An ugly thing from Ukraine leaked into CT broadcasts

“The so-called German elite. Leader’s Guard. Black Order”. This is how the German documentary series Historie SS, which was broadcast by Czech Television in February and March, is presented. The final sixth part “The Hunt for the Criminal” describes the other fates of members of the death squads after the fall of Germany.

But according to the documentarians, criminal prosecutions, sentences and executions did not mean the end of terrifying ideological fanaticism. In addition to the influence of veterans who escaped punishment, ideas continued to spread among younger generations.

“Some SS veterans are celebrated to this day. Right-wing extremist parties pay tribute to them as witnesses of the zeitgeist, who can proclaim their views of the time to a contemporary audience.” reads in the document.

In addition to footage from the German “Shield and Sword” festival, where several hundred bare skulls in jerseys with the number 8 and the name Adolf listen to the concert, we also watch those who maintain the ideological legacy of the SS with a gun.

“Right-wing rock festivals are a convenient recruiting ground for, for example, the Azov Regiment, a paramilitary volunteer ultra-nationalist unit whose members fight in the Ukrainian conflict against pro-Russian separatists. It is said that two and a half thousand foreign fighters, including Germans, fought in the ranks of the Azov regiment in 2017. Their distinguishing mark is the wolf trap symbol worn by members of the SS disposition unit,” said the very end of the documentary as we cut to the present. It should be added that the document was produced in 2021.

“People’s stupidity in using some Nazi symbols apparently knows no bounds,” commented Jewish historian Professor Moshe Zimmermann.

At the same time, the links between contemporary Kyiv nationalism and Nazi history were rather downplayed or denied outright on the public screen.

The Azov battalion itself was belittled as the insignificant matter of a few people, corresponding in size to one army battalion.

The most common argument was that swastikas and other Nazi symbols today serve the positive idea of ​​Ukrainian resistance against the Russian invasion.

On the contrary, parallels between the progress of Hitler’s Germany and today’s Russian invasion of Ukraine were recalled, including the parallel between the personality of the German dictator and President Putin. On some social networks, the abbreviation “Putler” has been adopted for him, and the name Russia itself has often been written with two S’s in the last two years.

In countries where the historical awareness of the Second World War is not so strong, such things as the celebratory applause for Jaroslav Hunka, a veteran of the SS Galicia unit, who is accused of several war crimes on the Eastern Front, took place afterwards. Its activities were also relatively comprehensively mapped in the ZDF document.

“A veteran of the Second World War, who fought for Ukrainian independence against Russia at the time and still supports Ukrainian troops today, even though he is already 98 years old,” the speaker of the Canadian Parliament welcomed him during Volodymyr Zelensky’s speech. And he proudly added that this hero is a voter in his constituency.