This is in the center of Berlin. Can you tell me for whom is it erected and dedicated?
Posted on 09/01/2006 2:25:31 PM PDT by Lukasz
BERLIN: Red-faced officials at the German culture ministry scrambled to apologise yesterday after two gaffes at former Nazi concentration camps.
The first occurred when Hermann Schaefer, deputy federal representative for culture and media at the ministry, gave a speech at a memorial concert for victims of the Buchenwald camp near Weimar in central Germany.
He spoke at length about the ordeal faced by Germans expelled from their homes by Red Army forces in the final days of World War II but failed to mention Nazi crimes or Holocaust victims at any point during the speech.
Some 250,000 people from 36 countries were imprisoned at Buchenwald between 1937 and 1945, 56,000 of whom were killed or died in the camp’s gruelling conditions.
The director of the Buchenwald memorial centre, Volkhardt Knigge, and the head of the International Committee of Buchenwald-Dora, Bertrand Herz, said they were stunned by the speech, which was delivered on Friday.
"I have never had such bewildered reactions from survivors," Knigge said, calling the remarks "a scandal" and suggested that the government no longer took its responsibility for Germany’s Nazi legacy seriously.
Herz, a Frenchman who was imprisoned at Buchenwald at the age of 14, called the speech "nationalistic" and an insult to victims of Nazi atrocities.
Parliamentary deputy speaker Katrin Goering-Eckardt of the Green party demanded an explanation from the government "to avoid further damage here and abroad".
Amid calls for his resignation yesterday, Schaefer apologised for any offence he caused.
"I did not know there were concentration camp victims sitting in the front rows," the official told public broadcaster 3sat, referring to the audience at the ceremony.
"I am sorry and apologise for that. I should have included them more in the speech and was probably obliged to."
He said he had not included specific references to the Nazis’ slaughter of 6mn Jews because he had been asked to speak on the government’s policy on historical remembrance in general.
"I had no intention of relativising victims," he said.
Schaefer’s boss, Culture Minister Bernd Neumann, expressed his regret in a statement issued yesterday for any offence caused by the speech, but said that it was "completely absurd" to assume from it that Germany no longer saw the Holocaust as an unparalleled crime.
"I extremely regret any political misunderstandings and adverse effects to the event caused by my department director’s speech," he said.
"The Nazi dictatorship and the Holocaust it caused are unique in their cynically barbarous dimensions and can be relativised by nothing."
But Neumann’s office was forced to apologise again yesterday when it was revealed that all former Nazi concentration camps received a fax calling on them to hoist the German flag on "Home Day" September 3, a memorial day for just the expelled Germans to whom Schaefer dedicated his speech.
A culture ministry spokeswoman said a "technical oversight" had included the camps, which are maintained in Germany as memorials, on the distribution list and that the ministry regretted the error. – AFP
It´s not the speakers fault that he didn´t know that the victims were in the auditorium, and the scandal is, that he´s reproached with being a Nazi!
Of course, speaking in the former concentration camp he thought probably that stands in front of Prussian Trust crowd…
Fuss-in-Mund Krakenheit
According to my sources, the speech was not delivered in Buchenwald, but in Weimar (before or after a concert), and it´s clearly the organisers fault. He would have been more sensible and had directly adressed the KZ survivors if he had known that, I´m quite sure.
So two truths exist? One for victims and second for German society.
Really? TWO world wars? Historians argue that WW1 was the fault of all major powers in Europe then, the masses in France, England, Austria, Russia and Germany cheered when the war broke out. Germany was rather forced into the conflict between Austria and Russia on the Balkans. But maybe you just follow the unjust treaty of Versailles, which said that Germany is the only one to blame (of course, only to make sure that Germany loses much of its power). No, Europe is equally responsible for WW1, and the treaty of Versailles is the reason why the first Republic of Germany (Weimar) failed.
It was not a concert for the victims of Buchenwald. It was a assembly to commemorate the horrors of WW2, from what I´ve read. And when he spoke about the atrocities the Germans had to suffer, he spoke the truth - nevertheless, it´s highly unsensible not even to address the KZ survivors. He could have made two major parts of his speech: one about the Nazi victims, and one about the victims of the Red Army, the expulsion. ´nuff said.
"The Nazi dictatorship and the Holocaust it caused are unique in their cynically barbarous dimensions and can be relativised by nothing."
Actually NOT unique. Equally horrible were Japanese murders of millions of Chinese and others, Chicoms' murders of millions, and Soviet murders of millions.
And now we should keep tally of islamofascist murder statistics. As they go about their busywork, they murder infidels and muslims alike.
I would have to ask, which country / countries did the surrendering at the end of WW1. That would seem to indicate which country / countries was / were the conquered aggressor/s, regardless of what / who / which nations aligned where and cheered what at the war's inception.
Talking about the expelled in a KZ of all places, now that's what I call insensitive.
I am afraid that, in general. there is no correlation between being the aggressor in a war and being the loser. Rather the contrary, in fact -- unless you think that might makes right. WWII is an exception.
He spoke at length about the ordeal faced by Germans expelled from their homes by Red Army forces in the final days of World War II but failed to mention Nazi crimes or Holocaust victims at any point during the speech.
Ummm, Michael...The speech was in honor of the victims and the guy still failed to mention them??
You really don't know your history don't you? WWI started with the assassination of Crown Prince Franz Ferdinand of Austria in Sarajevo
The next generation of Germans will never have heard of the holocaust which will have been deleted from their history
1. Germany under Kaiser Wilhelm was an aggressive militarized autocracy that was accelerating an arms race with England and France to gain greater influence and gain colonies/riches
2. The First World War was ostensibly initiated over the Austro-Hungarian/Serbian troubles but somehow included a massive invasion of France and neutral Belgium.
3. Germany added to the "modernity" of those festivities through brutal and repressive policies of the occupied areas (including summary executions) and the introduction of the flamethrower, poison gasses, the bombing of cities/civilian targets from the air, unrestricted submarine warfare (including the unwarned sinking of passenger liners and hospital ships), etc. And I'm sure that I'm leaving some other jewels out.
The German regime was at fault for the majority of the evil of that war - and to a large degree, the "draconian Versailles Treaty" didn't cause the Second World War; it was the continuation of the militaristic/jingoistic culture of Germany.
It doesn't help a bit to look back on those days and see them through misted glasses; all of us had to learn from them and change our cultures and behaviors.
Yet there's no outrage when Israel refuses to extradite a war criminal, Solomon Morel, to Poland because he is Jewish. Morel ran his own camp, was so brutal that he was suspended for two days by the Polish Communist version of the KGB. Besides toruture, some 1/4 of "inmates' in his camp died b/c of his actions.
This is in the center of Berlin. Can you tell me for whom is it erected and dedicated?
The guy pointed out that he wasn´t told that KZ survivors were among the auditors. And he is to blame?
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