Arnold Meri

Arnold Meri

Arnold Meri (born July 1, 1919 in Tallinn ; † March 27, 2009 ibid) was an Estonian veteran of World War II and hero of the Soviet Union . In the last years of his life, the Estonian state repeatedly tried to prosecute him for crimes against humanity. His cousin was the former President of Estonia, Lennart Meri . At the time of his death, Arnold Meri was the chairman of the Estonian Anti-Fascist Committee.

biography

Meri announced in 1940, after completion of the Hitler-Stalin pact and the invasion of the Red Army in the independent Estonia, voluntarily Red Army . After the German attack on the Soviet Union in June 1941, he was wounded as an officer in a battle near Pskov . He received the Hero of the Soviet Union award for organizing the defense of the Porchow - Dno front section in July 1941, which he headed as commanding officer despite being wounded four times (right hand, knee, hip and chest). After his recovery, Meri returned to the front and saw the end of the war in 1945 with the rank of colonel . From 1945 to 1949 he worked as chairman of the Central Committee of the Komsomol in the Estonian SSR . In 1948 he received the highest honor in the Soviet Union, the Order of Lenin . As early as 1951, however, Meri was deprived of all medals and orders as a result of internal party repression; to avoid an imminent arrest, he moved to the RSFSR (to Berg-Altai ). In 1956 he was rehabilitated and returned to Estonia.

Meri's opinion on Estonian role in WWII:

“Estonia's involvement in World War II was inevitable and only a naive could believe the opposite. Every Estonian had only one decision to make: whose side to seize in this bloody fight - that of the Nazis or that of the anti-Hitler coalition. "

Immediately after his death, Russian President Dmitri Medvedev awarded Meri the "Medal of Honor" posthumously.

Genocide allegations

In 2003, the Estonian security police began investigating Meri's role in the Soviet deportations from Estonians to Dagö after the Second World War. The Estonian public prosecutor charged Arnold Meri with genocide for allegedly organizing the deportation of 251 Estonian civilians to Novosibirsk Oblast in Siberia. Meri admitted to having participated in the deportations but declined responsibility for them. On May 20, 2008, the trial of Meri, who pleaded innocent, began. In his defense, Meri claimed that he had been appointed an observer of the deportation process under the law then in force to ensure that punitive measures were limited to those on special security lists. Meri claimed that he was unable to control the abuses committed by local authorities and that he thereafter withdrew from the observer post and from all operations. For this decision he was persecuted himself, his military honors were revoked and he was expelled from the Communist Party in 1949. It was not until his rehabilitation under Khrushchev in 1956 that all of this was restored. In addition, Meri stated that he was persecuted by the current Estonian government in retaliation for his anti-fascist activities and his sharp criticism of Estonian politics.

Web links

Commons : Arnold Meri  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Связисты Герои Советского Союза ( Memento from September 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
2. ↑ Red Army veteran facing genocide charge - News - Webindia123.com. In: news.webindia123.com. Retrieved February 5, 2019 . 
3. ↑ Зеркало эстонской революции ( Memento from September 24, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
4. ↑ When giants fought in Estonia - BBC , May 9, 2007
5. ^ Medvedev decorates Soviet hero Meri with Medal of Honor posthumously
6. ^ Cousin of the former Estonian president charged with genocide .
7. ↑ Estonian accused of genocide
8. ↑ Arnold Meri ei tunnistanud end genotsiidis süüdi ( Memento of 2 April 2009 at the Internet Archive )