Thousands March In Kiev Rally To Honour ‘Hitler’s Accomplice’

[Purveyor]

Source: Agence France-Presse

AFP
January 03, 2015 12:00AM

THOUSANDS of Ukrainian nationalists held a torchlight ­procession across Kiev yesterday in honour of a 1940s anti-Soviet insurgent branded by Moscow as a Nazi collaborator.

The march on what would have been Stepan Bandera’s 106th birthday moved along the same streets on which hundreds of thousands rallied for three months last winter before ousting a Moscow-backed president.

Some wore World War II-era army uniforms while others draped themselves in the red and black nationalist flags and chanted “Ukraine belongs to Ukrainians” and “Bandera will return and restore order”.

Bandera is an immensely divisive figure in Ukraine whom some compare to Cuba’s Che Guevara. His movement’s slogan — “Glory to Ukraine! Glory to the heroes!” — was also the catchphrase of last year’s pro-European revolt. Russian President Vladimir Putin in March called that uprising’s leaders “the ideological heirs of Bandera, Hitler’s accomplice during World War II”.



Read more: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/thousands-march-in-kiev-rally-to-honour-hitlers-accomplice/story-e6frg6so-1227173003362

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Related:

[cosmicone]

1. Bravo!

Couldn't anyone had not foreseen this?

Are we going to send more cookies?

[Scootaloo]

2. The characterization seems legitimate

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stepan_Bandera

He was wrapped up tight with the Nazis - an ally of conveniance, but an ally nevertheless - and seemed to strongly favor the eradication of slavs and poles.

Which is odd given Ukranians are a slavic people, but, y'know, they wouldn't be the first to ignore reality in favor of nationalism and ethnic supremacism. They certainly weren't the last

[iamthebandfanman]

3. as someone who

who has an obsession with hating all things Nazi...

he wasn't that close to the Nazis.
he did use them to help declare independence in Ukraine (which made hitler pretty irate from what ive read)

by the early 40s they hated each other (and I suspect always had)...

but its true, he was into a fascist brand of nationalism that hitler oh so enjoyed himself.

at any rate, all ultra nationalist right wing movements are dangerous ... regardless of whom they may or may not have been 'accomplices' with.
frankly, the same could be said of Russia.

[uhnope]

4. ssshhhhhhh! don't confuse the Putin explainers with facts

and please don't mention the ultranationalism running amok in Russia.

The Putin Brigade needs Bandera in order to justify the "New Russia" invasions of Ukraine.

[MattSh]

10. If you're claiming that there's some ultra nationalist right wing movement in Russia...

prove it.

And don't go repeating the horrendous media coverage of all things Russia last year and claim that as some type of proof.

Don't be one of these people...



Thanks in advance.

[joshcryer]

11. United Russia

Easy.

[stevenleser]

14. And their alliances with other European far right parties. You're right, it's not hard.

It's only hard for those determined not to see it.

[Adrahil]

18. Do you consider the Stalinists far right wing or far left wing? n/t

[Lionel Mandrake]

5. Hitler's first Russian accomplice was Stalin.

In late August, 1939, the USSR and Germany became co-conspirators; they signed a "Non-Aggression Pact", according to which they agreed to carve up Poland and not fight each other. This unholy alliance lasted until June 22, 1941, when the Nazis invaded the Polish territory held by the USSR.

[DetlefK]

7. +1

Stalin is hailed as a hero in Putin's Russia. Who cares about political assassinations, mass-murder, oppression... Stalin was a great guy, unlike that Hitler-fella.

[Lionel Mandrake]

15. Do I detect a note of irony?

Ich glaube dass Stalin kein Held ist in der Ukraine.

[Lionel Mandrake]

16. I looked it up, and found that

how Ukrainians view Stalin depends on their political parties. It seems that communists still see Stalin as a hero, but many others see him as a the monster that he was.

For more on how Ukrainians view Stalin, browse:
http://www.academia.edu/6992675/Stalin_and_Bandera_Politics_of_Totalitarian_Leaders_in_Contemporary_Ukraine

[jakeXT]

6. How the Israel Lobby Protected Ukrainian Neo-Nazis

November 18, 2014 |

AlterNet has learned that an amendment to the 2015 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that would have forbidden US assistance, training and weapons to neo-Nazis and other extremists in Ukraine was kept out of the final bill by the Republican-led House Rules Committee. Introduced by Democratic Representative John Conyers, the amendment was intended to help tamp down on violent confrontations between Ukrainian forces and Russian separatists. (Full text of the amendment embedded at the end of this article).

A USA Today/Pew poll conducted in April while the NDAA was being debated found that Americans opposed by more than 2 to 1 providing the Ukrainian government with arms or other forms of military assistance.

If passed, Conyers' amendment would have explicitly barred those found to have offered “praise or glorification of Nazism or its collaborators, including through the use of white supremacist, neo-Nazi, or other similar symbols” from receiving any form of support from the US Department of Defense.

The amendment was presented by congressional staffers to lobbyists from Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the Simon Wiesenthal Center, two of the country’s largest established Jewish pressure groups. Despite their stated mission to combat anti-Semitism and violent extremism, the ADL and Wiesenthal Center refused to support Jeffries and Conyers’ proposal.

According to Democratic sources in Congress, staffers from the ADL’s Washington office and the Simon Wiesenthal Center rejected the amendment on the grounds that right-wing Ukrainian parties like Svoboda with documented records of racist extremism had “moderated their rhetoric.” An ADL lobbyist insisted that “the focus should be on Russia,” while the Wiesenthal Center pointed to meetings between far-right political leaders in Ukraine and the Israeli embassy as evidence that groups like Svoboda and Right Sector had shed their extremism.

http://www.alternet.org/world/how-israel-lobby-protected-ukrainian-neo-nazis

[Purveyor]

9. Ahh yes. There is a thread here on DU covering that topic.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1016107244

[JackRiddler]

19. But at least they won't get Social Security!

Ya think that may have had a slight distracting effect?

[jakeXT]

20. At least 38 since 1979

Since 1979, at least 38 of 66 suspected Nazi war criminals and SS guards forced out of the United States collected millions of dollars in American Social Security payments, an Associated Press investigation has found.

http://www.businessinsider.com/here-are-the-nazis-who-got-social-security-2014-10?IR=T

[Burf-_-]

8. Never Again ?

When will humans ever learn.

[pampango]

12. Wow! There are ultra-nationalists in Ukraine. There is a far-rght in every country and they are

always ultra-nationalists.

One ideological doctrine unites the far-right worldview, it is that of nationalism.

http://publicintelligence.net/ctc-violent-far-right/

They blame their problems on foreigners, who could be Russians, NATO, the EU, the UN, the WTO, etc. “Ukraine belongs to Ukrainians” sounds like the mantra ("France belongs to the French", etc.) used by the far-right in Paris, Moscow, Washington, London and elsewhere.

FDR did the opposite. He knew the problem was our own 1%, not foreigners, and dealt with them directly with higher taxes, better regulation and a safety net for the rest of us. He believed in an inter-connected, inter-dependent world, while the far-right - in the US and elsewhere - believes that every country is an island.

The Ukrainian far-right seems to be the exception in Europe in that the right in other European countries admires Putin as a strong, nationalist leader which is what they aspire to be. In return Putin and the Russian government provide support to the far-right groups throughout Europe. It is mutual admiration society.

[struggle4progress]

13. Here's what Yad Vashem says:

... Bandera joined the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) in his twenties ... When the Polish Minister of the Interior was assassinated in 1936, Bandera was arrested and sentenced to life imprisonment. However, when the Germans invaded Poland in September 1939, he was set free by the Soviets and he moved to German occupied Poland ... Bandera and his people considered the Soviets and the Jews their main enemies ... Bandera's representatives declared the establishment of an independent Ukrainian government in LVOV on June 30, 1941. The Germans were completely opposed to this, so they deported Bandera to Sachsenhausen ... He led the OUN until his assassination in 1959.

http://www.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/Microsoft%20Word%20-%205935.pdf

[hack89]

17. Considering the Germans put him in a concentration camp for most of the war

accomplice may be too strong a word.