Posted on 04/12/2005 4:46:09 PM PDT by SJackson
German prosecutors have provoked outrage by ruling that the 1945 RAF bombing of Dresden can legally be termed a "holocaust".
The decision follows the refusal by the Hamburg public prosecutor's office to press charges against a Right-wing politician who compared the bombing raids to "the extermination of the Jews".
German law forbids the denial or playing down of the Holocaust as an incitement to hatred.
So delicate is the subject of the slaughter of Jews under Hitler that any use of the word "holocaust", or comparison with it, faces intense scrutiny and sometimes legal action.
But prosecutors have declined to pursue further the case of Udo Voigt, the chairman of the far-Right NPD, who likened the RAF's raids to the Nazis' "final solution".
Rudigger Bagger, a spokesman for the Hamburg public prosecutor, said the decision took into account only the criminal, not the moral, aspects of the case.
But he cited as a legal precedent a ruling by the federal constitutional court that favoured free speech in political exchanges, if defamation was not the prime aim of the argument.
Holger Apfel, the NPD's leader in the Saxon regional parliament, caused a scandal in January when he shouted down a commemoration of the Dresden bombing, prompting many others to walk out in disgust.
His outburst was covered by parliamentary privilege but Mr Voigt applauded and repeated the statements elsewhere.
Paul Spiegel, the president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, criticised the decision by prosecutors not to take action. He said the statements were incitement and allowing them to stand opened the door to further such comments.
"Morally, I have no understanding of this," he said. "One can ban such remarks if you use the law consistently. It is questionable whether statements that are clearly incitement come under freedom of expression."
Although the NPD is despised by other parties, German politicians reluctantly accepted the ruling.
Dieter Wiefelspüetz, the interior spokesman for the Social Democrat Party described the phrase "holocaust" in the context of Dresden as an "exploitation of the victims". But he supported the decision not to prosecute.
Attitudes towards the Allied bombing campaign, which killed hundreds of thousands of civilians, are changing. Estimates of the death toll in Dresden in February 1945 hover at about 35,000. All the same, some historians claim that as many as 500,000 people were killed in the raids.
Strictly speaking, the word "holocaust," which comes from the ancient Greek for "burnt", might seem apt for Dresden, much of it immolated by the fires started by the RAF's incendiary bombs.
But its primary meaning is now so closely linked to the Nazis' treatment of the Jews that such etymology appears to be in bad taste.
Yes I do, would you wish a different outcome on these events? You use what you have as allies when you're against the wall. When one's starving the fly fisherman does not worry about wet or dry.
Mmmm hmmm.
Thank you!
And YOU are indefensibly a nazi apologist!
"Es nimmt zwei, Tango zu tanzen."
"The German people should thank God, and the allied forces their army didn't hang on another 12 weeks."
Truer words never spoken.
Hate to break it to you, but there are a lot of books I haven't read. Unlike you apparently. Can I assume you've read every book in the world? Sorry you can't accept an honest answer. I could have lied and claimed I read it.
Just think about it: does hate make you into that which you hate?
Seeing your posts on this thread is evidence that it does.
Read the book ..... before you make false statements.
Show me a false statement I made.
London didn't burn down.
The justifications for burning Dresden change from time to time, but so far no one has anything really convincing except maybe they didn't like the Dresdener's cousins in Indianapolis ~ maybe it was just Bomber Harris' way of "getting back at" Chenault or other Americans with an Indiana address.
The whole event is covered by the grandson of one of the former inhabitants, Kurt Vonnegut. He was there, on the ground. I don't think he particularly enjoyed it.
German surrendered before nukes were even invented!
I did not claim that either you or I had read every book in the world. I just don't understand how you dismiss this book in the way that you have if you don't know the author and haven't read the book or even more than one review of it.
I suppose if it threatens your world view, you might want to avoid it.
Very true.
I've seen that book advertised. It's an attempt to excuse the terror-bombing of Dresden. Pretty low, IMHO.
Dresden was bombed because of it's rail lines and it's ability to resupply their troops. The Germans had to be utterly destroyed. They had to lose the very notion of waging war...and they did.
They got their comeuppance.
I know my brother killed a bunch of SS and other German soldiers and he said he felt like he was part of a vast American military that was literally the saving of the USA.
I know we did a lot of killing of commies in Korea but to me, it never felt like we were finished with the commies because they were still in power in other places in the world... you know the Soviet Union, China and so forth.
My brother said he felt like a REAL FORCE FOR EVIL was defeated when the German nazis were brought down to total defeat.
Inasmuch as the atom bomb was developed and used AFTER Germany surrendered, you'd probably hurt quite a few American occupation troops if you'd tried dropping nukes.
War is Hell!
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