It is an oversimplification, if not outright wrong, to assume that Hitler wanted to exterminate the Slavs. You're basically parroting wartime propaganda. Hitler abhorred what he often called the 'Judeo-Bolshevik Menace,' but his criticism of the Slavs tended to be fairly limited. He may have had a certain level of disdain for them as foreigners, and especially getting mad about Slavic encroachment on Germans, for example abhorring what he termed the Czechification of the Austrian Empire, but I do not think the level you are talking about is accurate. There is plenty of stuff floating around online to corroborate what you say, but I think it is mostly either wartime or post-war disinfo.
Much of Eastern Europe was proverbially stuck between a rock and a hard place, ie between the German Reich and the Soviet Union. For many in Eastern Europe, Hitler was the lesser of two evils. There were TONS of Eastern Europeans who volunteered to fight alongside the Germans. Many joined volunteer units of the SS, for example the
Latvian Legion, or the
1st Galician from Ukraine. Indeed, even a lot of Russians joined the Germans, not seeing the Judeo-Bolshevists in charge of the USSR as representative of Russia, in a ~125,000-strong unit called the
Russian Liberation Army, or the Vlasov Army. There was even an entity called the
Ukrainian Insurgent Army, which fought alongside the Germans, and then carried on fighting the Soviets until 1956; the modern Ukrainian
Right Sector flag is based on the UIA flag. There was a similar
guerrilla war in the Baltic states that also lasted until 1956; they are known as the Forest Brothers, for their forest-based insurgency.
It is not a part of my family, but I happen to know like five different people who have at least one Eastern Euro grandparent who fought for the SS, and then fled to the West to avoid Stalin's persecution after the war was lost.
I think it is most reasonable to look at Eastern Euro "Nazism" or "neo-Nazism" as an expression of anti-Soviet politics/values, and a desire from nationalists for national autonomy/sovereignty, rather than being in favour of Soviet propaganda stating that Hitler wanted to exterminate all Soviet citizens. Stalin did a much better job exterminating Eastern Europeans than Hitler ever did.
" is gonna absolve any wrongdoing on their part, because they stood up to the Big Bad Fascist Putler.
www.nytimes.com
