“Our Real Chances of Survival”: Estonian Democrats between the Nazis and the Allies
- Peripheral Histories ISSN 2755-368X
- Apr 1
- 9 min read
Kristo Nurmis
“Ready to Die for Liberty: Tiny Estonia to Declare War on USSR as well as on Reich.” So proclaimed The Boston Globe in July 1944, relaying dramatic claims from Estonian diplomats in neutral Sweden. According to the report, Estonia—caught between Nazi Germany and the advancing Soviet Union—had mobilized, under the auspices of the National Committee for the Salvation of Estonia, two “Estonian Nationalist” divisions and a “Green Guard” said to be “[h]arrying the Germans behind the lines.” The article portrayed Estonians’ “hatred of the Germans” as matching their “fear of Russian intentions,” and sympathized with Estonian willingness “to die or at least court death as a way of dramatizing their attempt to revive… independence.”[i]
The story was itself a dramatized spectacle, as it bore little resemblance to Estonia’s real situation. Though the Estonian National Committee was undeniably real: it was a genuine coalition of liberal forces and had issued in June 1944 a bold manifesto that was both pro-independence and pro-Western; it had proclaimed itself the sole legitimate authority in the country, denounced both Soviet and Nazi violence, and declared solidarity with “the free nations of the world, led by England and the United States.”[ii] Yet this bold manifesto belied a far more convoluted reality. The Committee had never declared war on Nazi Germany. It had no independent divisions and no partisans harassing the Nazis from behind. Few Estonians truly viewed the Nazis and Soviets as equally dangerous, even if they viewed them both as occupiers.
In fact, the manifesto was not even published in Estonia until August, and even then, the references to the West were removed and anti-German sentiment toned down. While purporting to confront Nazi policies, the committee had actually endorsed the Nazi mobilization of Estonians (the two “Nationalist divisions” were actually the Waffen-SS ones). It denounced all alternative political positions and branded all evaders in the forests (the “forest brothers”) as deserters and traitors. Rather than a genuine call for action, the manifesto was a carefully crafted piece of strategic communication aimed at Western audiences—a blend of genuine sentiment, wishful thinking, and deliberate obfuscation.
Why would Estonian democrats play such a double game? Why throw support behind the Nazi war effort when its defeat was imminent? What did the Estonians truly think of the Nazis, the Soviets, and the West? Drawing on correspondence between Estonian diplomats, local politicians, and democratic activists, I will examine the delicate balancing act Estonian democrats tried to perform. Juggling with rhetorical gestures and political moves, they sought to enhance what they perceived as their “real chances of survival,” while still hoping to secure a place in post-war democratic Europe.
The Diplomats vs. the Homeland Politicians
The story begins with the brief but devastating Soviet occupation of 1940–41, which liquidated Estonian independence, deported 10,000 “anti-Soviet” men, women and children to Siberia, and left the country littered with corpses. As a result, many Estonians greeted the arriving Nazis as liberators.
Surviving politicians and officers immediately resumed efforts to restore independence. These efforts were led by former Prime Minister Jüri Uluots but similar attempts were also made by the collaborationist Estonian Self-Administration and various officers.[iii] Although the Nazis rejected all these appeals, they did not retaliate—partly due to Estonians’ warm welcome and the favorable racial status assigned to ethnic Estonians. Seeking to avoid making political martyrs, the Nazis adopted a “soft hand” policy, allowing limited nationalist activism. In turn, Estonians, though frustrated by exploitation, kept a low profile, viewing the Nazis as a necessary shield against Soviet return.
This modus vivendi created tensions between Estonian politicians at home and diplomats abroad. Diplomats in Helsinki, Stockholm, and London urged caution. Former state elder and socialist August Rei, in particular, warned that any sign of collaboration with Hitler could alienate the West. “If the actions of our leading elite,” Rei wrote to Uluots in April 1943, “create the impression in Britain and the USA that the Estonian people—whatever the reason—freely joined the Germans and linked their fate with Hitler’s Germany, there is a very real danger this could prove fatal for us.”[iv]
Rei was responding to rising domestic support for mobilizing Estonians into the Waffen-SS. Uluots, though maintaining distance from the Nazis, did not publicly oppose SS recruitment either.[v] Indeed, homeland politicians believed that Western support was hardly guaranteed, especially since the Soviets remained the Allies’ partners. Even if the Allies sympathized with Estonia, Uluots’ team wrote to Stockholm, “it is of little consolation if the English later lay flowers on the graves of murdered Estonians.”[vi]
The Waffen-SS, they insisted instead, was “the only real opportunity” to shape Estonia’s fate, since the Nazis would conscript young Estonian men regardless.[vii] When diplomats countered that such an approach might lead to a fundamental rift with the West and ultimately to the Western abandonment of Estonians, homeland politicians responded that inaction could very well produce the same result: if the West saw that Estonians did not organize to resist the Soviets, they might infer that Estonians had no objections to Soviet return in the first place.[viii]
In 1943, not all Estonian homeland patriots favored the Estonian Waffen-SS. In fact, its growing support within Uluots’s circle activated alternative political groups, mainly centered around former party apparatuses (the agrarians, liberals, and socialists), as well as student and other activist circles to look for what they called a “third way.” Posing a more staunchly pro-Western counterweight to the “conservative” Uluots’s circle, these groups began actively promoting liberal-democratic ideals and the principles of the Atlantic Charter. These groups, who later organized under the name of the Estonian National Committee, openly condemned Nazi crimes, deemed Waffen-SS mobilizations criminal, and advocated Estonians to take an openly pro-Western stance. Establishing their own lines of communications with the diplomats, they began to function as a pressure group on Uluots, though still recognizing the latter as the legitimate head of state.
While these groups represented pro-Western idealism, advocated non-collaboration and have sometimes been likened to Western European “resistance”, they, nonetheless, never sought to undermine the Nazi war effort either.[ix] Like the rest of the patriotic forces, they considered the Soviets the “greater evil” and saw Nazi military might as a necessary shield against the Soviet return; they just wanted to spare Estonian manpower from bloodletting and unsavory association with Nazi criminality.[x]
The 1944 Patriotic Consensus
Convenient moral choices collapsed in January 1944, as the Red Army once again closed in on Estonian borders, forcing local politicians to take a definite public stance on national defense. At the Germans’ urging, Uluots decided now to openly endorse a general mobilization of all fighting-age Estonian men under Nazi command. In two influential radio addresses to the nation, he declared that there was “no other option, neither second nor third to save the Estonian people… but only one option: to prevent the Bolsheviks from conquering our land…. We must have one spirit, one mind, and one heart.”[xi]
The diplomats initially suspected Nazi pressure on Uluots. In truth, however, Uluots had struck a deal with the Nazis for uncensored public addresses and to legally meet and persuade also the underground activists to back the mobilization. The persuasion worked, and by late February, even the most radical pro-Western liberals reversed their prior stance, agreeing it was essential to keep the Red Army at bay with the help of the Nazis. Even the Nazi Security Police found this sudden about-face startling.[xii]
To preserve agency in these circumstances, the liberal forces united in March to form the Estonian National Committee. Again, the diplomats sought to use the liberals as leverage against Uluots, urging the latter to form a genuine national government and adopt a clearer anti-Nazi stance for the Allied gaze. But the liberals refused. As the National Committee secretary explained, national defense had to take precedence over diplomatic optics:
The Allies would like us to declare our positions in a way that pleases them, but that is something we simply cannot do right now. Our country and our people demand close cooperation with the Germans because this is the only viable way to preserve our nation. Germany remains the only power that can help us militarily, both with men and weapons. Here, too, we do not intend to declare sympathy for the Allies (even though they seem to show greater goodwill toward us) nor hostility toward the occupation authorities, as either stance could diminish our real chances of survival.[xiii]
Once again, the diplomats felt frustrated but eventually caved to local arguments, not only because they had no other options, but because they also agreed with them. Alexander Warma, a former Estonian ambassador to Finland, noted in a letter to Uluots: “It is a matter of survival for us to halt Russian expansion toward Estonia and weaken the Red Army. Thus, we will naturally defend our country’s borders loyally alongside the Germans and make maximum use of them, just as they do of us.”[xiv]
This tactical partnership between the Estonians and the Nazis ended in late September 1944. As the Nazis began retreating from Tallinn, the National Committee, Uluots’ circle, and the diplomats seized the brief interregnum and declared on September 22 the creation of a pro-Western democratic national government. The plan quickly unraveled as several ministers failed to evacuate, and many were captured by the Soviet counterintelligence. Some were executed, others perished in Siberian captivity, and only a few survived in the West, where they formed the foundation for the future Estonian government-in-exile.
In the historiography of Second World War, collaborators often appear as authoritarian sympathizers who longed for Nazi victory.[xv] While this might have been true in many cases, the Estonian case presents an anomaly: even pro-Western activists could regard cooperation with the Nazis as a tactical necessity, not because they believed Germany was winning, but because it was losing.
Without a doubt, this tactical cooperation involved moral compromises. Estonia’s broad support for the Nazi war effort may have delayed the German retreat and prolonged suffering in the Nazi camps. Though the activists championed democratic and civic ideals, they referred to Nazi violence only in general terms, overlooking the genocide of Jews and Roma. Nevertheless, the Estonian case sheds an important light on often-overlooked aspects of the war: Nazi tolerance for local agency and local efforts to carve out an autonomous political path within the grand Nazis vs. Soviets confrontation. Rather than reproducing the WWII binaries, the Estonian case presents an opportunity to historicize these binaries, showing how smaller nations tried to navigate the wartime discursive hegemonies and stake their claim. This complicated story of deliberation and decision-making in the face of inescapable choices deserves more attention in WWII historiography, as it helps us see the war’s multinational dynamics and understand its lasting influence on European memory culture, still divided.
Kristo Nurmis is a lecturer in 20th-century history at the Tallinn University School of Humanities. He received his PhD in Russian and Eastern European history from Stanford University (2022) and his BA and MA from the University of Tartu. He has published extensively on Soviet and Nazi rule in the Baltic states and is currently working on a book project examining legitimacy, mass mobilization, and propaganda in the Soviet and Nazi-occupied Baltic States, 1939–53.
This article has been published with the help of the Estonian Research Council grant (Project SJD80).
[i] Boston Globe, July 31, 1944.
[ii] Tõotan ustavaks jääda… Eesti Vabariigi valitsus 1940–1992, eds. Mart Orav, Enn Nõu. Tartu, 2004, p. 1225.
[iii] Johannes Klesment. “Kolm aastat Iseseisvuse võitlust võõra okupatsiooni all.” In Eesti Riik Ja Rahvas Teises Maailmasõjas, VIII, pp. 7–50. Stockholm: EMP, 1959.
[iv] Tõotan ustavaks jääda..., 652.
[v] Many of them joined the so-called Society of the Estonian Legion (Eesti Leegioni Sõprade Selts). For their manifesto and list of prominent supporters, see Eesti Sõna, March 4, 1943.
[vi] Tõotan ustavaks jääda..., 629.
[vii] Ibid.
[viii] Tõotan ustavaks jääda..., 657.
[ix] See for these arguments in the published underground newspaper “Vaba Eesti: Vaba Eesti: Vaba Eesti Võitlusrinde häälekandja No 9 – November 1943.” Akadeemia, 2000, no 10, p. 2206.
[x] Their logic, in a nutshell, was the following: let the Germans fight while we wait for Western rescue. This stance disturbed many Estonian officers, pro-Waffen-SS figures, and soldiers, who saw it as self-serving and opportunistic. Tõotan ustavaks jääda..., 994.
[xi] Eesti Sõna, August 20, 1944.
[xii] BArch R6/220, 1-7.
[xiii] Tõotan ustavaks jääda..., 1236.
[xiv] Tõotan ustavaks jääda..., 1245.
[xv] E.g., see: David Motadel. “The Global Authoritarian Moment and the Revolt against Empire.” The American Historical Review 124, no. 3 (June 1, 2019): 843–77. https://doi.org/10.1093/ahr/rhy571.