Ukraine: military (Aug '14 to mid-June '15) closed

[JMA]

German helpers in uniform is a reportage by the German ARD about German citiziens supporting the (Pro)Russian cause. There are supposed to be three Germans fighting on their side of whom the ARD was able to interview one, a certain Nikolaj with a partly Russian background.

The Russian / German connection is one of the sad and tragic byproducts of the Soviet invasion of Germany in the closing stages of WW2.

One needs to read Antony Beevor's book The Fall of Berlin 1945 to be able to understand the scale of the Russian war crimes committed by the invading Soviet soldiers one of which was mass rape.

This article 'They raped every German female from eight to 80' gives an idea of the scale of these crimes. As a result there were many thousands of Russian fathered offspring.

Many of these children and in turn their own offspring have not had a easy life in Germany as this story attests - The Occupation and its Offspring: Lost Red Army Children Search for Fathers .

This legacy - of Russian fathered children - continued - though on much a smaller scale - in the occupied East Germany up to the final withdrawal of Soviet troops after 49 years.

There should be no surprise that there will be a sizeable number of 'Germans' who would feel more at home under their 'fathers' umbrella if welcomed even if they will be cynically used by the Russians as cannon fodder.

If one observes the Afghan men in Kabul it is obvious that there is a Russian legacy in this respect too where an significant minority of men between the ages 25-35 have obvious Russian type features.