Posted on 02/13/2005 9:03:24 PM PST by familyop
A show of strength by German neo-Nazis yesterday cast a sinister shadow over ceremonies to mark the 60th anniversary of the Allied bombing raids on Dresden.
At least 5,000 people gathered in bright sunshine and biting cold to hear rabble-rousing speeches before marching around the city whose heart was destroyed with enormous loss of life by British and American aircraft. Protesters and neo-Nazis in Dresden, and [top] candles spell out the slogan 'This town is sick of Nazis'
Many were dressed in Nazi gear and brandished banners declaring the attack to be a war crime. They greatly outnumbered Left-wing counter-demonstrators kept in check by an army of policemen.
The rally - plainly designed as a provocation - threatened to mar what the organisers intended to be a day of remembrance, remorse and reconciliation.
It started with services in some of the city's restored churches and was followed by a wreath-laying ceremony at the Heidefriedhof cemetery among pines and birches on the hills above Dresden.
The memorial to the dead - most of them women, children and the elderly - lies next to a monument to those who perished in Coventry, Rotterdam, Warsaw and Nazi death camps. Among those taking part were many survivors of the firestorm that in a few hours laid waste to the city.
"I was six years old when it happened," said Helga Schutz. "My father and mother were killed but somehow I survived. I live in Potsdam now but I come back every year to remember all those who died. It's very important to me."
The wall of remembrance carries the words: "How many died? Who knows their number?" The precise death toll is not known. The official figure is 35,000 but many bodies could have been incinerated in furnace heat generated by a mixture of high explosive and incendiaries.
Such uncertainties and the controversy that has always surrounded the bombing operation have been used by the Right to claim that the German people were as much victims of the war as anyone.
Yesterday's demonstration was led by the neo-Nazi National Democratic Party (NPD) who last year won seats in the Dresden-based Saxony state parliament with nine per cent of the vote. Officials sat on a platform holding crosses marked with the names of Hiroshima, Vietnam, Baghdad and Dresden.
Speaker after speaker denounced Winston Churchill, Anglo-American imperialism and the liars in the media. Behind their anger is a conviction that post-war history has grievously wronged Germany.
The NPD's regional head, Holger Apfel, complained that the German authorities had colluded in creating first- and second-class victims of the war.
Another NPD official, Arne Schimmet, 31, said afterwards: "What this is all about is trying to persuade people to have another look at history. We are not a nation of assassins. We too suffered our share of victims."
Most of the marchers, mainly young working-class men with a sprinkling of women, would probably deny they were Nazi sympathisers, but many wore black paramilitary outfits.
A column of marchers carried black banners, each marked with their town of origin in what appeared to be a nod towards the regional standards carried at Nuremberg rallies. Others waved black balloons that promised "No forgiving, no forgetting".
At one point it seemed that a clash might occur when a phalanx of counter-demonstrators blocked the march on its approach to a bridge across the Elbe but they were soon pushed back by riot police with water cannon.
As the marchers reached the other side, to the jeers and whistles of the Leftists, a bank of loudspeakers on a lorry belted out Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries.
The extremists' attempts to hijack the ceremonies were denounced yesterday by the German Chancellor, Gerhard Schröder. "Today we grieve for the victims of war and the Nazi reign of terror in Dresden, in Germany and in Europe," he said.
"We will oppose in every way these attempts to reinterpret history. We will not allow cause and effect to be reversed." Mr Schröder's government plans to introduce legislation that would ban Right-wing rallies at sites that stir up Second World War passions such as the new Holocaust monument in Berlin.
An initiative to ban the NPD failed in 2003. Last night at 9.45, all Dresden's bells were ringing out to mark the moment 60 years ago when the first RAF Lancaster bombers arrived over the city.
Later a night of silence was taking place in the crypt of the Church of Our Lady, the Frauenkirche, which was completely destroyed but rebuilt in the last 15 years and is surmounted by a golden cross, a gift from Britain.
The organisers were praying that the message of peace would prove louder than the divisive clamour generated by the Right.
What on earth prompted that? I said nothing about the German people.
"You obviously know nothing about any sale be it religion, retailing, or the sale of ideas. "Buying it back" refers to having already made sale, and continuing the pitch to the point where the target looses interest.
Enough already with the German people. They've had the guilt thing on their backs for to long. It's going to come back and bite you in the azz."Enough ok!!! I do not want write history please ok we do know who is who what is what Thank you
Enough Stop do not atack "Meg33"!!!Thank you
There are a lot of "official death counts" from various countries that run up or down over the truth depending upon the politics involved.
The Holocaust after WW2 was initially thought to have included nine million dead. That figure was later dialed down to six million with four million of those being assumed killed at Auschwicz. In recent years the four million dead figure at Auschwicz has been officially and academically adjusted to "about 1.5 million". Yet it is the law in many countries (yes, it is a law) that the number of people who dies in the Holocaust is six million despite a reduction of 2.5 million in the 'official' figures.
Disclaimer: I am not a Holocaust denier. The fact that this happened is evident to anyone who bothers to study the facts. But I also accept that people more knowledgeable than I on this subject have adjusted some of the figures.
That said, the Allies after WW2 would have a vested interest in understating the dead in Dresden or anywhere else in Germany. It makes them look bad.
The Allies said that an accurate estimate of German war dead was impossible to judge due to so many people being displaced by the war. So they went with the bare minimum believeable figure of about 35,000 while Soviet sources estimated the losses at Dresden along the order of 200-300 thousand since the Soviets had the civil records of Dresden and it was fairly easy for them to extrapolate a figure based on post-war census figures.
Let people mourn their dead no matter who they are. The label of "neo-Nazi" would readily be applied by the German government to a fair number of FReepers simply for opposing the Official Socialist Mindset. So while it is a certainty that some, if not most, of these people are self-serving racists - it is also quite probable to me that at least a few people in the crowd were mourning lost relatives whom their own country officially ignores.
I do not disparage the people who mourn for the dead in Hiroshima, Auschwicz, Gettysburg, Normandy, or Rwanda.
Instead of throwing stones at people who mourn the dead - even hateful people - we should gather the stones and place them on the graves to remember and never forget the horrors of war.
I would gladly hold the hand of a skinhead and grieve with him for a lost relative if only to let one...just one...of these people see the humanity of all people.
Imagine what would happen to the 'neo-Nazis' if instead of taunting them a crowd of protesters merely took up candles and stood with them to remember the dead regardless of 'official figures'?
I'm not always a peacenik, but this is one of those occasions where if one Jew stood silently amongst the hateful to not join with them in their cause, but to honestly remember the dead, that one Godly and Righteous person would accomplish more to end hate than any amount of speechifying or laws could ever accomplish.
Nazis were and are socialist.
http://www.heritageabroad.gov/projects/poland3_inscr.html
This new plaque replaced the old one that said 'four million' on it.
There is a picture of the old plaque at this hate site here:
http://www.vanguardnewsnetwork.com/2005/Veritas013005HoaxisToast.htm
(The hate site came up first in my Google search and that is the only reason I'm using it.)
"They are ghouls."
Absolutely.
Read the USAAF history of the Dresden bombing. The City of Dresden was a significant military target. The account cites over 110 war related factories, the intersection of three major rail lines and one of the largest concentrations of communications in Germany. See for yourself at airforcehistory.hq.af.mil.
Wenn ist das Nunstruck git und Slotermeyer? Ja!... Beiherhund das Oder die Flipperwaldt gersput!
You are mistaken. Read the USAAF own history on Dresden, complied solely from official documents (airforcehistory.hq.af.mil). Dresden was a significant and legitimate target, not a psyops flustercluck.
Put the blame for the Dresden deaths squarely where it belongs, on Hitler and his willing accomplices.
They fought until the end in the East, because they knew what kind of bastards were in the Red Army, many Germans committed suicide rather than being raped by Red Army soldiers, it was a different story in the West, where the opposition was much lighter.
In other words, the Nazi's got their asses handed to them: get over it.
Try reading this again:
The civilians in Dresden were not legitimate military targets
Now, did I say "There was no reason to bomb anyhting in Dresden," or "There were not legitimate military targets in Dresden," or did I say "The civilians in Dresden were not legitimate military targets"?
Dresden was burned because they wanted to kill large numbers of civilians, it is just that simple, read up on the RAF's "Bomber" Harris if you doubt me. That makes it illegitimate. But it was done to try and hasten the end of a war that killed 60 million people, so it is miniscule compared to the wider atrocities of the Axis. In fact, even if 60,000 civilians died at Dresden, that's the equivalent of one day's killing at Auschwitz.
Believe me, I know about strategic bombing, I came out of SAC. But an intentional attack on civilians (not the civilian infrastructure the actual civilians) is not legitimate, nor is it collateral damage of some sort just because there are factories in the immediate vicinity.
If you came out of SAC then it should not be too difficult for you to follow the link to the USAAF history that I provided. Oddly, the official documents refute your assertions.
"Dresden was a significant and legitimate target"
Why ?
Dresden held 110 identified war-effort related manufacturing facilities including poison gas, x-ray component and hi-tech optics factories employing an estimated 50,000 workers...Dresden was the center of communications in Saxony...Dresden was the juncture of three significant rail lines, including the route used to shuttle German troops from the Western to the Eastern front...Good enough?
"...the city whose heart was destroyed with enormous loss of life by British and American aircraft."
Hmmm. I don't think the aircraft did much of this unless they crashed.
However, the *bombs* may have had something to do with it.
I agree. "Never Again!" should apply in both terms of the Holocaust AND Versailles.
At some point everyone needs to put the past in the past and move on.
If you can't do that then at some point you will have to fight another war over the same issues all over again.
The Balkans are a good example of what happens when people try to redress grievances of past generations upon present generations.
At some point, virtually every country in the world has been at war with another.
Should Mexico try to take back Texas?
Should Britain try to take back the USA?
Should the USA go bomb Germany some more?
Of course not.
At some point you have to let it go and move on.
Hammering today's Germany over the head about the Holocaust is fanning the fire the neo-Nazis are trying to start.
Let it go, move on, and the neo-Nazis become an oddity.
Dwell in the past, demand their persecution for being idiots, and you create martyrs.
Remember, Hitler was just a quirky fellow with an odd moustache until he went to jail.
......but what of the holocaust profiteers who live in comfort from the continued incitement of Jewish WWII victims. That target market will remain for them to plunder for another generation. It matters not to them that they are living very well on the backs of their own.
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