ESTONIA: Almost extinguished, successfully reborn

ESTONIA:
Almost
extinguished,
successfully
reborn
drafted men ended up in the labour battalion camps of
the Far North as “not trustworthy” persons. Since these
camps did not differ much from Soviet Gulag camps, at
least 8000 Estonians in labour battalions died during
the following winter as a result of hunger and inhuman
working conditions. Pressed by the advancing Germans,
Stalin later changed his mind and in September 1942 the
Estonian National Rifle Corps (25,000–30,000 strong)
was formed from the surviving draftees and Estonians
living in the Soviet Union. The Corps participated in the
Soviet war effort and was disbanded in 1946.
To escape this new wave of terror and forced conscription
into the Red Army, thousands of men took
refuge in the forests and started organizing self-defence
groups. In many places, partisan units called “Forest
Brothers” defended their home villages from destruction
and tried to rescue compatriots arrested by the NKVD.
In several regions the Forest Brothers seized power,
displayed national flags and proclaimed the restoration
of the Republic of Estonia. Tartu, the second largest city
in Estonia, was liberated by the Forest Brothers. On 28
August 1941 Tallinn fell into the hands of German and
Estonian units. The Estonian patriots even hoisted their
blue, black and white national colours on Tall Hermann
tower in the parliamentary complex. However, on the
following day the Germans replaced the Estonian flag
with their own swastika banner.
It became clear that Hitler was not interested in
restoring even a quasi-independent Estonian state. In
reality, one foreign occupation had replaced the other.
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