Quote:
Originally Posted by madmike
Yes to be fair, the choice was between Stalinist Russia (whose collectivist policies resulted in the deaths of between 3 and 5 million Ukrainians in the early 1930s - either intentionally or through incompetence) and the Germans. Many Ukrainians chose to back the Germans, not necessarily because they supported Nazism, but because they wanted to be rid of Stalin and Russia.
It is a grey area. Russians and their sympathizers would have you believe anyone who fought with the Germans was a hardcore Nazi, which isn’t true.
The problem in this case is the involvement with the Waffen SS. They weren’t the Gestapo and they did fight as regular military units, but they also committed more than their fair share of war crimes against civilians.
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It's unbelievable how often this is lost on people.
Here is a list of all the Waffen-SS divisions, many of which were non-Germanic, who shared little to none of the ideology.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...n-SS_divisions