Why I’m ‘calling out’ the Nazis fighting for Ukraine
Can Nazis ever be a means to an end?
I recently returned from a trip to Nuremberg in Bavaria. It’s a beautiful medieval city, famous for its castle, special gingerbread, bratwurst and Christmas market. However for most Brits the city is predominantly associated with the Nuremberg trials and Nazis. My Grandma’s House is just a short walk away from the famous Nazi Party Rally Grounds, ‘das Reichsparteigelände’. Hitler’s vast Colosseum style ‘Kongresshalle’ dominates the landscape and now has a Third Reich Museum attached to it. Even closer to our house is Luitpoldhain Park, used from 1926 onwards for the spectacular Nazi party rallies. It was there my own late Grandad had to swear an oath of allegiance to Führer and Reich in a crowd of over 100,000 soldiers. Even playing in that park as a child I started to become aware of Nuremberg’s darker history, aided by grandparents’ stories and the unavoidable architectural landscape. Now it is part of me, as it is for the vast majority of Germans. Nazism still echoes around them and they embrace that as a vital reminder that evil can so easily take hold. In the UK we don’t live with those ghosts and the very visible daily reminders of what Nazism is and does.
The words Nazi and fascist are clearly misused all the time. The widespread displays of Platinum Jubilee flags and bunting triggered bizarre comparisons to ‘Nazi Germany’ from a worrying number of people, often of an anti Brexit persuasion. Indeed pop onto social media anytime and you will regularly see people referring to ‘Tory Nazi scum.’ David Lammy infamously compared members of the European Research Group to the Nazis. On The Andrew Marr Show in April 2019 Mr Lammy used Jacob Rees Mogg retweeting the German AFD Party as ‘evidence of extreme far right fascism.’ He passionately declared ‘never must we appease that . . we must fight it and call it out for what it is.’
However there was precious little ‘calling out’ on March 8th when NATO accidentally posted some photos of Ukrainian fighters wearing the Nazi Black Sun symbol. https://www.newsweek.com/nato-says-it-didnt-notice-ukraine-soldiers-apparent-nazi-symbol-tweet-1686523 The images were removed swiftly without comment, just like Zelensky’s Instagram post on 9th March, Russian WW2 Victory Day, of an Ukrainian soldier wearing an SS Totenkopf badge.
Instead of outcry and questioning there has been a concerted effort by western media and politicians to downplay and justify the clear evidence of Nazism in the Ukrainian army. Recently there was even praise by some for the Azov Battalion dropping the Nazi Wolfsangel symbol, (which hails from the elite Second SS Panzer Division, Das Reich), from its official insignia.
But does removing the Nazi symbol redeem the Nazi beneath? The Times’s article on removing the Wolfsangel focuses on dismissing Putin’s ‘denazification’ justification for invasion. It argues that the presence of Nazis in Russia’s army undermines that in itself. We are apparently allowed only two options, accepting Putin’s propaganda or taking Nazism in Ukraine seriously. Furthermore the line of argument that Ukrainian Nazis are of no concern because the far right lurks in every nation is classic whataboutery. Those other extremists, such as the Wagner Group in the Russian Army, are not being supported by the UK tax payer. To date we have given £750,000,000 in military assistance to Ukraine, including paying Ukraine army wages.
Many also justify ignoring Ukrainian army Nazism because of the extreme war situation. They argue our focus must solely be on Putin’s evil actions. Perhaps we can tolerate Nazis in extremis? However there was concern in the UK media about Ukraine’s army before Russian’s invasion. There was a Guardian article from 2018 that says an Azov Battalion march in Kiev ‘was reminiscent of 1930s Germany,’ and leaves no doubt as to Azov’s Nazi connections.
(Interestingly there is a recently added note at the end emphasising Russia’s role as the real villain, as though the reader will jump from concern about Ukrainian Nazis to supporting Putin). In 2019 US based magazine The Nation also wrote ‘Ukraine is the world’s only nation to have a neo-Nazi formation in its armed forces.’
https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/neo-nazis-far-right-ukraine/
That same year Facebook subjected the Azov Battalion and wider movement to the harshest Tier 1 restrictions, (which also apply to ISIS and the KKK), under its wider prohibition against ‘hate groups’. This banned users from praising, supporting or representing Azov in any way. However, in February of this year these restrictions were eased for the specific context of the Ukraine war. Facebook even internally published examples of Azov related speech that would now be permitted including, ‘I think Azov is playing a patriotic role during this crisis.’ On the other hand they provided two examples of statements that would still be prohibited. ‘Well done Azov for protecting Ukraine and its white nationalist heritage,’ and ‘Goebbels, the Führer and Azov, all are great models of national sacrifices and heroism.’ https://theintercept.com/2022/02/24/ukraine-facebook-azov-battalion-russia/
Does this mean Nazis are ‘ok’ as long as they refrain from using explicitly Nazi language?
One could ask what threat a proportionally small Nazi element in the Ukraine army poses, especially in the shadow of Putin. As recent as January 2021 Time Magazine ran an article about Azov, whom they described as a ‘far right militia’, and their use of social media to recruit. https://time.com/5926750/azov-far-right-movement-facebook/. The article powerfully shows how the Azov movement stretches from the vigilante militia side, to the official Army section, an office in Kiev, to owning two publishing houses and putting on summer camps for children. However it is their international reach which is the most chilling. The Azov movement is an important part of a global network of far right extremists.
‘Outside Ukraine, Azov occupies a central role in a network of extremist groups stretching from California across Europe to New Zealand, according to law enforcement officials on three continents. And it acts as a magnet for young men eager for combat experience.’
Furthermore they have ‘trained and inspired white supremacists from around the world.’ How much more of a nightmare threat will this network be as a result of the West arming, emboldening and bestowing hero status on some of its members. Only recently the US witnessed a horrific mass shooting in Buffalo when 18 year old Payton Gendron shot dead 10 and injured 3 others. Gendron is a white supremacist, had a Nazi code written on his rifle and is pictured wearing the Nazi Black Sun. Various ‘fact checking agencies’ went into overdrive to try and squash any suggestion of a link to the Azov Battalion. But, as that Time Magazine article highlights, there doesn’t have to be a direct link in a network that works by inspiration as much as direct contact. That’s exactly the way ISIS often works. Indeed Western Government’s actions are creating a monstrous Nazi equivalent and addition to the Islamic extremism we have all come to fear.
A few months ago Germany was tentatively trying to raise concerns about the threat lurking within Ukraine as well as that attacking it. Main German news channel ARD ran big features discussing the magnetic pull from Azov drawing far right militia from all over Europe to fight for Ukraine. It’s depressing that, due to its disastrous Russian energy dependency, even Germany has now been guilt tripped into silence on this issue. But hearing Julia Hartley Brewer on Talk TV say of Avoz ‘I don’t care about their politics’, I thought of my Grandad telling me to ‘never stop speaking about’ what he lived through. He said it repeatedly even though he sometimes struggled to verbalise certain horrors he had witnessed. David Lammy falsely and ludicrously called certain Conservative MPs Nazis. Yet his words and passion should be applied to addressing real Nazism today. ‘I’m not backing off on this. I will never back off on this . . . We must fight it and call it out for what it is.’