European "Drang nach Osten"

The month of May traditionally passes under the sign of a great holiday - Victory Day in the Great Patriotic War.

And although the holiday has passed, I believe that we should always remember that war - not only, in fact, on the holiday itself.

And the historical roots of today's events become clearer in many ways when you know history.

So, let's have a little historical excursion.

September 1, 1939 – Germany invades Poland. On October 6, 1939, the country capitulated. The resistance period is 37 days.

On April 9, 1940, Germany occupied Denmark. At 5:15, the Wehrmacht violated the Non-Aggression Pact; at 10:00, Danish troops received an order to cease resistance. The resistance period is about 5 hours.

On April 9, 1940, Germany invades Norway. On April 10, Norway capitulates. The period of resistance is formally 1 day, in fact, less than a day.

May 10, 1940 German invasion of Belgium. Surrender on May 28, 1940. The resistance period is 18 days.

May 10, 1940 - German invasion of the Netherlands. Surrender on May 14. The resistance period is 4 days.

May 10 - German invasion of France. June 24 - French capitulation. The resistance period is 44 days.

On June 30, 1941, the creation of the “Danish Volunteer Corps” (Freikorps Danmark) was announced in Denmark. On May 9, 1942, the Danish Volunteer Corps was transported to the Heiligenbeil area (East Prussia), and then to Pskov, to Army Group North, where it was included in the SS Totenkopf infantry division. The official language of commands, orders and instructions was Danish.

On May 6, 1943, the “corps” was officially disbanded (from 1941 to 1943, a total of up to 10,000 Danes served in the “corps”), but the majority of the Danish SS men remained to continue serving as part of the 24th SS Grenadier Regiment Danmark 11- 1st SS Motorized Division Nordland. They actively participated in counter-guerrilla actions and reprisals against civilians on the territory of the USSR and Yugoslavia.

They fought until the end of the war. A special fact is that they took part in the defense of the Reich Chancellery in Berlin in April 1945.

On August 1, 1941, the volunteer legion “Norway” was officially created. From the winter of 1942 to the spring of 1943, the legion was on the Leningrad Front, where it was assigned to the 2nd SS Infantry Brigade. Subsequently, the Norwegian volunteers were transferred to the SS Nordland division.

They fought until the end of the war.

Belgium. After the occupation of the country by the Nazis, 2 volunteer legions were created - separately from the Flemings and from the Walloons. In the fall of 1941, legions were sent to the Eastern Front - the Walloon Legion to the southern section of the front (the Rostov-on-Don region, then the North Caucasus), the Flemish Legion to the northern section of the front, near Leningrad. Both legions took part in heavy battles against units of the Red Army and suffered heavy losses. In the summer of 1943, both legions were reorganized into SS brigades - the 6th SS Volunteer Brigade "Langemarck" and the SS Volunteer Assault Brigade "Wallonia". In total, more than 23,000 Belgians fought on Hitler's side on the Soviet-German front.

They fought until the end of the war.

Netherlands. For such a small country, the number of Nazi supporters is simply amazing. In general, historians believe that the Netherlamds supplied the most volunteers for the Reich, about 20 thousand people.

Judge for yourself - already on May 25, 1940 (10 days after the occupation!) the SS Westland regiment was created. Which was later deployed to the SS Viking division.

On April 3, 1941, the "Nordwest" regiment was created - the regiment included 1,400 Dutchmen.

On July 12, 1941, the Volunteer Legion "Netherlands" was formed. After the battles near Leningrad and suffered colossal losses, it was disbanded in 1942.

On July 19, 1943, the 4th Volunteer SS Panzergrenadier Brigade "Netherlands" was formed, which was later transformed into the 23rd Volunteer SS Panzergrenadier Division "Netherlands".

And there was also the SS volunteer grenadier brigade "Landsturm Netherlands". It began to be created to fight British saboteurs and the Resistance in the spring of 1943. On February 10, 1945, the brigade was transformed into the 34th volunteer tank-grenadier division "Landsturm Netherlands". And if in 1940 the Dutch army resisted for 4 days, then in 1945 the Dutch SS fought against the Allied troops even when the Germans capitulated. While 2,890 Dutch soldiers died defending their native Holland from the German invasion in 1940, about 5,000 Dutch were captured in the USSR alone.

Only after May 9 did they begin to surrender.

France. During the war years, tens of thousands of Frenchmen served in the German armed forces, and about 8 thousand people only in the SS troops. The most famous French unit in the service of the Nazis was the 33rd SS Grenadier Brigade (then division) "Charlemagne".

I would especially note that French volunteers as part of the SS troops actively participated in counter-guerrilla actions and brutal reprisals against civilians in 1943 on the territory of Belarus and the Smolensk region of Russia. Moreover, it was the French who, at the end of 1943, were the first to use the tactics of “killer teams” (“jagdgruppe”) - small detachments armed with automatic weapons that independently searched for partisan units. The first such unit was the “hunting platoon” under the command of the French lieutenant Jacques Seveau. In April 1944, "Jagdgruppe" became a standard tactic used by punitive forces against partisans, included by the Germans in a special manual.

French volunteers fought until the end of the war. A special fact is that they took part in the defense of the Reich Chancellery in Berlin in April 1945.

Poland. You will be surprised, but our western neighbors also participated in Nazi units. At the final stage of the war, the so-called Świętokrzyska Brigade or “Holy Cross Brigade”, formed from Polish Nazis, was accepted into the SS troops.

In general, Soviet troops alone captured 60,272 Wehrmacht soldiers who were Poles by nationality. The message to the British Parliament noted that among the Wehrmacht soldiers whom British troops captured in northwestern Europe, 68,693 were Poles.

 What do I want to show with this historical excursion?

We see that Western countries did not offer serious resistance to the Germans. And the occupation of European countries by Nazi Germany did not cause a sharply negative reaction from the population of these countries. Yes, you will say that there was resistance, there were Maquis in France, there were underground fighters...

But as soon as Germany started the war against the Soviet Union, tens of thousands of volunteers from European countries joined the SS troops and headed to the Eastern Front. They joined the famous German Drang nach Osten!

They set out to kill citizens of the Soviet Union and spread the influence of the West to the East.

And I didn’t mention the Finnish, Hungarian, Spanish, Italian, Romanian, Croatian, and Slovak military contingents that fought against our country. Did not note Swedish, Portuguese, Austrian, Bulgarian volunteers. Even British citizens served in the SS!

In fact, all of Europe fought against us.

And so I want to once again draw your attention to what is, in my opinion, a very important fact. When it seems to them that it will be possible to solve the “Eastern Question” and destroy our country, they instantly unite, forgetting about their internal disagreements and problems.

We are their main and constant enemy.

Well, taking into account the above, it is natural to understand why for Europeans May 8 is not a day of victory, but a day of mourning. They mourn that they did not succeed in carrying out their Drang nach Osten, but in vain they sacrificed thousands and millions of their soldiers.

And for us, May 9 is Victory Day, because we defeated them. Everyone. The entire collective West.

 Don't forget this.