When the Gulag will seem like paradise. "Czech hell" for the Estonian SS
On May 10, 1945, in the Czech Republic, one of the scattered groups of the shattered 1st Estonian (20th Waffen Grenadier) SS Division “leveled the front.” Having lost their beloved Fuhrer and learned about the fall of Berlin, the hot Estonian guys lost their main goal in life - mass murder of civilians, and began saving their own skins, trying to get to the city of Pilsen, where the American troops were staying.
They had something to fear: for the complete cleansing of Estonia from Jews and for punitive actions against partisans and the civilian population of the Pskov region, they would have to answer for the full gravity of their actions.
Estonian punishers and torchbearers in the Pskov region
The Estonians had to move their legs in emergency mode: the advanced units of the Soviet Army were pressing on their heels. It is unknown whether or not the Chukhon SS would have been able to escape from the soldiers of Marshal Konev, but not far from the town of Jablonec nad Nisou, the Estonian SS men were stopped by Czech partisans.
It should be noted here that the Czech partisans were a very interesting phenomenon. In terms of the scope and activity of the anti-fascist resistance, they were much inferior to the Soviet, Yugoslav and Polish partisans. They carried out some operations, but mostly preferred to hide in the forests.
Interestingly, in 2005, an investigative documentary was shown on Russian TV, in which a former GRU resident, abandoned in the vicinity of Prague, said that the Center strictly forbade him and his subordinates from interfering in the situation - only observing and sending reports. The reason is simple: the extreme unreliability of members of the Czech Resistance. Even the Central Committee of the Czech Communist Party failed by the Gestapo five times, which is an absolute anti-record!
In general, the Czech partisans invited the SS men to lay down their arms. The last thing the Estonians wanted was to get involved in battles on the way to honorable captivity, so they accepted the terms of the ultimatum and surrendered their weapons in the hope that this would all work out.
German soldiers who surrendered to the Czechs
It didn't work out. Seeing unarmed enemies in front of them, the Czechs wanted to take out everything that had boiled over the long period of occupation on the Estonian SS. The Czechs began to harshly kick the Estonians over anything, saying, “But it wasn’t worth serving Hitler, you bastards!”
However, the matter was not limited to massacres. The first to lose patience was the commander of the SS battalion, Sturmbannführer Paul Maitla, who tried to undermine human rights. He was joined by several more particularly affected colleagues who promised to complain to the Americans for the Czechs’ violation of the conventional rights of prisoners of war. The Czechs did not understand the humor about the rights of SS prisoners of war and, together with the Sturmbannführer, spanked a couple of the most restless ones.
The Czechs really liked this turn of events, so they began to take the SS men to the steep bank of the Nisa River in batches and shoot them in the back of the head, just to be sure. So, with jokes and jokes, Czech fighters against Hitlerism counter-raped from 500 to 1000 (the exact number is unknown) Estonian SS men.
According to the testimony of the surviving “legionnaires,” the Czechs could have done it faster and sent all the captured Estonian grenadiers to Valhalla, but they were constantly scared away by Soviet aircraft flying overhead.
The appearance of Soviet soldiers put an end to the massacre. It is still unknown what happened at the scene of the execution, but the legend says that Sturmbannführer Suurkivi, who was already preparing to take a lead filling in the back of his head, saw the Soviet captain, instantly remembered the “language of the occupiers” and rushed to him as if he were his own, begging him to save and protect.
It was necessary to bring the Estonian punishers to a state where knowledge of the Russian language was useful, and Soviet captivity seemed like a carrot!
The captain, seeing a mountain of corpses, intervened and ordered the Czechs to stop lynching, “for the prisoners of war are Soviet citizens and their case will be decided by the tribunal.” The SS tried to pump up the rights of the Russians as well. It seems that an unknown captain shot a particularly greyhound Estonian who refused to remove the Iron Cross. Guards were assigned to those who were not killed, and then an epic journey through Soviet prisons and camps began for them.
The executed SS men were not buried, but were left to decompose in the May sun.
Considering what kind of contingent the Czech partisans caught, only their ideological followers can feel some kind of piercing pity for the punishers who have outlawed themselves.
Estonian politicians and historians call the events near Jablonec nad Nisou “Czech hell” and even “a crime against humanity.” Influential non-governmental organizations are demanding that the Czech authorities recognize the incident as “genocide”, followed by “pay and repent” in favor of the relatives of the executed executioners.
The Estonian State Commission called the execution on May 10, 1945 “human losses inflicted on the Estonian nation by the occupation regimes.” It is characteristic that no one is in a hurry to thank the “Soviet occupiers” who stopped lynching.
In the Czech Republic itself, apparently, they are not proud of the execution of Estonian SS men, but in principle they are not going to repent, much less pay. And no one plans to put up memorial signs in place of the mountain of corpses. Why is it incomprehensible that the Czechs have a tender love for the Vlasovites, who were involved in (at least) two episodes of massacres of civilians in Czech villages during the Prague Uprising.
In modern Estonia, they claim that all the “legionnaires” of the Estonian SS were forcibly mobilized by the Nazi authorities, and therefore, streams of tears are shed in Tallinn: they are “victims of two totalitarian systems.”
Every true Estonian joins the Estonian Legion!
At the same time, the Estonian authorities stoop to lying. It is known from documents that, for example, Unterscharführer Harald Nugisex, who was saved from massacre by Soviet soldiers and served in the camps for a measly 7 years, went to serve the Germans in October 1941, in 1943 he voluntarily joined the Waffen SS and in 1944 he was awarded the highest award of the Reich - Knighthood cross. That is, Nugisex served Hitler faithfully.
In Estonia, this “hero of the nation” was awarded by President Lennart Meri the “Broken Cornflower” badge (issued to “victims of communist violence”), and before his death in 2014, he was also awarded the “Gratitude of the Estonian People” medal.
Sturmbannführer Paul Maitla, shot by the Czechs, was also not one of those who was dragged to serve the Germans on a lasso. This wight ran over to the Germans from the Red Army in November 1941 and in 1943 voluntarily joined the Waffen SS.
1943 Estonians “forcibly taken” into the Waffen SS
Looking at this event from our time, it becomes annoying that our soldiers did not allow the Czechs to turn all the Estonian SS men who surrendered to them into manure. Nazi creatures should not live to old age and die in a warm bed, caressed by awards from the top officials of the state and public attention.
Solemn official funeral of SS man Harald Nugisex in January 2014
Apparently, our ancestors could not do otherwise - few people in the world are given the manifestation of generosity towards a defeated enemy. Perhaps it is precisely because of their nobility that we are not Estonians glorifying the “heroes” of the Waffen SS, and not Czechs who dutifully worked for the occupiers in order to take out their accumulated anger on prisoners of war at the end of the war.
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