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Estonian Soldiers in the Prisoner of War Camps of the Western Allies


At the beginning of 1945, all the Estonian soldiers in Germany were concentrated in the 20th SS-Division and hurled at the Silesian front. In May of 1945, they tried to retreat through Czechoslovakia to surrender to the Western Allies in order not to fall into Russian hands. A large portion (about 6,000 men), however, were taken prisoner by Czech partisans, who turned them over to the Russians after a few weeks. Many Estonian soldiers were murdered by ravaging Czechs.

The 20th Division Reserve Regiment, which was located in Denmark, surrendered to the British in May of 1945. In total, there were about 3,500 Estonian prisoners of war in British prisoner of war camps. Of those imprisoned by the three great Western powers occupying Germany (the US, Great Britain, France), the fate of those in British camps was the best. The larger camps were in Uklei (3,400 men), Putlos (1,188 men), Neuengamme and Zedelghem (almost 2,800 men). On September 12, 1945, the Uklei camp was eliminated, and the Estonian prisoners were transferred to the Zedelghem camp. On the way, many Estonians escaped. The Lübeck Estonian Committee succeeded in securing DP status for these men and they were placed separately in the Arnimruhe barracks camp. The rest, who did not escape, remained in prisoner of war camps for about 7 more months; the Zedelghem prisoners were not freed until March 7, 1946 in Borghorst. Those who had served in SS units were concentrated in the Zedelghem prison camp; in addition to Estonians (2,747), 14,000 Latvians and 1,600 Lithuanians were also held in this large camp. A group of Estonian aviators from Norway and 70 Estonians from a Belgian war prison in Brussels were brought to Zedelghem in addition to the Uklei camp contingent. Neuengamme was known as a German SS internment camp and numerous Estonian officers were also held there. At the end of August 1945, the Estonians were transferred to Uklei from this camp, where the regime was extremely harsh and conditions poor. The British did not detain Estonian officers and suspicious soldiers longer than ordinary solders, as opposed to the Americans, who held 120 Estonian officers in the Darmstadt civil internment camp until the judgment of the Nürnberg Court at the beginning of November 1946. After their release, the British, as opposed to the Americans, gave DP status to the Estonian prisoners of war, which meant upkeep by UNRRA, and later IRO.
About 750 men were taken prisoner by the Americans. Estonians are known to have been in the following prison camps: Naumburg (50), Heiligenstadt, Velda, Bad Kreuznach (83), Moosberg (9), Dachau, Bad-Aibling, Heilbronn, Auerbach (148), Aschaffenburg, Darmstadt (95–100), Marburg, Regensburg (333), and others. In France, Estonians were in the following American prison camps: Voves, Cherbourg (73, of whom 48 were handed over to the Russians), Mailly (60), Marseille (45, of whom 18 were handed over to the Russians), Bolbeck (25), Villa Coublay and others.

Estonian prisoners of war spent most of spring-summer of 1945 in large open-air camps surrounded by barbed wire (for instance, there were a total of 300,000 prisoners in Bad-Kreuznach). During the summer, these large camps were eliminated and the majority of the prisoners released, although suspects, soldiers and officers from specific units, as well as foreigners, including Estonians, were moved to more secure prison camps in Germany and France. In these camps, the prisoners were housed in tents and barracks, where they lived during the winter of 1945 to 1946. Many Estonians were moved to France (Marseille, Cherbourg, Bolbeck, Voves, Mailly, and others) in the summer of 1945. After passing through many camps (Bolbeck, Mailly), the majority of those in France finally reached Regensburg in Germany, where 20 Estonians were already being held and 148 more men were added from Auerbach. The prisoners were released from Regensburg on June 25, 1946, and some men were transferred on to Darmstadt.
Those in French camps included Estonians who were taken prisoner by French units, but also quite a number who were handed over by the Americans. The treatment in French camps was worse then in American or British camps. The French handed Estonians over to the Russians and, as opposed to the British and Americans, forced them to work reconstructing war-torn France. Estonian prisoners of war worked as miners, and in the countryside as field hands. Imprisonment in French camps was also longer. Many were not released until the autumn of 1947.
Estonians were located in the following French camps in the French Zone or in France: Bingen, Bad Kreuznach, Freiburg, Zinzig, Andernach, Brumath, Strasbourg, Hagenau, Metz, Dijon, Luneville, Dieppe, Rouen, Cherbourg (under American jurisdiction), Arras, Lille, Amiens, Compiegne, Marseille (under American jurisdiction) and others.


Jüri Uluots, the Otto Tief Government and Estonia’s Legal Continuity


In 1940, the United States, Great Britain and many other countries were not willing to recognize the occupation of Estonia by the Soviet Union. The majority of Europe was under German control at the time, and the occupation of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania had taken place with the agreement of Germany.

On June 22, 1941, the two former allies – Germany and the USSR – went to war. During the 1941–1944 period, Germany did not recognize the independence of the Estonian state. However, the German occupation forces did not treat Estonia and Estonian citizens as they did the Soviet Union (the so-called old Russia or “Altrußland”) and its citizens. The laws of the Republic of Estonia, as they existed in June 20, 1940, were put back into force, to the extent that they didn’t contradict German law. The Estonian district and circuit courts and the Court of Appeal were reinstated as well. The German occupation authorities also made a distinction between the citizens of Estonia and the Soviet Union. The term Russen estnischer Nationalität – (Russians of Estonian origin) was used for Estonians from the Russian side of Lake Peipus).
On July 23, 1940, Sumner Welles, the US Assistant Secretary of State, made a statement in which he said, among other things: “The people of the United States are opposed to predatory activities no matter whether they are carried on by the use of force or by the threat of force. They are likewise opposed to any form of intervention on the part of one state, however powerful, in the domestic concerns of any other sovereign state, however weak.”
The last Prime Minister of independent Estonia, Jüri Uluots, succeeded in avoiding arrest from 1940–1941. After the Southern part of the city of Tartu had fallen into the hands of the German forces at the end of July, he chaired a meeting at which a “Memorandum on the Situation of Estonia” was adopted, and which was delivered to the military governor of Tartu on July 29th, 1941. The meeting had been attended by persons who had been supporters of the Estonian government from the end of the 1930’s. The memorandum thanked Germany for freeing Estonia of the Soviets, and emphasized that an Estonian government needed to be established in accordance with the Constitution – one that would be trusted by the people. The memorandum also called for the forming of Estonian national armed forces. The proposals by the Estonians were ignored by the German occupation forces. Opposition politicians of President Konstantin Päts from the pre-war period also discussed the future of Estonia. They convened a series of meetings beginning in the summer of 1941 that led to the formation of the National Committee of the Republic of Estonia. The first plenary meeting was held on February 14, 1944. The National Committee became the underground National Assembly. It cooperated with the Jüri Uluots group, which was represented in the National Committee by Juhan Kaarlimäe, a former member of the Agrarian Party. The National Committee had contacts with Estonian diplomats who had remained in Finland, Sweden and Great Britain.
In February 1944, after Red Army troops had reentered the eastern part of Estonia, Jüri Uluots gave a historical radio interview, in which he called upon citizens to respond favorably to the German mobilization. This was necessary in order to resist the onslaught of the Red Army. The appeal issued by Uluots took place with the knowledge and approval of the members of the National Committee.
On April 20, 1944, the Electoral Assembly of the Republic of Estonia (the institution specified in the Constitution for electing the President) held a clandestine meeting in Tallinn. The participants included Jüri Uluots, the last Prime Minister of Estonia before the Soviet coup d’Etat, the substitute for Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces Johan Holberg, the Speaker of the pre-war Parliament Otto Pukk, the Deputy Vice-Chairman of the Council of State Alfred Maurer, and High Court Justice Mihkel Klaassen. The Electoral Assembly decided that the Soviet-era appointment of Johannes Vares as Prime Minister by Konstantin Päts had been illegal, and appointed Jüri Uluots as the Acting President of the Republic. In his directive of April 21, 1944, Jüri Uluots appointed Otto Tief as Prime Minister and Alfred Maurer as Deputy Prime Minister.
On April 19th and 20th, the German SD Security Police arrested several hundred people, who were accused of propagating defeatism, of being pro-British and of engaging in espionage. Many active members of the National Committee were among those arrested. The remaining National Committee members went completely underground, and a number of new members, including Otto Tief, were asked to join the Committee. On August 1, 1944, the National Committee, with the approval of Jüri Uluots, declared publicly that it was vested as the provisional executor of governmental authority in Estonia. This announcement was made through the posting of placards in public places, consisting of a manifesto and two decrees.
On September 18, 1944, as Nazi occupation forces started to evacuate the remaining Estonian territory that they held, and Red Army troops were closing on Tallinn, Jüri Uluots, as the Prime Minister acting as provisional President, appointed a new Government headed by Otto Tief, the Deputy Prime Minister acting as Prime Minister, who was also Minister of the Interior. The Government also included Johan Holberg (Minister of Defense), Hugo Pärtelpoeg (Finance Minister), Johannes Pikkov (Minister of Transportation), Rudolf Penno (Minister of Commerce and Industry), August Rei (Foreign Minister), Juhan Kaarlimäe (Minister without portfolio), Arnold Susi (Minister of Education), Kaarel Liidak (Minister of Agriculture), Voldemar Sumberg (Social Minister) and Johannes Klesment (Minister of Justice). In addition, Oskar Gustavson was named State Comptroller; Helmut Maandi, Secretary of State (Head of the Chancellery); Endel Inglist, Deputy Secretary of State; Jaan Maide, Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces; and Juhan Reigo, Head of Internal Defense. Two issues of the State Gazette and a governmental declaration were issued in the name of the Government of Otto Tief. Soviet troops conquered Tallinn on September 22, 1944.
Although the attempt to restore Estonian independence in September of 1944 did not succeed, the Otto Tief Government is an integral part of the de jure continuity of Estonia. The appointment of the Tief Government did not pass unnoticed abroad, where Finnish and Swedish newspapers reported on it. On September 21 and 22, the Estonian flag flew once again atop the Tall Hermann Tower at the seat of government. In its own way, the NKGB, the Soviet secret police, also gave its recognition to the Tief government. Being a member of the government was the main charge leveled against those members of the government who ended up in the clutches of that organization.
Rudolf Penno and August Rei had left Estonia by the time they were appointed to the Tief Government. Johan Holberg, Johannes Klesment and Helmut Maandi succeeded in escaping from Estonia. Kaarel Liidak went underground in southern Estonia in April 1944, managed to evade detection by both the SD as well as the NKGB, and died in 1945. The NKGB and counterintelligence operatives of the Leningrad Front of the Red Army imprisoned the rest of the members of the Tief Government. Jaan Maide, Juhan Reigo and Endel Inglist were sentenced to death and executed in 1945; Oskar Gustavson was killed while trying to escape from interrogation in 1945; in most cases the rest were sentenced to prison for 10 year terms. Otto Tief (died 1976), Arnold Susi (died 1968), Juhan Kaarlimäe (died 1977) and Richard Övel managed to return to Estonia; but the others all died in Russia. Voldemar Sumberg was freed from prison camp in 1960 and remained in the Kemerovo oblast in Russia, where he died. In 1969, Juhan Kaarlimäe was arrested again for some time. The other government members who returned to Estonian were kept under surveillance by the Soviet secret police.
Jüri Uluots, who was gravely ill, was transported to Sweden on September 22, and died at the beginning of 1945. Before his death, he appointed August Rei has his successor, who, in 1953 in Oslo, appointed the Estonian Government in Exile. The exile government officially ceased its activities on October 7, 1992, when – in the Estonian House of Parliament – Heinrich Mark, the acting President of the Republic in exile, handed his credentials over to Lennart Meri, who had been elected President of the Republic.
On February 11, 1991, the Parliament of Iceland decided that the decision to recognize Lithuanian independence, which the Icelandic Parliament had taken in 1922, was still in force. The Icelandic Parliament adopted the same position towards Estonia and Latvia in August of 1991. On August 27, 1991, an extraordinary meeting of foreign ministers of the European Union welcomed the restoration of the sovereignty and independence of the Baltic States, and confirmed the decision of its members to restore diplomatic relations with them post-haste. In addition: the former “Eastern Bloc” countries of Czechoslovakia, Poland, Romania and Hungary have recognized the restoration of the independence of the Baltic States. Russia, the legal successor to the Soviet Union, regards Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania as new countries that emerged from the collapse of the Soviet Union, although in some matters of international relations, Moscow concedes the existence of diplomatic relations before 1940.