Protesters and neo-Nazis in Dresden, and [top] candles spell out the slogan 'This town is sick of Nazis'
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.
It sucks even more when you start one and lose.
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...my apology for including the photo caption ("Protesters and neo-Nazis in Dresden, and [top] candles...") in the piece.
"The memorial to the [Dresden raid] 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."
So in a city where we killed 35-60,000 people, the post-war Germans thought, "We have no business acknowledging those deaths without acknowledging the worse horrors of our nation." Someone should send this article to the Japanese folks who protest over Hiroshima every August.
BTW, did you notice that the official death count is exactly 100,000 less than the figure Peter Libra was so adamant about in your previous thread? Hmmmmmm...
You are forgiven, but it was a tad confusing.
Yet the whole article was confusing, but I going to ascribe that to Euro/American discordance. The commonalities just aren't there for this one, even though it is from an English language paper.
Slochthaus Funf!
and they all voted for Kerry
don't worry the EU will ban free speech for those 'right wingers'.
Thank you"Alouette"I will write what you write"It sucks even more when you start one and lose."Thank you
Conrad Black, a pro-American news mogul who moved to England from Canada just a few years ago, touched (owned) the Telegraph for a time. Lord Black was driven from Canada by anti-American socialist sentiment previously exported there by many in two other countries. Canadian socialists contend that he left Canada due to the PM (Cretin) refusing to grant him a title.
There's not a dimes worth of difference between far left liberals and far right nazis. They have the same goals, their way or death.
From the USAF history: "The exact number of casualties from the Dresden bombings can never be firmly established. Contemporary British estimates were that from 8,200 to 16,400 persons were killed and that similar numbers of persons may have been seriously injured. Most of the latest German post-war estimates are that about 25,000 persons were killed and about 30,000 were wounded, virtually all of these being casualties from the RAF incendiary attack of 13/14 February."
BTW, did you notice that the official death count is exactly 100,000 less than the figure Peter Libra was so adamant about in your previous thread? Hmmmmmm...
Worth keeping the whole picture in mind. The United States Strategic Bombing Survey estimated that 305,000 persons were killed and 780,000 were wounded as the consequence of all Allied bombings against Germany in World War II. Mess with the bull, get the horns.
"due to the PM (Cretin) refusing to grant him a title."
Can the PM do that? I thought it was only the Queen who could do that.
"Unstuck" in time.
And let it be noted for the record that 305,000 people is five days worth of killing at Auschwitz. The civilians in Dresden were not legitimate military targets, but those neo-nazis should be napalmed the next time they come out in the street.
On the issue of the title, it was more of an indirect and somewhat hostile agreement between Chretien and Black to disagree on everything else, IMO. They disagreed on family rights, fiscal issues and just about all else. Canada doesn't do such titles, although Britain does.
Ah...correction of my error, here. To the best of my recollection, Conrad was given the title while he lived in Canada. Chretien told him not to use it. Nevertheless, Canada is a hellhole for businesses and free media. Taxes there are awful, and the east steals from the west.
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