Alfons Rebane - Controversies

Controversies

In 1977, Patrice Chairoff and Beate Klarsfeld alleged Rebane was a war criminal. Investigations conducted by the KGB after World War II found no evidence confirming the accusations against Colonel Alfons Rebane and his army unit, while in the West during the Nuremberg trials and during his subsequent work for the MI6 and his life in West Germany no charges against Rebane were ever made.

The return and reburial of Rebane's ashes with military honours at a national cemetery during 1999 in Estonia sparked some controversy. The American Jewish Congress protested the reburial served as an "indication that fascist ideology is recognized in Estonia". A tombstone to Rebane, unofficially erected in 2004 but unveiled before Pärnumaa District Parliamentarian and former Foreign Minister Trivimi Velliste, was protested by Russia's Chief Rabbi, Berl Lazar and the Russian Jewish Congress.

The citations of the Judgement of the Nuremberg Tribunal by the Russian Federation's Permanent Mission to the United Nations in according criminal responsibility (and thus charges of historical revisionism in Estonia) has been criticized as inaccurate by the EU Presidency. The Nuremberg Tribunal in declaring the Waffen SS a criminal organization explicitly exempted conscripts who had committed no crimes from that judgement, which included the Baltic Waffen-SS divisions. It is mention of this exemption from the Nuremberg judgement that is omitted by the Russia Federation. The United States officials have declared the Baltic Waffen SS units not to be hostile to the Government of the United States and the units were "considered as separate and distinct in purpose, ideology, activities and qualification from the regular SS According to Andrew Mollo, a British authority on the SS: "the Estonian SS were very different from other SS units: Estonia had been occupied by the Red Army in 1940, the Estonians fought for the independence of their country and were brought under the SS umbrella against their will."

The Estonian authorities assert that the Estonian Waffen SS units engaged solely in combat operations at the front to defend Estonia's independence and had nothing to do with punitive operations in the territories occupied by the Nazi Germany. According to the President of Estonia Toomas Hendrik Ilves "We are witnesses to the information war against Estonia which already reminds of an ideological aggression". According to the editor of Virumaa Teataja newspaper Rein Sikk: "Alfons Rebane was a good soldier according to our historians. He was never convicted of war crimes and are just a political game to try to show that Estonia has lots of fascists."