It is not Checkpoint Charlie nor any official memorial
that is going, its a private installation of crosses and
graves.
Imagine Smarty Greedo leasing property 2 blocks away from
ground zero, erecting 3.000 crosses and putting up a sign
that reads "All you ever wanted to know about 9/11" because
the city council was too slow and had no concept.
Dont think the mayor would like that one a bit.
Yes, we can't have people erecting memorials to those killed by communism. That'd be terrible. Only The State can choose who to memorialize. Cough.
As a USAF Intelligence Officer from Darmstadt, I stood at Checkpoint Charlie in Spring 1964 and watched Soviet border guards fingering their polished weapons from watch-towers along the Wall. It's easy to see why Communists by whatever name would feel politicaly (if not personally) embarrassed by a memorial on this site. If it's not "public", i.e. under official municipal auspices, by now, there's obviously a reason. But German nationalists, or non-Communist patriots of any stripe, should long ago have resolved any ambiguity regarding Charlie's status. The fact that no-one has speaks volumes for today's political climate, and augurs extremely ill for this once-great nation's future.
As the Thirty Years War set back German polities for two hundred years, so Stalin's occupation plus Khrushchev's East Zone incarceration seems to have engendered a permanent public schizophrenia confusing Public vs. Private, Collective vs. Individual, venues in every area. Germany will be the loser, again, but in a larger sense the loss of such a robust and talented component of Western Europe --indeed of Western Civilization-- will irreparably damage prospects for peace and prosperity in years to come.
This calculated insult to America's liberating forces, both in 1945 and throughout the Cold War era, is not only a gesture of contempt for democratic values but a dangerous indication that where Bismarck, Kaiser Wilhelm, and the NSDAP once trod, Ulbricht's murderous descendants are planting their Rotfront banners once again.