Reviewed by Ain Söödor
In his book, THE RADICAL RIGHT IN INTERWAR ESTONIA, Andres Kasekamp would have done a much better job of defending and re-defining the image of the members of the Veterans' League, if he had made it clear that when President Päts outlawed the Veterans' League and all the members of the League were 'tarred with the same brush', considerable differences existed between many members of the League.
Not all members of the League agreed with the leadership of the League. The League's newspaper, VÕITLUS, did not speak for all the members of the League.
Because most of the records of the League were destroyed by the League's leadership, we do not know - and we may never know - exactly how many members of the League were 'fascists' and how many were not, how many genuinely believed in parliamentary democracy and how many did not, how many wanted to seize power 'by force of arms' and how many did not.
Many changes took place in the League, originally called the 'Tallinn Estonian War of Independence League' (TEVL), founded in 1926 by veterans of the War of Liberation. Two years later, In 1928, a number of senior officers - generals Andres Larka, Ernst Põdder, Johannes Roska and colonel Karl Parts - joined the TEVL. Põdder was elected chairman of the TEVL. 'We have achieved independent statehood,' said Põdder, 'but the internal struggle continues - the battle for economic and cultural independence. The hard-won freedom must be defended otherwise it will slip out of our hands.' (Page 25).
The League became a nationwide organization in 1929 but in 1931, Generals Roska and Põdder resigned from their positions on the executive of the League because of a Ministry of Defence circular, prohibiting active service officers from holding positions in political parties. (Page 29). A year later, in March, 1932, non-veterans were given full membership in the League. (Page 29).
'The Veterans' ideals can be extolled even when no actual veterans are any longer alive and all persons sharing our views have a right to participate', wrote General Põdder in the Veteran's newspaper VÕITLUS, (Kasekamp, page 29).
By 1932, the League had come increasingly under the influence of the League's propaganda strategist, Hjalmar Mäe, (the man who made sure that all the membership lists, incriminating documents and records of the League were destroyed shortly before the League was outlawed in 1934), who repeatedly denied that the League was influenced by German National Socialism but whose political allegiance to Hitler became quite clear when, at the start of World War Two after Germany occupied Estonia, Mäe offered his services to Hitler and was subsequently appointed Director of the Estonian civil administration in December 1941 (Page 135).
Mäe then publicly declared that the Veterans were the Estonian equivalent of the (German) NSDAP, having fought for the same ideals such as '... liberal democracy, international Jewry and freemasonry.'(Page 137).
It is very hard to believe that the aims of the NSDAP were the aims of most of the members of the Estonian Veterans' League. First, it is not likely that many members of the League knew what Mäe's 'hidden agenda' was. Second, if they had known, it is highly likely that they would have opposed it vigorously. Third, it is also highly likely that they were bitterly disappointed when the leaders of the League transformed it from a powerful moral force to a subversive, undemocratic and unprincipled political tool of German National Socialism - the Nazi Party. (To be continued)