Estonian author Jaan Kross dies at 87

[Lord_of_the_Dense]

TALLINN (AFP) - Estonians on Friday paid tribute to the Baltic state's most celebrated contemporary author Jaan Kross, following his death in the Estonian capital Tallinn aged 87.

"Jaan Kross suffered at both the hands of the Nazis and the Soviets, he was imprisoned and deported," Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves said in comments published Friday by Estonia's leading Postimees daily.

"The similarity of actions of those two criminal regimes made the writer often sneer later in his life on that similarity and to see it depict the irony of history."

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[Ed]

That similarity is quite fascinating, I think - it proves to me that extremists are often extremists only for the sake of extremes, and not for any pure theological purpose. Apparently, when East Germany came under the control of the Soviet Union, many of the former Gestapo and SS men were recruited into the NKVD and Stazi. Same murderous thugs, different uniforms, diametrically opposed politics - from far right wing to ultra left wing. Ridiculous, really