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2024-01-21 Europe
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'Undermining democracy.' Who attacks Soviet monuments in Germany
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Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
by Gregor Spitzen
| Warning: heavy sarcasm ahead. |
[REGNUM] In less than a month, two incidents have occurred in Germany that can only be described as egregious.
At the end of December, in the town of Penzlin in the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, the cemetery of Soviet soldiers-liberators was desecrated, and on January 16 in Dresden, a memorial inscription dedicated to the civilian victims of the bombings of Anglo-American aircraft suddenly disappeared from the memorial in the center of the Saxon capital.
I would like to believe that the incidents in the lands of the former GDR are just unrelated excesses, and not part of a single campaign to try to rebuild the public consciousness of East Germans.
However, the fact that such events are happening right now, in parallel with the campaign to whip up anti-Russian hysteria and statements by individual politicians that smack of Russophobia, cannot but be alarming.
"OSSIE" AND "WESSEY" STILL EXIST
The mood in eastern Germany has long been a source of serious concern for politicians in the German government and the headquarters of the main political parties. “Ossies” - as their Western relatives call their eastern brothers “Wessies” - from the point of view of representatives of German politics, have never managed to turn into full-fledged Western-style Germans who firmly believe in the ideals of liberal democracy, brought to the country at American bayonets in 1945.
| Unlike the totalitarian Stalinism the Soviets brought them at the point of Russian (and American lend-lease) bayonets. But that was not all that different from the totalitarian Naziism they were being rescued from, so there was at least the discomfort of familiarity. |
Despite the fact that 34 years have passed since the reunification of Germany.
The “Ossies” languished for so long under the heel of the damned authoritarian socialist regime and the supervision of the omnipresent Staatssicherheit (State Security Service, or simply “Stasi”) that they were simply unable to appreciate all the delights of the free world and the advantages of the capitalist economic system. All the troubles of the inhabitants of the former GDR, as is commonly believed, stem from this brainwashing by false Soviet propaganda.
It is precisely because of their improper upbringing that they tend to go to extremes and vote for godless political forces like the AfD party, which breaks records of popularity in Thuringia, Saxony-Anhalt and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.
In Saxony, where elections to the state parliament will be held in eight months, the AfD has every chance of winning a resounding victory in the elections, even ahead of the CDU bloc. Moreover, Olaf Scholz ’s Social Democratic Party of Germany and the Free Democrats party—the yellow color in the “traffic light coalition”—risk not even overcoming the five percent threshold in these regional elections.
East Germans, many of whom still speak good Russian and have a warm attitude towards the Soviet cultural heritage,
| ...is that it, or is it fond memories of being the most efficient and effective, and therefore the most prosperous, country behind the Iron Curtain? |
have been and remain one of the main opponents of anti-Russian sanctions that are killing the region’s economy.
The city of Schwedt has an oil refinery that supplies fuel to the entire Berlin-Brandenburg metropolitan region. All activities of the enterprise were tied to the supply of Russian hydrocarbons via the Druzhba gas pipeline. And his employees - just think! — even in the spring of 2022, at the height of the conflict, after the “Bucha campaign,” they decidedly did not care about the problems of Ukraine.
At a meeting with Vice-Chancellor Robert Habeck, at that moment on the crest of political popularity, these politically illiterate proletarians, completely not imbued with the seriousness of the moment, talked about “many years of trade and economic ties with Moscow” and “the importance of Russian energy supplies for preserving jobs " Well, isn't it outrageous?!
How do these “latent Nazis” feel about the humanitarian initiatives of the federal government? Organizing mass rallies by entire villages against the construction of camps to accommodate refugees - this does not fit into any gates! Would you think that in a camp that will be located on the outskirts of a village for 500 residents, 500 young, sexually mature comrades with an eastern background will live?
So what now? Referring to the patriarchal way of life and a radical change in the ethnocultural background is some kind of archaism that smacks of real fascism!
Well, and an overly caring attitude towards Soviet monuments with prohibited communist symbols, which, due to some misunderstanding, still remain on German territory. While the advanced states of the democratic frontier in eastern Europe - Ukraine and the Baltic countries - they were destroyed long ago. This also somehow smacks of “pro-Russianism.”
Remember how the local authorities of Brandenburg in May 2022 refused to dismantle the Soviet memorial with the T-34 tank at the request of the Ukrainian side? And this while Russia is waging an “aggressive neocolonial war”! This simply doesn’t fit into any gates anymore!
UNKNOWN VANDALS
At the end of December 2023, an unfortunate incident occurred in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, which became known only on January 5. At the Soviet memorial cemetery in the town of Penzlin, six gravestone monuments to Soviet soldiers-liberators were desecrated.
The event is all the more surprising since, in general, such vandalism is not at all typical for the region. Typically, the law on the protection of military graves in Germany is strictly observed by both federal and local authorities.
Moreover, in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, monuments to Soviet soldiers have been traditionally looked after since the socialist times of the Soviet-East German brotherhood.
Most Soviet memorials are in exemplary condition and are considered local landmarks. Like, for example, the Soviet memorial cemetery in Rostock, located on Pushkin Platz (Pushkin Square) in the center of this largest city of Mecklenburg - Vorpommern.
“In connection with this incident, the embassy expresses a strong protest and insists on taking comprehensive measures to identify and bring to justice those responsible, ensuring the inviolability and safety of memorials, as follows from the obligations of the German side in accordance with the bilateral intergovernmental agreement on the care of war graves dated 16 December 1992,” said an official representative of the Russian Embassy in a protest note submitted to the German Foreign Ministry.
In principle, until now there has been no reason to blame the Mecklenburg authorities for bias. For example, local authorities responded very quickly to the incident in April 2022.
Then, on the monument to the victims of German concentration camps liberated by the Soviet army in New Brandenburg, unknown people painted a swastika and wrote a Bandera slogan. The monument was quickly put in order, and an investigation was launched against the alleged vandals. Unfortunately, the culprits themselves were never found.
As for Penzlin, the story is even more complicated. Penzlin itself is a small patriarchal town, for which the Soviet memorial cemetery has long become an integral part of the cultural landscape. All the strangers are there in plain sight, but none of the locals are capable of such sacrilege.
Surprisingly, however, there is something else. As recently as 2022, any attempts to attack Soviet cultural heritage in Germany immediately hit the media headlines and became the subject of heated public debate.
However, the incident in Penzlin became public, one might say, by accident and only because of the efforts made by the Russian Embassy.
SECRET DISMANTLING
Just under a month before the remembrance day marking the destruction of Dresden in 1945, an inscription dedicated to the victims of the barbaric attacks was removed. At the very end of World War II, Anglo-American air raids caused the death of at least 25 thousand people. Such erasing of memory caused a storm of public indignation.
In addition to the fact that the inscription was removed, the behavior of the city authorities caused no less indignation. Last Tuesday, in response to a request from journalists, they reported that “the renovation of the memorial to the victims of the air raids of February 13 and 14, 1945 is going according to plan.”
Jens Genschmar, leader of the Free Voters parliamentary group in the Dresden city council, said that he had approached Mayor Dirk Hilbert, a representative of the Free Democrats. However, I received a strange answer, which confused everything even more:
“The burgomaster first told me that it was not the city that was behind this. However, a little later, the mayor added that the city was behind the removal of the inscription, but he found it difficult to say who exactly was responsible for the dismantling,” Genshmar said.
“Neither the population nor the city council members were informed about the dismantling. This is precisely the case that is increasingly undermining democracy in the country. You can’t just take a monument and remove it. I filed an application to initiate criminal proceedings against unknown persons,” continued the leader of Free Voters.
The CDU parliamentary group in the Dresden city council was also shocked. Mario Schmidt, the party's spokesman for cultural policy, asked directly what it was.
The Vice Mayor of Dresden, responsible for cultural affairs, Annekatrin Klepsch, gave a shocking answer: “The city authorities do not know and are currently trying to clarify the situation.”
As a result, Mayor Hilbert nevertheless admitted the responsibility of the city authorities for the dismantling, finally exposing himself in an idiotic light: “Criticism in this matter is justified, since we acted extremely poorly from the point of view of communication. Active communication is essential when making changes to such a sensitive memorial site.”
In the past, the inscription was already painted over with black paint. The crime was then suspected of left-wing extremist groups, allegedly expressing their outrage that neo-Nazis were using the annual day of remembrance as a stage for their marches.
In the coming days, a memorial stele will be erected at the Altmarkt, the site where the bodies of civilians killed in the bombing were burned. The inscription on it will return, but will be slightly modified.
In addition to the number of people killed in the bombing, it will include additional information stating: “February 13, 1945 is one of the most important Remembrance Days in the capital of Saxony. Since then, this date has been repeatedly subjected to political instrumentalization and rethinking."
THE TREND IS CLEAR
Of course, it cannot be ruled out that teenagers who were not marked with the mark of intelligence were simply hooligans at the Soviet memorial cemetery in Penzlin. And the incident in Dresden was caused by a general decline in the level of the political elite, thanks to which persons with incomplete official qualifications were appointed to the post of burgomaster and senior municipal officials.
However, a bad trend is evident: both incidents received publicity only because there were still honest journalists and caring members of the public in East Germany.
But as for lowering the threshold of tolerance of official authorities towards incidents that just a few years ago had every chance of making it to the headlines of the leading media, but are now trying to be hushed up - this raises the most serious concerns.
Of course, the dismantling of monuments to the Red Army soldiers is still a long way off. And “Hiroshima amnesia” due to the erasure of the responsibility of the American “liberators” for casualties among the civilian population of Germany does not yet threaten.
But the fact that some forces are trying to work in this direction is quite obvious.
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Posted by badanov 2024-01-21 00:00||
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