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Estonia re-enacts WWII anti-soviet failure

Published: 06 August, 2009, 17:25

Image from Toivo's photostream

Image from Toivo's photostream

TAGS: Anniversary, Conflict, Baltic states


Estonia is holding its annual military exercise based on the 1941 behind-the-frontline raid of the Erna group. The group, which was Nazi-supported, fought soviet troops during WWII in Estonian territory, but was crushed.

The “Erna Retk” games, which have been held each year since 1993, were launched on Thursday by Estonian Defense Minister Jaak Aaviksoo. He said the exercise serves the highest purpose, just like “the Erna group, which landed 68 years ago in the Red Army-occupied Estonia,” Delfi news agency cites him as saying.

This year 25 teams are to participate in the event, including seven teams from abroad. Finland, the Netherlands, Denmark and Germany are taking part in the games. Participants will make a sea landing and practice land navigation, dodging the “soviet patrols” impersonated by Estonian border guards.

However, due to the financial crisis the program was shortened. It will last just three days as opposed to the usual week and Estonian participants had to pay an 80 euro ($115) fee to participate.

The Erna group was formed by Estonian nationals on Finnish territory under the supervision of Nazi German military intelligence in 1941. In August of that year it crossed the Baltic Sea and landed on Estonian territory to disrupt communication lines and assist guerilla forces fighting against soviet troops in the wake of the German offensive. Several days after penetrating they were surrounded and most of their members killed.

Estonians treat the Erna as national heroes and freedom fighters. Russia sees them as Nazi collaborators and calls the military games a glorification of Nazism.

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annapolitan August 08, 2009, 10:55
0

I absolutely agree with the first commentator. It's a shame on a supposedly democratic country to publish articles that full of propaganda and bias.

Marzipan6 August 07, 2009, 12:12
0

Do you suggest that Estonia should not have fought against the Soviet mass-murderers of their population? Read a bit of history, and learn what the Soviets did to Estonia in 1940-41, at a time when Estonia was at war with no one at all. And what the Soviets did again from 1945 all the way until 1991. Of course Estonians fought them in 1941, and in 1944-45, and in forest-based guerrilla actions for the next ten years or more. When military resistance became no longer possible, they fought Moscow’s totalitarian dictates with their wits in Soviet-imposed civil institutions throughout the ensuing decades of occupation. And when the opportunity finally came in at the end of 1991, they saw the Soviet occupation off. Nazi Germany was a flash in the pan – it would lose the war and be gone pretty quickly anyway, thanks largely to the efforts of the Red Army. But the Red Army itself would return to stay, and to continue the incredible brutalities of Stalin and his successors against the Baltics and others. That is why the future of Estonia depended on trying to keep Russians from returning to their country in hope that the war would end first. They failed in this, and Soviet horror descended on them again for decades, thus providing total justification for their attempts to fight against it.