Читать книгу WE WERE ESTONIAN SOLDIERS - Carl Orav - Страница 7

Mart Laar

Estonian Minister of Defense

Prime Minister of Estonia 1992-1994 and 1999-2002

Estonia suffered severely from the turmoil brought on by World War II. After achieving its independence following World War I in a hard-fought war for freedom, Estonia found itself in the middle of a conflict between two super-powers, Nazi Germany and Communist Russia, and tried in vain to retain its independence. Many of the central and eastern European countries found themselves in the same predicament. Their fate was sealed by the Molotov-Ribbentrop secret pact between Hitler and Stalin which divided up the smaller nations between them and placed them under their spheres of influence. Only one nation -Finland, was able to successfully defend its independence. The others tried but were unsuccessful despite valiant efforts even when it seemed that all was lost.

The five Estonian officers whose stories you are about to read also tried valiantly to defend and fight for their homeland. They were friends and classmates who graduated as lieutenants from the Estonian Military Technical Academy in 1940. Via different routes, they escaped to the West. After the war they often arranged common social events with each other and their families. At one of these events they decided to combine their memoirs from notes that each had recorded at different times in the past. The collection of these notes into one binder became the basis for this book.

The life of Estonian officers during World War II was very difficult. They had given an oath to defend Estonia with their lives, but they were not given the chance to do so. When the Soviet Union decided to occupy Estonia in 1940 as per the agreement with Hitler, the political leaders of Estonia decided not to resist in order to save as many lives as possible. This hope did not materialize - Estonia lost about 20% of its population during the terror that followed and many more suffered in prison camps, torture chambers, and Siberian exile. Estonian officers were the greatest victims. For many of them, instead of being able to fight in defense of their country, they were led like lambs to slaughter. Instead of being allowed to perform their duty, their fate was a bullet to the back of the head and an unmarked grave on Siberian soil.

The years of 1940-1941 were the most difficult for the Estonian officers. They were forced to serve in the Soviet army under extreme conditions of fear and terror. Germany had historically been Estonia’s enemy but the situation at the time proved that the Germans were the lesser of the two evils. Thus many Estonian soldiers in Russian units away from their homeland deserted from the Red Army to become German prisoners of war. The lucky ones managed to make it back to Estonia. Others spent long periods in prison camps under severe conditions.

The authors of these memoirs were lucky - they all survived - but at a great cost. Some of the following stories are simply fantastic. If one did not know that it is impossible to dream up such wild tales one would think them being simply unbelievable. All of these five men were lucky enough to escape to the free world and did not have to endure Russian prison camps or other repression. Most of these men fought in both Soviet and German armed forces. Their aim was to keep the Red Army out of Estonia until war’s end, believing that the Atlantic Charter would be enforced by the Allies and that this would allow Estonia to regain its independence. Even though they wore Russian and German uniforms, they were vehemently against communism and fascism - their goal was simply to regain the independence of Estonia. It was no fault of theirs that it could not be achieved. What they did achieve was to instill a tradition of resistance which bore fruit 50 years later when Estonia again won its freedom from the occupying foreign power.

They were true Estonian soldiers.

Mart Laar

September 4, 2011

Tallinn, Estonia

Editor’s note:

Mart Laar is a statesman and historian, and is the present Estonian Minister of Defense. He was the Prime Minister of Estonia from 1992 to 1994 and from 1999 to 2002 and is credited with having brought about Estonia’s rapid economic development in the 1990s. He studied history at the University of Tartu and as a professional historian has written many books on Estonian and Soviet history.