9 May in Azerbaijan

Today,  on 9 May,  the anniversary of the 70th anniversary of victory over Nazi Germany , not any celebrations are held in Azerbaijan. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has left for Moscow for the Victory Parade. On 7 May, he attended the opening of a new administrative building of the veterans of war, labor and Armed Forces, where he  met with veterans of the Great Patriotic War and the Armed Forces. Here he declared inadmissibility  of the revision of  history of the contribution of the Soviet Union in the victory over Germany. "This is intolerable, unacceptable," he said.

Aliyev noted that the Soviet army defended Baku, and the Azerbaijani people is to get rid of the big troubles. "300,000 representatives of Azerbaijan died heroically. But if Hitler's army invaded Baku, there would be  a genocide against our people, as the ideology of fascism is based on racism, discrimination, xenophobia and hostility towards other nationalities," he said.

Aliyev expressed concern with rising fascist ideology in the modern world, calling it one of the manifestations of Armenian fascism, which committed genocide in Khojaly and occupied territories of Azerbaijan. "We are fighting with the Armenian fascism and take revenge for our victim. We accept and we will take the necessary measures  to punish  fascists," he said.

It should be noted that Aliyev for the first time appears on the eve of victory with such a strong statement about trying to re-evaluate the  history and the manifestation of Armenian fascism.

For Azerbaijan, the date May 8-9, is twofold. On the one hand, it is  a celebration of the Victory in World War II, and on the other hand, the Armenian occupation of Shusha the former capital of Karabakh on 8-9 May, 1992.

However,  these dates  are not marked at the national level. It is also unknown whether Aliyev performed  this year a traditional ritual of laying flowers at the monument to the twice Hero of the Soviet Union, General  Hazi Aslanov - as a tribute to all those who died in World War II.  There is not official information about it.

The Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945 affected virtually every Azerbaijani family, and Baku oil played an important role in ensuring military victory over fascism. Every fifth citizen of Azerbaijan fought in the Second World War. The population of  Azerbaijan was then 3.4 million; and in 1941  went to the front 681,000  people( of them more than 10,000 were women.) They were the representatives of different nationalities, 250,000 of them died. More than 400,000 soldiers and officers were awarded orders and medals, 14 people became  gentlemen of the Order of Glory, 123 became Heroes of the Soviet Union,  and 44 hero  were ethnic Azerbaijanis.

During the war, Azerbaijan was the main supplier of crude oil and petroleum products (over 70% of the total produced in the period of the Soviet Union.) Baku produced more than 130 types of weapons and ammunition. At  the  enterprises and collective farms, about 70% of employees were women.

On the territory of Azerbaijan were created  87 battalions, 1123 self-defense units;  were  formed the 77th, 223rd, 396 th, 402 th and 416 th national infantry divisions,  which fought from the foothills of the Caucasus to the Baltic countries, Eastern Europe and Berlin; 440,000  wounded  at the front were treated in the country's hospitals.

At the same time, the Azerbaijanis fought on Germany's side in order to create an independent state. During the war political emigrants formed the Azerbaijan National Committee, which was supposed to lead the country after the capture by the Germans of the Caucasus. In 1941,  was created the Caucasian-Mohammedan Legion, which in 1942 was renamed to Azerbaijan (Azerbajdzansche).

On the Caucasian Front fought five battalions of about 4,500 Azerbaijani soldiers, who have shown themselves in the best way. For example, the 804 Battalion "Aslan" ("Brave") compared with all foreign units had a high number of soldiers  awarded for various combat "merits",   among them were battalions "Bergman", "Donmek."

In the summer 1943 was formed  the 162 th Turkic Infantry Division as part of the Azerbaijani regiment and a separate construction battalion. In 1944 Azerbaijani legion was reformed into Joint Staff of the Azerbaijan Liberation Army. In total,  on the part of the Germans fought 38,000Azerbaijani soldiers and officers.-0-