4 ms·

Forest Brothers Game: Survive the Russian Cold War Occupation of Estonia

atlasunshrugged 3mo ago
I previously wrote a book (Rebooting a Nation) on how the country of Estonia modernized post re-independence from the Soviet Union. As part of my research I also learned about the Forest Brother movement where tens of thousands of men, women, and children in the Baltics fled to the forests as the Soviets pushed the Nazi's back and re-occupied those countries. Most of the stories are equal mixes of heroic and tragic, but I found the resistance movement fascinating and had an idea for a turn-based strategy game that mixed in historical elements (and thought it was a good use case to test Fable). This is my first game, so I'd very much welcome feedback on ways to improve it!
- aakresearch 3mo ago
  Does the "re-occupied" imply that Nazi's original assault have "liberated" the countries?
  - drysine 3mo ago
    And Estonian patriots enthusiastically helped[0] German Nazis make Estonia the first judenfrei (free of Jews) country if you don't count Luxembourg.[1] These patriots had to flee to the forests when the time came to answer for their part in Holocaust and other crimes. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust_in_Estonia#Estonian_collaboration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust_in_Estonia#Eston... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judenfrei https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judenfrei
    - atlasunshrugged 3mo ago
      I don't think anyone would disagree there weren't people who committed terrible crimes in those days but I don't think its fair to paint all who fled into the forests in such broad strokes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guerrilla_war_in_the_Baltic_states https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guerrilla_war_in_the_Baltic_st...
      - drysine 3mo ago
        >I don't think anyone would disagree there weren't people who committed terrible crimes Please help me parse your triple negatives. You think everyone would agree there weren't people who committed terrible crimes?
      - drysine 3mo ago
        >I don't think its fair to paint all who fled into the forests in such broad strokes That's what Estonians nationalists tell. "The findings of this article have implications for understanding Baltic and European collective memory. The studied memoirs consistently share the same themes: the Baltic states were purely victims of the Soviets and Nazis; Soviet occupation was worse than Nazi occupation for the titular ethnicities; the Baltic Waffen-SS legions did not commit atrocities; and the Holocaust was solely a German crime. As scholars have argued (Katz Citation2016, Citation2017; Mälksoo Citation2014; Radonić Citation2018; Subotić Citation2019), these rhetorical strategies represent an adaptation to, rather than an acceptance of, the Western narrative of the Holocaust in Estonia and Latvia. This is evident in the omission of Jewish Bolshevism as a threat to Europe and the distancing of Estonians and Latvians from involvement in genocide, which produces a clear-cut story of patriotic defense against the genocidal Soviet Union. The adaptation has had an effect on the wider European narrative, as increasingly more European politicians and commentators buy into the argument that communism was equal to fascism. In striving to emphasize the European credentials of the Baltic states, without accepting any responsibility for assisting – knowingly or unknowingly – in the genocidal Nazi project, Estonian and Latvian Legion veterans have produced a revisionist version of World War II history. In their narrative, which mimics wartime Nazi propaganda, collaboration with Nazi Germany demonstrated their essential Europeanness in the face of Asian Bolshevism. While they may lack some of the political correctness of official discourse, their arguments, with the exception of one author, correspond to the hegemonic narrative in the Baltic states today." [0] [0] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01629778.2023.2173262 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01629778.2023.2...
    - mopsi 3mo ago
      > And Estonian patriots enthusiastically helped[0] German Nazis make Estonia the first judenfrei (free of Jews) country if you don't count Luxembourg.[1] They famously didn't. The German occupation authorities' preferred method of dealing with Jews was to instigate pogroms, but they failed to do so in Estonia, and fearing the same pushback from civilians they had seen earlier in Latvia, instead fell back on using German paramilitary units like Sonderkommando 1a, attached to the Army Group North. Judenfrei Estonia is a shared credit between the USSR and Germany. USSR occupied Estonia 1940-1941 and disproportionally targeted Jews because of their social class (doctors, lawyers, etc). Germans finished the job when the German army arrived in 1941 and stayed until 1944. Of the 4500 pre-war Jews, about 1000 remained by German arrival. Their tragedy was that they had an opportunity to flee with retreating Russians, but did not use it, believing that Germans couldn't possibly treat them worse than Russians. > These patriots had to flee to the forests when the time came to answer for their part in Holocaust and other crimes. No, people fled en masse to forests to spare themselves from being deported to Siberian labor camps. The first wave was in 1941: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/June_deportation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/June_deportation The second major wave was in 1949, about 70% of the targeted were women and children under 16: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Priboi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Priboi Russians didn't care about the Holocaust one bit. Anti-semitism was rampant in the USSR and remained so until the very end in the early 1990s. The purpose of these actions was to destroy the professional classes who could run a country and organize resistance to Russians (1941), and to punish rural farmers who resisted giving up their land, animals and tools to collective farms (1949). It's notable that these actions targeted entire families. The mother of Kaja Kallas, the current EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs, was a six-month-old baby when their family was deported to Siberia. I wonder what her role in the Holocaust was. In the early 1960s, the USSR authorities held a war crimes trial of Estonians as Cold War propaganda to reinforce the Soviet narrative of "liberation", legitimize their occupation, discredit émigré movements and accuse Western governments of harboring fascists, but they could not find more than a literal handful of defendants.
  - atlasunshrugged 3mo ago
    No, they were occupied by the Nazis too, but then the Soviets came back, hence "re-occupied"
watersb 3mo ago
I was very fortunate to spend a few weeks in Tallinn in the summer of 1990, an astonishing time to be there. Estonia emerged as a tech startup incubator in those first few years of independence, as a way of attracting capital and talent. Now I need to learn about this game and book!
- drysine 3mo ago
  I wonder if the story of "alien" passports[0] and creeping ethnic cleansing[1] in the independent Estonia will make into the game. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estonian_alien's_passport https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estonian_alien's_passport [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Estonia#Ethnic_groups https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Estonia#Ethnic...
  - atlasunshrugged 3mo ago
    Having lived in Estonia some years ago when the debate over whether Russian should be taught in schools was raging (only changing after Russia's full scale invasion of Ukraine) it seems to me that the grey passport holders who refused to acknowledge and assimilate into the independent country that returned to its rightful state after fifty years of brutal occupation are the ones holding most of the blame here. Estonia is an exemplar in upholding human rights since regaining independence. https://freedomhouse.org/country/estonia/freedom-world/2025 https://freedomhouse.org/country/estonia/freedom-world/2025
    - drysine 3mo ago
      >who refused to assimilate into the independent country "Cultural genocide may also involve forced assimilation, as well as the suppression of a language or cultural activities that do not conform to the destroyer's notion of what is appropriate" [0] >are the ones holding most of the blame here Blaming the victim. Classic. >Estonia is an exemplar in upholding human rights since regaining independence. You must be kidding. Or you just don't count Russians as human. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_genocide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_genocide

I previously wrote a book (Rebooting a Nation) on how the country of Estonia modernized post re-independence from the Soviet Union. As part of my research I also learned about the Forest Brother movement where tens of thousands of men, women, and children in the Baltics fled to the forests as the Soviets pushed the Nazi's back and re-occupied those countries. Most of the stories are equal mixes of heroic and tragic, but I found the resistance movement fascinating and had an idea for a turn-based strategy game that mixed in historical elements (and thought it was a good use case to test Fable). This is my first game, so I'd very much welcome feedback on ways to improve it!

aakresearch 3mo ago
Does the "re-occupied" imply that Nazi's original assault have "liberated" the countries?
- drysine 3mo ago
  And Estonian patriots enthusiastically helped[0] German Nazis make Estonia the first judenfrei (free of Jews) country if you don't count Luxembourg.[1] These patriots had to flee to the forests when the time came to answer for their part in Holocaust and other crimes. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust_in_Estonia#Estonian_collaboration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust_in_Estonia#Eston... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judenfrei https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judenfrei
  - atlasunshrugged 3mo ago
    I don't think anyone would disagree there weren't people who committed terrible crimes in those days but I don't think its fair to paint all who fled into the forests in such broad strokes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guerrilla_war_in_the_Baltic_states https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guerrilla_war_in_the_Baltic_st...
    - drysine 3mo ago
      >I don't think anyone would disagree there weren't people who committed terrible crimes Please help me parse your triple negatives. You think everyone would agree there weren't people who committed terrible crimes?
    - drysine 3mo ago
      >I don't think its fair to paint all who fled into the forests in such broad strokes That's what Estonians nationalists tell. "The findings of this article have implications for understanding Baltic and European collective memory. The studied memoirs consistently share the same themes: the Baltic states were purely victims of the Soviets and Nazis; Soviet occupation was worse than Nazi occupation for the titular ethnicities; the Baltic Waffen-SS legions did not commit atrocities; and the Holocaust was solely a German crime. As scholars have argued (Katz Citation2016, Citation2017; Mälksoo Citation2014; Radonić Citation2018; Subotić Citation2019), these rhetorical strategies represent an adaptation to, rather than an acceptance of, the Western narrative of the Holocaust in Estonia and Latvia. This is evident in the omission of Jewish Bolshevism as a threat to Europe and the distancing of Estonians and Latvians from involvement in genocide, which produces a clear-cut story of patriotic defense against the genocidal Soviet Union. The adaptation has had an effect on the wider European narrative, as increasingly more European politicians and commentators buy into the argument that communism was equal to fascism. In striving to emphasize the European credentials of the Baltic states, without accepting any responsibility for assisting – knowingly or unknowingly – in the genocidal Nazi project, Estonian and Latvian Legion veterans have produced a revisionist version of World War II history. In their narrative, which mimics wartime Nazi propaganda, collaboration with Nazi Germany demonstrated their essential Europeanness in the face of Asian Bolshevism. While they may lack some of the political correctness of official discourse, their arguments, with the exception of one author, correspond to the hegemonic narrative in the Baltic states today." [0] [0] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01629778.2023.2173262 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01629778.2023.2...
  - mopsi 3mo ago
    > And Estonian patriots enthusiastically helped[0] German Nazis make Estonia the first judenfrei (free of Jews) country if you don't count Luxembourg.[1] They famously didn't. The German occupation authorities' preferred method of dealing with Jews was to instigate pogroms, but they failed to do so in Estonia, and fearing the same pushback from civilians they had seen earlier in Latvia, instead fell back on using German paramilitary units like Sonderkommando 1a, attached to the Army Group North. Judenfrei Estonia is a shared credit between the USSR and Germany. USSR occupied Estonia 1940-1941 and disproportionally targeted Jews because of their social class (doctors, lawyers, etc). Germans finished the job when the German army arrived in 1941 and stayed until 1944. Of the 4500 pre-war Jews, about 1000 remained by German arrival. Their tragedy was that they had an opportunity to flee with retreating Russians, but did not use it, believing that Germans couldn't possibly treat them worse than Russians. > These patriots had to flee to the forests when the time came to answer for their part in Holocaust and other crimes. No, people fled en masse to forests to spare themselves from being deported to Siberian labor camps. The first wave was in 1941: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/June_deportation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/June_deportation The second major wave was in 1949, about 70% of the targeted were women and children under 16: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Priboi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Priboi Russians didn't care about the Holocaust one bit. Anti-semitism was rampant in the USSR and remained so until the very end in the early 1990s. The purpose of these actions was to destroy the professional classes who could run a country and organize resistance to Russians (1941), and to punish rural farmers who resisted giving up their land, animals and tools to collective farms (1949). It's notable that these actions targeted entire families. The mother of Kaja Kallas, the current EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs, was a six-month-old baby when their family was deported to Siberia. I wonder what her role in the Holocaust was. In the early 1960s, the USSR authorities held a war crimes trial of Estonians as Cold War propaganda to reinforce the Soviet narrative of "liberation", legitimize their occupation, discredit émigré movements and accuse Western governments of harboring fascists, but they could not find more than a literal handful of defendants.
- atlasunshrugged 3mo ago
  No, they were occupied by the Nazis too, but then the Soviets came back, hence "re-occupied"

watersb 3mo ago

I was very fortunate to spend a few weeks in Tallinn in the summer of 1990, an astonishing time to be there. Estonia emerged as a tech startup incubator in those first few years of independence, as a way of attracting capital and talent. Now I need to learn about this game and book!

drysine 3mo ago
I wonder if the story of "alien" passports[0] and creeping ethnic cleansing[1] in the independent Estonia will make into the game. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estonian_alien's_passport https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estonian_alien's_passport [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Estonia#Ethnic_groups https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Estonia#Ethnic...
- atlasunshrugged 3mo ago
  Having lived in Estonia some years ago when the debate over whether Russian should be taught in schools was raging (only changing after Russia's full scale invasion of Ukraine) it seems to me that the grey passport holders who refused to acknowledge and assimilate into the independent country that returned to its rightful state after fifty years of brutal occupation are the ones holding most of the blame here. Estonia is an exemplar in upholding human rights since regaining independence. https://freedomhouse.org/country/estonia/freedom-world/2025 https://freedomhouse.org/country/estonia/freedom-world/2025
  - drysine 3mo ago
    >who refused to assimilate into the independent country "Cultural genocide may also involve forced assimilation, as well as the suppression of a language or cultural activities that do not conform to the destroyer's notion of what is appropriate" [0] >are the ones holding most of the blame here Blaming the victim. Classic. >Estonia is an exemplar in upholding human rights since regaining independence. You must be kidding. Or you just don't count Russians as human. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_genocide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_genocide