Waiting for Hitler to loot their own countries

Seventies of the twentieth century.

In the basement of the family home in Copenhagen, Simon Pasternak opens an old suitcase that belonged to his maternal grandmother's brother, Dirk-Ingvar Bonnek, a soldier who disappeared in Ukraine in World War II in 1943. To his surprise, the young finds documents with runes of the SS and a dagger of this same organization.

It is the hidden trace of a Dane who, after the Nazi occupation of his country, ran to volunteer to help them.

"Was there an executioner behind the endearing grandfather?" asks historian David Alegre Lorenz, author of the essay

(Galaxia Gutenberg), in which he analyzes why tens of thousands of people in Europe became pawns of the invader to contribute to a new order under the boot of the Third Reich.

Alegre (Teruel, 34 years old) acknowledges, in a telephone conversation, that his "is a provocative book because it questions the foundations on which European states were built after the war, such as the fact that societies had risen up against Nazism, the myth of the resistance".

“Five-year occupations in those countries were impossible without the complicity of millions of people,” he adds.

Interestingly, these "traitors" had not germinated in any clandestine space, but in the heat of fascism in places of entertainment: the breweries and cafes of the great European cities of the early twentieth century.

“They were meeting environments, where alcohol was consumed, rumors spread and speeches were made.

All in a context in which the masses enter the public thoroughfare and with a new generation of leaders”.

Cheerful quotes the American novelist William T. Vollmann: "Men who once jumped to their feet in beer halls and bawled their fate now had regiments at their command."

Hungarian journalist Ferenc Rajniss, fascist politician, about to be shot in Budapest on March 12, 1946 for his position as minister in the pro-Nazi Hungarian government.getty

The book (of 584 pages, born from his doctoral thesis) develops the "multiple" factors that explain collaborationism.

“There are economic ones.

The great French, Belgian and Dutch industry align themselves with Hitler to prevent him from taking full control of production.

Or the case of women who saw how their husbands were prisoners or had died and established relations with the Nazis.

In France, in 1943, 83,000 children were born to occupiers and French women;

in Norway, 12,000.”

Alegre, a professor at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, ​​insists that historical processes “are complex”, that looking at them today while sitting comfortably leads to creating simplicities without nuances.

“We are talking about people who made decisions without knowing what was going to happen.”

His research includes a string of particular cases, thanks to the documentation consulted by Alegre, among other files, at the Institute of Contemporary History in Munich, "where the papers that the Americans captured from the Nazis are."

An abundant material, since “the Germans were very exhaustive and wanted to understand well those who helped them”.

There are letters from young people trained in Nazi indoctrination schools in their own countries, such as the Norwegian Christian Weinholdt, who wanted to be part of "a new time" that would leave behind "an old world."

Or boys in Amsterdam succumbing to the suits and bearing of SS members who put up posters with the message: "Come and join us to fight against Bolshevism."

When the Germans occupied a territory, “they sought to collaborate with the conservative traditional elites because they could provide them with the strings to run society.

He was very smart.”

It is striking that they despised precisely the local fascist parties.

"They were irrelevant in number."

The Führer's dream was a domination like the English in India: “With 250,000 men they govern 400 million people”, he said.

Those pro-Nazi formations experienced their own tear.

"There were those who did not agree to help them, but at the same time they were joined by careerists who wanted positions and money, from very humble people to criminals."

These Nazi branches were also struggling in a paradox: “They were ultra-nationalists, but they collaborate with the Germans because they make a cost-benefit analysis.

Also,

in 1940 it was considered that the German victory was evident”.

His involvement reached the last consequences, even when the war had changed its sign.

"There was no turning back because they were marked by those with whom they lived."

Marshal Pétain, at Vichy in 1941.getty

By country, was the France of the Vichy regime, with Marshal Pétain at the head, the most flagrant case?

“The concept of collaborationism arises in France.

The compulsory labor service is also created there, which involved the arrival of thousands of young people to the industries of the Reich to work in inhuman conditions, ”he emphasizes.

“The Netherlands gave a lot of volunteers;

there were propitious provinces because they traded with the Germans”.

And Spain?

The Blue Division was the unit sent by the Franco regime to fight against Soviet communism.

“An aid to Hitler that was later wanted to be erased.”

This expert points to another myth forged by Franco.

“The fact that Spain did not enter the war because she resisted Hitler's pressure.

In reality, his claims were unacceptable.

Germany had commitments with Italy, her main ally, and Spain asked for Gallic Morocco, which would prevent a stable relationship between Germany and France.

Hitler's advisers saw Spain more as a burden than as a help.

The Blue Division was formed by "about 18,000 men permanently, 50,000 throughout the war."

"The Germans considered it to be third-tier, just for static defense, as they did on the northern flank of the Eastern Front, but in the end they played an important role."

Alegre provides examples such as that of the Teruel industrial expert Rafael Cabeza, an ex-combatant from the Civil War who enlisted with the aim of becoming "a martyr of communism".

French women whose heads have been shaved for collaborating with the Nazis in Cherbourg on July 22, 1944.getty

At the end of this exhaustive study there is an overview of post-war purification with felons.

“In principle, it became a fundamental issue for governments in exile and ordinary people.

In France there were wild extrajudicial processes with thousands of people.”

An image described by a Corsican from the Legion of French Volunteers who had got rid of the elements that could identify him as a fifth columnist: “Hunting among brothers of race, massacring in the name of all […] The prisons fill up.

The torturers make the flesh scream.”

After that rage, palpable in images of shaved women for having slept with Nazis, ceased to be a central issue.

Alegre emphasizes that “there were pressures from the liberating armies because they needed viable countries that would not spend so much on trials, prisons and guards for traitors, with the consequent collapse of the courts.

There were star cases to air it, all very measured, even the death penalty was restored in several countries.

In the intention to turn the page there was also a humanitarian reason: "When pedagogues and psychologists come into play, they see that many of the collaborators were almost kids, and if they were sentenced for life they would not have a second chance."

The case of Ukraine

A case of collaborationism with the Nazis that links to the present is that of Ukraine due to the propaganda spread by the Russian president, Vladimir Putin.

“It is an example of the complexity of history.

There were many Ukrainians who fought in the Red Army and came to Berlin.

While the fascist Ukrainians knowingly collaborated with what the Nazis were doing, but saw it as a way to preserve something of their society.

There were even those who later became resistant.

To say today that Ukraine is a Nazi state is a nonsensical generalization.”

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