2017 version), there were two years of conversation and constant questions to the US president about white supremacists in the US. To a lay person (or to a bad faith actor) it would suggest that the US suffers from a white-nationalist/Nazi ideology epidemic. Which in fact is not the case. But looking at the number of mentions from an outsider's perspective, you'd get the impression that it was a major political movement. It appears this is the case with Ukraine. For a variety of reasons, there is a coalition of isolationists/reflexive contrarians/ignorant "useful idiots"/paid Russian agents/shills who are focused on keeping the Nazi conversation front and center with regards to Ukraine. When in fact it has the proportionate weight there as white-nationalism does in the US.
Chancellorsville is the site of a Civil War battle. You probably mean Charlottesville which event was promptly put to use to spread propaganda. I get it. But using propaganda against an enemy during war is one thing; using propaganda against their own citizens is disgusting.
I doubt there are significant numbers of russian shills on this site. Instead what I find a lot of, are 'disinformation experts' who talk endlessly about 'russian shills,' who likely work for some random intelligence agency and who are getting paid to promote war for profit. It's all about blasting the good old die Partielinie.
I never said there are a significant number of Russian shills on this site. But there seem to be a large number of people that listen to Russian shills and repeat their talking points, which are not based in reality. Like the fact that Ukrainians are Nazis. The war for profit? This one? Please... Iraq, Afghanistan, probably. This one is just saving Americans money, instead of spending it to dispose of the 80s stockpiles, they just shipped it to Ukraine and got rid of it that way. On a serious note, there are righteous wars. This is one of them. Many are not. But adults have to be able to different contexts rather than defaulting to "war=bad". The Civil War was worth fighting, so was WWI, so was WWII, so was Korea (just visit it if you have doubts). This one is worth fighting for too.
I did get the places confused, you're right:).
I swear to God, I don't know how or why these people read The Free Press. TFP is a nuanced outlet that I feel does its best to present all arguments and tradeoffs in conscientious way. The comment section, meanwhile, is something straight out of Breitbart. It's frankly astonishing.
The whole point of substack is to allow people to have a dialog around the articles.
This is not a dialog, lol. This is just same people trotting out the same conspiracy theories in bluntly primitive way. And breathlessly asserting that they are the only ones with "critical thinking" - while laundering propaganda from their own sources.
Are there good, intelligent commenters on here? yes, for sure - many. But too many I read and clutch my head in despair.
then if you can't handle different viewpoints, don't read the comments. very simple
Yes, Stalin and Hitler formed an alliance. Which was broken. Are you trying to say that the Nazis and Russians did NOT fight each other in WWII?
I am sorry you had to witness this, Celia. This is very familiar and beyond unpleasant.
For the product of the American education that you are presenting to be, here is a Cliff notes version:
Sept. 1 1939, Hitler attacks Poland based an agreement with USSR made in Aug. 1939 to split it up.
Sept. 17 1939, as Poland is fighting Germany on its western side, the USSR strikes Poland in the back on the eastern side, quickly occupying that part of the country. Germany and USSR carve Poland up along the lines of their Aug. 1939 agreement. They have a joint Red Army/Wehrmacht parade in Brest. There are pictures, feel free to Google.
1939-1941 USSR commences a cleansing program sending hundreds of thousands of people in Poland that are the wrong class (i.e. have an education) and political persuasion (i.e. not Communist) including ethnic Ukrainians living in eastern Poland, to the Gulag. This gets slowed down/interrupted when the Germans invaded the USSR in June 1941, and reengages when the USSR reconquers the territory of Ukraine from the Germans and resume their class/ethnic/ideological cleansing well into the 1950s.
Needless to say ethnic Ukrainians resisted, fought against the USSR occupiers and their repression for years. So when Russia attacked in 2014 and 2022, it simply triggered historical memories within the Ukrainians. So, contrary to your simplistic understanding, it is in fact very possible to be a Ukrainian, to have fought the Russians, and to not be a Nazi.
If I may make a suggestion, quoting the Putin apologist that is Tucker Carlson and his ilk to educated people simply presents you as a simpleton buffoon. I'd suggest stop doing that unless that is in fact the impression you want to convey.
But in this specific case the “war hero” was a card carrying Nazi, due to his service in the SS
Certainly. I wasn't responding to this particular individual's situation, but to seeing several people here confidently proclaim that unless a Ukrainian was fighting for the Soviets, he was a Nazi. It just felt necessary to disabuse lay readers of this simplistic notion confidently proclaimed by ignorants.
Don't engage.
Celia is a kind person. Tanya, not so much.
Celia also requires one to think before feel.
Celia is not very bright. Neither is Ken
Speaking of shallow seabeds... Stalin never believed that pact. He predicted it would be broken, and he was correct about that, although it was faster than he expected. It was done to buy time. Meanwhile the slave labor camps of Siberia were populated, and solved the Hobbesian problem of lazy slaves and motivating intellectual work by systematically killing those who didn't give it their best, each year. That industrial might of Siberia is how WW2 was won. Stalin had, however, killed the army officer corps who could prosecute a war well. The rest is the grim history of the Nazi's slow loss to Russia, millions dead, and then the Iron Curtain. Still today there is justifiable paranoia about invasion of Russia by Europe.
The Nazis were received as liberators at first. But it became apparent that they had worse designs on Ukraine than Stalin. Some did join in with Nazis successfully.
A ramble: Always wondered how one could be a US communist after Stalin (the great hope of US communist) joined with Hitler who fought against German communist to gain power.
Is that Nazis who don’t eat carbs? Lol
That made me chuckle.
Well Hitler was vegetarian. They had principles
Not stupidly. It was cynical realpolitik. The allies should have turned on Russia near the end. Churchill would have been happier with that. But, the US couldn't demonize uncle Joe. And the huge number of communist sympathizers in US media etc. made it politically unviable to turn coat.
I think it is hedging your bet.