YES, The Soviet Union Was In Bed With Nazi Germany

 Many readers, who regularly receive our notifications by email, complained that in our defence of Nzhdeh’s relationship with Nazi Germany during WWII we buried under the rug the close ties forged between The Soviet Union and Nazi Germany.

The accusations are totally absurd and we never made any attempt to conceal the fact that Stalin was in bed with Hitler, but they had different dreams and agendas.

When Aliyev turned Nzhdeh’s cooperation with Nazi Germany into a “Cause Célèbre” in October 2019, and shock waves reached the Armenian Media in the Diaspora, The Armenian Mirror-Spectator published an article titled “A Deadly Dilemma” with the following introductory paragraph:

“The demons of history are once again haunting Armenia’s political life. The memory and legacy of Garegin Nzhdeh have been resurrected and have become a controversial topic in the political discourse between Armenia and Russia, with the spillover affecting Azerbaijan.”

Thousands of Armenians in the Diaspora read the article, or knew about the insulting position of Aliyev vis-à-vis Nzhdeh. Our Editor, Noubar Serabian, was the only person who rushed to the defence of our national hero. Two years later his solo comments remain a solitary voice at the end of the article mentioned above.

We take advantage of this opportunity to point out, with a clear black and white language, the conviction we entertained back in 2019 and has remained deeply rooted in our psyche, that no matter how many Russian revisionist historians manipulate and reposition the key facts, the following conclusions remain unscathed: 

a) Without the critical assistance provided by The Soviet Union since 1924, Nazi Germany would have failed to build the highly efficient Air Force it used to launch the deadly Blitzkriegs all over Europe.

b) Claiming that The Soviet Union secretly approached England in 1938 to cooperate on a plan to eliminate Hitler, but England was committed to “The Appeasement Policy” does not change anything from the fact that without Soviet assistance since 1924, Nazi Germany would have failed in producing the deadly juggernaut that wreaked havoc all over Europe.

c) The real appeaser was The Soviet Union, and this is what Sir Winston Churchill is known to have said about appeasers: “An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.” The Soviet Union fed Hitler a dozen of European countries before it realized that Hitler is not willing to spare Russia for his last meal. Unfortunately going to bed with the Devil named Hitler, meant sacrificing more than 20 million Soviet citizens to destroy the crocodile determined to devour the world with an insatiable appetite.

Below our editors comment from 05/12/2019:

The article’s author is absolutely right in his assertion that “Now that Nzhdeh’s legacy has become a political hot potato, it is not up to the Azeris and for that matter, the Russians, to dictate which hero Armenians should nor should not honor.”

Russians, Azeris, Turks, or any other nation should make no attempt to conceal the fact that states and non-state actors conduct politics, and especially wars considered to be a continuation of a political discourse in a different language, as a game where you have no permanent enemies, no permanent friends, and the only permanent reality is your focus on protecting your nation’s interests.

It seems that Azeri President Ilham Aliyev is suffering from a “Selective Amnesia” when he accuses, in international forums, Armenians of promoting anti-Semitic sentiments by honouring heroes who decided to partner with the devil to save a nation from obliteration. Perhaps it will be a good start to highlight the critical role the Russian air base at Lipetsk, located about 250 miles south of the Soviet capital Moscow, played between 1924and 1930 in training the future pilots of the Luftwaffe, the very pilots who provided the critical air cover for the blitzkriegs of the Nazi Army into Poland and Eastern Europe. 

Soviet cooperation with Hitler and his Nazi regime did not end in 1930. On August 22, 1939, Nazi Germany’s foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop had a lengthy face-to-face with Stalin and Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov. The details of a non-aggression treaty were finalized, and on 23 August 1939, Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia shocked the world by announcing that they had concluded a non-aggression pact, that became known as The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. 

Taken at face value, the pact seemed like a garden type variety of an agreement between two sovereign states reassuring each other that no military aggression will target their respective territories. But “The Pact” had a more horrifying and sinister dimension. A long list of secret clauses and addenda that disgusted so badly communist party members in Europe, a substantial number of party card holders dumped and burned their membership IDs in front of buildings housing communist parties’ offices.

Based on the terms of the secret clauses of “The Pact”, Germany provided to Russia military hardware in exchange for raw materials such as oil-mostly from the oil fields of Azerbaijan, grain, iron and other minerals critical for the Nazi’s weapon production programs.

Soviet deliveries of oil to the fuel-starved Germans improved substantially the operational efficiency of the Nazi Army. Fuel from the oil fields of Azerbaijan was used in SS trucks that rounded up Jews in the territories conquered by the Nazi army. Fuel from the oil fields of Azerbaijan was used in locomotives that shipped thousands of Jews to concentration camps where gas chambers and specially designed ovens guaranteed a horrifying industrial type of mass destruction.

“The Pact” was used also by Stalin’s Russia to cater to the whims of Hitler who wanted all communist party members from Germany and Austria-most of them Jews, who fled Nazi persecutions since 1933 and settled down in Russia, to be returned to the Gestapo’s custody in Germany. Soviet authorities arrested and shipped back to concentration camps every communist from Germany and Austria who had taken refuge in The Soviet Union.

Now for Azebaijan, Russia, and Turkey to argue that erecting the statue of Garegin Nzhdeh anywhere on Armenian soil is a sure sign of antisemitism, is nothing but an absurd maneuver designed to burry under the rug the collaborationist role each of these countries played in supporting Nazi Germany and the fanatical antisemitism that coloured and shaped the political landscape of Europe from 1933 to 1945.

Noubar Serabian

https://mirrorspectator.com/2019/12/05/a-deadly-dilemma/