15 years of independance

[eestikas88 0]

Tomorrow passes 15 years since 20th August 1991.In times like these people were one against the communist power.

On that day Estonia got free,but we were not alone.

So i ask you,where were you during those times?

[EiZei 0]

Uhh.. cursing the early bedtimes of my daycare center?

[eestikas88 0]

i wasn't born yet

but i want to know if anyone here was taking part of getting independent.

[j w 0]

I was 9 days from being 1 year old, w00t

Well, congrats to Estonia for your independance

[Supah 0]

I remember the Iron Curtain falling as a kid, I was 10-12 at that time, and being amazed at how quickly things changed. I think it took most of us in western europe completely by surprise. Congratulations on your independance day and I hope you will be free forever!

[llauma 0]

I was probably hanging out with the dudes checking out the babes and looking for trouble.

[Mr_Tea 0]

@ that time i served in the Bundeswehr (German Army).

[EiZei 0]

I think it took most of us in western europe completely by surprise.

Along with our economy, early 90s was quite depressing.

[sanctuary 19]

In august 91, i was working after having finished the last years of my studies.

The fall of communism in the east of Europe took me a it by surprise starting with the Berlin wall put down in 89 , as the Warsaw pact military system reacted violently previously to any people dream of having a better life, like they did in 68 in Czechoslovakia, in the "Prague spring".

So i was not expecting the eastern europe countries new attempts at being free from the communist dicatures to succeed that soon, but on the other hand the USSR economy was totally ruined after their militaristic way during the cold war, so they couldn't suppress people from east country opinion that much anymore.

Pleasant surprise to see this was really happening and that the same year of 91 even in Russia people could then see the end of the tunnel after the missed coup d'etat against Gorbatchev, in which the hard line of the Soviet union just shot themselves in the feet by trying to remove by force their own leader.

[eestikas88 0]

Yeah,all the things that lead to independence started around 1989 when people started singing about freedom.

People were already preparing for war when Pihkva VDV division crossed the border in 19th August and started rolling towards Tallinn.Many of us thought that war was about to come.You know,theres a movie about the events of that time.

[Nemesis6 0]

At that time I was on a houseboat. And about 3 years old.

By the way, I have a question for you - I heard from a guy -- A dane like me -- who was among the first foreign forces to be invited to your country that you guys actually celebrate the supported the Germans because they fought against the Soviets, and that there's quite an appreciation for Denmark and/or Danish people because we had helped German SS officers. Is there any truth to this?

[CsonkaPityu 0]

I was 4 years old in 91, my country (hungary) was 2 years "liberated" already. We then drifted into a downward spiral of corruption and capitalistic oppression (insanely high taxes and little to no healthcare or any other stuff in return). I'm out of here as soon as i graduate mechanical engineering, i'm going home: to Austria.

And Nemesis 6: almost everyone supported the nazis back then simply because everyone hated the communists. My enemy's enemy is my friend.

[VictorTroska 0]

I was 7 years old,and it was a hard time around here:

Croatian War of Independence (Croatian: Domovinski rat (Homeland war)), was a greater Serbian agression against Croatia from 1991 to 1995, between the Croatian government and Croatian Serbs,reinforced by the Serbia-controlled Yugoslav People's Army. The Croatian side aimed to establish the internationally recognized sovereignty for the Republic of Croatia, previously a socialist republic in Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, while Serbs wanted to establish new boundaries in parts of Croatia with a Serb majority or with influential Serbian minority, effectively seeking secession for them from the rest of Croatia. Many claim that the aims of Milosevic, was to create a greater Serbia and unite all the Serbs under one banner as well.There was a saying in this war "where is only one Serbian grave, that is Serbia!". The war was striking for its brutality in a relatively developed society in Europe, and in modern times.

The war in Croatia came about as a result of the dissolution of Yugoslavia, and the rise of nationalism. A crisis emerged in Yugoslavia with the weakening of the communist states in Eastern Europe towards the end of the Cold War, as symbolised by the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. In Yugoslavia, the national communist party, officially called Alliance or the League of Communists, was losing its ideological potency.

Many of my closest friends and family were killed at that time,so it was the time of pain and sorrow.....

[Apollo 0]

I was 10 when it happened, and i lived in a free country, but i remember it very clearly, the anticipation, then the people starting to ram on the wall.Our father let us stay up late that night, encouraged us to watch it.It was a big thing back then here in Belgium.My family is also ideologicly quite liberty oriented, and back then Soviet Russia was the Uber Evil menace that had a swarm of 10T Mushrooms pointing at us, and really for a country of our size 1 would be fine already.

[Bernadotte 0]

...and that there's quite an appreciation for Denmark and/or Danish people because we had helped German SS officers. Is there any truth to this?

You should try to find a short 1963 essay by Hannah Arendt called Denmark and the Jews.  It tells the remarkable story of how more than 99% of Danish Jews were saved from the Holocaust.

The Danish authorities had put up so much bureacratic resistance that the whole process of rounding up Jews in Denmark was delayed until 1943.  And by then, according to Arendt, the German SS officer in charge, Dr Werner Best, had been influenced by the Danes into changing his way of thinking.  Indeed, the Danes received advanced warning allowing Jews to hide or escape to Sweden.

After the war, Best was sentenced to death but a Danish court accepted his appeal on the grounds that he'd indirectly helped save Danish Jews.  His sentence was reduced to 5 years in prison.

Maybe that's the help your friend heard about.

[llauma 0]

The Estonians considers the Germans to be liberators.. So the Estonians are grateful towards the Danes who helped the Germans.

[Nemesis6 0]

Apparently, I got Estonia and Lithuania mixed up, guys! :-S

But I just don't understand how, in their right mind, they can consider the Germans of all people to be liberators. They're essentially hailing one evil for delivering them from another.

I'll admit, this is one thing I have a very hard time understanding. I consider it inappropriate, and to be completely honest, I would find being over there pretty uncomfortable.

[eestikas88 0]

To understand the things between estonians and germans in WW2 you should need to know the full story.But now the russians are making evil nazi baltic state out of us.

So i'll make it short.

See,in the beginning of WW2 our goverment made a deal with the russians,so that we allowed them to make military bases in Estonia.

We did it because our goverment was afraid of war that would have followed if we would have disagreed.Well war came,but the war i was speaking about would have been a total massacre in Estonia.

See,we pissed them off in 1920 when we won the war against them.

So in 1940s russians came here took 10s of thousands women,children and men to Siberia,where most of them died.

So we fought against them.By that time Russia had already occupied us without a war.So,some people went to resistance to fight against Russia.

As you know Russia was on Allies side.So you might think that we were on germans side.No,we were on Allies side but we hated russians.Simple.

So the guys that supported our resistance the most were germans.Our resistance and people had no idea that germans could kill civilians here,but they did.So it became clear that we had more than one enemy to fight against.

As time passed,germans started to get kicked in the arse.They pulled out and russians moved in.Then they killed more civilans here than last time.

Resistance movement still fought against them.By the time WW2 ended,the war here was nowhere near end.Resistance movement continued to 1960s,then the last resistance members were captured and executed like the rest.Some resistance members were never captured,they just went home or escaped.

So,yes we have supported germans in WW2,i say "we have" because it became clear that they were assholes just as russians were.

Btw,there are many books that talk about the events over here by that time.Also there are books about the Allied (russians not included) secret operations here by that time.It was a suprise to me that the british soldiers had acutally met the resistance here

and supported them,or am i wrong?

[EiZei 0]

For the non-slavic states that had been unconviniently situated next to the USSR even nazi germany was lesser evil at the time im afraid.

[llauma 0]

Nemesis you seem to have a quite narrow view of the situations surrounding WW2. The Germans weren't pure evil. They were labelled as that because they lost war. Had Soviet lost the war they had probably been labelled as equally evil or perhaps even more evil than the Nazis. Infact even many jews would rather have their country occupied by the Germans than the Russians. Had USA lost the war the bombs over Japan would had been considered the greatest acts of evil the mankind has ever seen. That's how history works. The winner gets to tell the story.

Don't blame the Estonians for considering the Germans to be liberators. You as a part of the allies were on the side of USSR which was responsible of millions of deaths and it kept going on for 50 years. Neither were the western allies pure of evil. You dropped two a-bombs over civilian targets not because you had to but because you could.

The history as you know it is as biased as it can possible be.

[eestikas88 0]

I'll add that:

Theres something evil in every nation's history.No nation has been pure good.

Even the pope's nation,back in 1200s pope ordered to claim the last non-christian lands in Europe,Baltic states,Finland.the result was that many civilians including women and children were killed by christian soliders and our culture was mostly destroyed.The lands over here were just a few steps away from becoming a true nation.

But after that war,people here became slaves for about 600-700 years.

[mattxr 9]

i was 5 proberly up to something naughty living in the uk

[lilwillie 47]

Wow, thanks for everyone mentioning how old they where at the time. Now I feel old..17 at the time and can remember reading about it and watching it on TV at school.

Congrats on the anniversary and the refresher on the history.

[Paul G 0]

I was 28 stationed at Camp Lejeune.

Congratulations on your independance.

[Espectro (DayZ) 0]

Yea, congrats one it!

Nemesis, you are a dane!?