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In 1999, when he was the President of Finland, Marti Ahtisaari’s government wanted to honor and to commemorate the 3,000 Finnish Nazi Waffen SS volunteers that served in Heinrich Himmler’s SS. Why would any government, indeed, why would anyone, want to honor and commemorate SS troops? Why would anyone want to honor and commemorate Nazis and Nazism? This is the question that has remained unanswered in the US and Western media about Marti Ahtisaari. As a sock puppet for the US, NATO, and EU, Ahtisaari’s role in honoring and commemorating the Nazi Waffen SS has been suppressed. As a Chairman Emeritus of ICG he is regarded as part of the globalist elite. His government’s honoring of Finnish Nazi SS troops is a controversial subject that did not register on the radar screen of the mainstream media.
How substantial was the connection between Marti Ahtisaari’s Finland and Nazi Germany? What role did Adolf Hitler and Heinrich Himmler play in Finland? Were the 3,000 Finnish volunteers in the Waffen SS just regular soldiers or were they Nazi shock troops who had sworn their allegiance to Adolf Hitler and to Nazism? These are questions that the mainstream media will not address. They are, nevertheless, meaningful questions that will help us to understand Marti Ahtisaari’s position on Kosovo.
The Finnish SS troops swore a personal oath to the Supreme Commander “Hitler” of the German Armed Forces. The Finnish government recruited these Finnish SS troops. The recruitment was done in secret. The formation of the Finnish Waffen SS unit was organized on March, 1941, three months before the German invasion of the USSR. There was pre-meditation, and planning. Finland was engaged in an unprovoked act of aggression with Finnish ally Nazi Germany. Finland was not occupied by Nazi Germany. Finland allowed Germany to launch land, sea, and air attacks against the Soviet Union from bases in Finland. In other words, the Finnish government and the Finnish people freely chose or decided to be allies with Adolf Hitler and with Nazi Germany.
The name of the formation that was created was the Finnishe Freiwillige Battaillon der Waffen SS, the Finnish Volunteer Battalion of the Waffen SS. The Finnish Nazi SS troops were issued their own national insignia. The Finnish Army even had its own version of the swastika, which was blue in color and discarded after World War II. The secret SS recruitment in Finland went under the name Engineer Bureau “Ratas”. The Finnish recruits came from Helsinki, the capital, where 1,200 were assembled. The Finnish troops were sent to Nazi Germany for training, where they joined several Nazi Waffen SS formations: The 5th SS Division Wiking, the SS Freiwilligen Battalion “Nordost”, their own Finnish Waffen SS unit, and the II SS Regiment “Nordland”, which was part of the Wiking SS Division.
The Finnish Freiwillige Battalion der Waffen SS consisted of three infantry companies and one motorized company and was commanded by German SS Hauptsturmfuehrer Hans Collani. In total, approximately 3,000 Finnish troops were part of SS Reichsfuehrer Heinrich Himmler’s Waffen SS.
The Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal found all SS members to be war criminals who committed crimes against humanity. We then have to ask: Why is Marti Ahtisaari honoring and commemorating war criminals? These Finnish Nazi SS troops were involved in the Holocaust and in genocide. Why isn’t this even news? Why doesn’t Marti Ahtisaari know what the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal held regarding the Waffen SS? Why is he so ignorant or indifferent?
The Finnish rationalization is that Finnish Nazi Waffen SS troops were just regular soldiers. They did nothing wrong. They did swear an oath to Adolf Hitler. They were part of Heinrich Himmler’s Waffen SS, the organization responsible for the Holocaust and the genocide committed against Jews and Gypsies. The Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal did find all SS members to be war criminals. Nevertheless, the Finnish rationale is that they were just regular soldiers. This is a salient case of self-delusion and self-interested rationalization that approaches psychopathology. There is almost a total disconnect here with reality as we know it.
What are the facts?
Finland was an ally of Nazi Germany during World War II, part of the German invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, Operation Barbarossa. On June 4, 1942, Adolf Hitler made a visit to Finland to coordinate joint efforts by Finland and Nazi Germany to launch renewed attacks against the Soviet Union. The occasion was the 75th birthday of Finnish commander in chief Carl Mannerheim, a former decorated Russian commander. Hitler flew to the Immola air base on a Focke-Wulf FW-200 Condor flown by his personal pilot, SS Gruppenfuehrer Hans Baur. Joining Hitler on the mission was Wilhelm Keitel, the chief of the German Military Command. Hitler met with Finnish President Risto Ryti and with Finnish and German military commanders, including German General Eduard Dietl, the commander of German forces in Finland.
Hitler then had a long conversation with Mannerheim in a railroad car, a conversation that was recorded. German newsreel cameras filmed this historic visit.
Hitler gave Mannerheim a gift of three Steyr-Daimler 1500 A Kommandeurwagen field cars. Hitler personally thanked Mannerheim for Finnish support of Operation Barbarossa.
Finnish “historiography” and Finnish “historians” claim that Mannerheim was not particularly fond of Adolf Hitler or Nazism. But Mannerheim was fond enough of Hitler and Nazism to visit Hitler and Nazi Germany in late June, 1942 on an official state visit. Mannerheim would himself visit Nazi Germany in the summer of 1942 on an official visit where he met with Hitler again and Hermann Goering, the chief of the German Air Force or Luftwaffe, in the presenc