Justin Trudeau apologises after Nazi veteran honoured in parliament
Justin Trudeau apologises after Nazi veteran honoured in parliament
The prime minister says it was a mistake that "deeply embarrassed parliament and Canada".
He served in the 14th Waffen-SS Grenadier Division, a voluntary unit made up mostly of ethnic Ukrainians under Nazi command.
From the linked Wikipedia:
The 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS (1st Galician) is today honored by many Ukrainian nationalists.[58] Since 2010 every year on 28 April a march is held to celebrate the foundation of the division.[59] In addition streets were named after the division in Ivano-Frankivsk (Ukrains`koi Dyvizii Street) and Ternopil (Soldiers Division "Galicia" Street).[60]
On 23 September 2020, the Ukrainian Supreme Court ruled that symbols of SS Division Galicia do not belong to the Nazis and therefore were not banned in the country. The same argument was made by the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory, led at the time by Volodymyr Viatrovych.[61]
None of this is a good look for either Canada or Ukraine. They were voluntary Nazis, voluntarily killing Jews, Poles, Slovakians, Yugoslavians and Soviets towards the end of the war as Hitler was getting destroyed. And as late as 2020 the Ukrainian government was giving them a huge pass. As though a Waffen-SS division supported by Himmler was... not Nazi. How on earth this MP or his staff did not do a cursory google of the guy is still beyond me.
Without knowing a great deal about this, but I think it is important to look at the reasoning behind them joining the Nazis. Ukraine wasn’t an independent state at that point. Considering Germany fought Russia, this might have had to do with self-interests in creating a state.
Anyhow, I think things are less black and white here. Not saying that this should be applauded in anyway, though.
In a speech to the soldiers of the 1st Galician division, Heinrich Himmler stated:
"Your homeland has become so much more beautiful since you have lost – on our initiative, I must say – those residents who were so often a dirty blemish on Galicia's good name, namely the Jews ... I know that if I ordered you to liquidate the Poles ... I would be giving you permission to do what you are eager to do anyway."[43]
The reasoning for the division's creation sounded pretty clear and upfront. Their intentions weren't subtle.
The situation is not black and white, but the Nazis were not the only option available. Galicia was the site of two of the largest extermination ghettos, and the Galician unit was used to quell Slovakian resistance movements who were actually fighting for independent statehood instead of hypothetically via Nazi allegiance. It was pretty clear Germans were getting rid of the Jews and Poles. The Galicians wouldn't have even been allowed to be a division had the Nazis been winning the war.
Even if this guy signed up because he truly wanted his people to be independent from the Soviets and Poles and thought this was the only way to make it happen, it doesn't explain Ukraine starting a parade in 2010 for a Waffen-SS division created by the resident German governor that surrendered to allied forces in 1945.
I don't give Nazis quarter, and just because Ukraine was invaded by Russia, it doesn't mean that changes. If applauding the old guy was deeply embarassing (it was), a modern parade for a Nazi division while calling them not-Nazi should be too (it is). The Russian invasion of Ukraine, Russian nationalism, and Ukrainian nationalism all can and should be condemned.
And there's still no answer as to how the heck this occurred?
Group of Nazi-Germany fighters moved to Canada after WWII, amongst them this Ukrainian who fought on the side of the Germans.
I think this section is quite interesting and shows the reason for many Ukrainians to fight on the German side:
Dominique Arel, the chair of Ukrainian studies at the University of Ottawa, told Canada’s public broadcaster CBC that the division Hunka was part of had attracted thousands of Ukrainian volunteers, many joining with hopes they could achieve Ukrainian independence.
Only Germans from Germany were able to fight in the German army, Arel said, so non-German volunteers who believed in Nazi aims or sought to use Nazi power for their own ends were organised into SS divisions.
“We have the issue of symbolism here, the optics of serving in a military unit whose logo is that of arguably the greatest criminal organisation in the 20th century … so obviously the optics are not good.”
Not saying anything about this particular person, but the world is not black or white.
And propagandists will take advantage of this. I hate this world...