German officials come under attack over Holocaust gaffes

Gulf Times ^ | 30 August, 2006

[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

[M. Espinola]

I agree numerous nations we involved in major power plays prior to WWI.

On June 28th, 1914, the Serbian assassination of the Crown Prince Franz Ferdinand of Austria was the match that lite the fuse which was already in place.

World War I began on July 28th when Austro-Hungarian Empire declared war on Serbia and proceeded to bombard Belgrade on July 29th. The Germans, had already pledged their support to Austria-Hungary Empire and on August 3rd Germany declared war on France.

Germany's Schlieffen Plan was put into operation when the German Army invaded Luxembourg and Belgium. Germany's military goal was the defeat of France and the Lowlands, .

The Germans point of view was of a country that had never lost a major conflict. The German people went to war expecting to win because they knew of nothing else and they lost, but did not learn their lesson resulting in the 2nd World War.

Germans and Austrians are one of a kind. Recall that German voters gave a majority to a fanatical Austrian Nazi in 1933?

I really hope you guys are not going to state the Germans did not start World War II in Europe in 1939?

[M. Espinola]

"Making excuses for the brutality and primitivity of WW I Germany is only a short step to making excuses for the Nazis..."

Well said! My thoughts exactly. Semper Fidelis!

[Michael81Dus]

I really hope you guys are not going to state the Germans did not start World War II in Europe in 1939?

No, but Germans never gave Hitler a majority of votes in a free election. And he abandoned the constitution by a parliament vote, saying that the government and not the parliament may make laws.

And btw, not only Germans expected to win, each nation never thought of the idea to lose. And actually, before the US joined the war on the entente´s side, it looked really bad for them.

Germans didn´t learn the lesson from WW1"

What was the lesson? The treaty of Versailles was unjust, and led to the hatred against the West in Germany. One can say that after WW2, the Germans AND the allies learned their lesson - they chose to integrate the defeated in the western community (if only to fight/stop the Soviets).

[USMCVet]

Nobody disagrees that all of the monarchies old Europe were responsible in part for the Great War..and most of them were related to each other, so it was a "family feud" that involved millions of innocent people.

The difference that you won't or can't come to grips with, is that Germany - of all of the combatants - exhibited the most brutal and least moral conduct of the war. The German war plans started with an aggressive attack through neutral Belgium and into France - not a spirited defense of German soil. As stated earlier, Germany conducted the occupation of Belgium and France with cold brutality, including the summary execution of civilians. If you care to do some research, you will find that this isn't just "Allied propaganda".

Also as stated before, the Germans started the use of Phosgene, Chlorine, and later Mustard chemical agents in combat, the flamethrower, aerial bombing of cities using Zeppelins and the early Gotha bombers, and using long-range artillery on Paris. It was the Germans that were responsible for the ghastly massacre at Verdun and there are large tracts of France that are still dangerous and unusable, 90 years after the war. When Kaiser Wilhelm's much-heralded High Seas Fleet got bloodied at Jutland, the Germans resorted to unrestricted U-Boat warfare - which means that unwarned and unprepared civilian vessels were being attacked as well as legitimate vessels of war. The most famous of these was the Lusitania - which I would urge you to look at in more detail, to see the photographs of the infants that they found floating off the coast of Ireland. As I remember, the commander of the U-10 received a medal for that sinking.

I am of German ancestry and in 1916, many of our countrymen were sympathetic to Germany or at least unsympathetic with involvement in the european war but the above-mentioned evils drove the US to fully support the Allies and then into the war.

Germany wasn't "just one of the many evil participants" in the war - they were clearly in the lead when it came to brutality. Who started that war is immaterial. How the war was carried out and the cultures supported it is the pertinent point. Unless you face this truth, you will never really understand the changes in all of us that had to come about from those experiences. You're still looking at Germany as a victim - Versailles came about because the memories of German excesses were still so fresh in everyone's minds and so much greater than any other time in history.

The Second World War was just the first war continued and that characteristic indifference to human suffering magnified.

[Michael81Dus]

We need to recall the krauts triggered two world wars in the 20th century. One could say it's in their blood.

That´s the conflict here. THIS STATEMENT is what I challenge. This is nothing but BULL! And in case you agree with this statement, I´ll give you a more detailed answer your post desvers. In case you don´t agree with that, I don´t need to argue with you anymore.

[Sam Hill]

"The treaty of Versailles was unjust, and led to the hatred against the West in Germany."

You can keep repeating this, but you won't convince anyone who has ever bothered to study the subject.

Maybe you should read up on the treaty the German imposed upon the defeated Russians just a couple of years before:

Treaty of Brest-Litovsk - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Brest-Litovsk

It makes the Versailles Treaty look like a love note.

Moreover, the Versailles Treaty was immediately and constantly ameliorated -- until by the 1920s the US was pumping in massive amounts of foreign aid.

And as to the larger point of German militarism, WWI was at the time only the latest in a near constant succession of Germany's wars motivated by their desire to gain hegemony in on the Continent.

Read a book, why don't you?

[Michael81Dus]

You seem to be rather uninformed about Versailles. But thankfully, even British schoolbook authors have understood that this treaty was the root for WW2. Claim what you want, two wrongs don´t make a right. Never ever.

[USMCVet]

"We need to recall the krauts triggered two world wars in the 20th century. One could say it's in their blood."

It's not my statement and it's a generalization that seems to be asking for an angry answer.

As you have seen in my earlier posts, I don't shade words what it comes to describing what I believe to be wrong. I am every bit as aware of our American shortcomings in warfare as I am of those of the Germans. I am just very thankful that the German people are our friends and allies now and that there won't be any more idiocy and waste between us.

[Sam Hill]

You are a waste of time, as everyone else on this thread seems to have already figured out.

[M. Espinola]

"The treaty of Versailles was unjust.."

"It was my dream, and probably the dream of every one of us, to bring about a revision of the Versailles Treaty by peaceful means, which was provided for in that very treaty."

Hans Frank

Should the Allies have allowed Germany, the Hapsburg Empire and the Ottomans Muslim empire to retain their overseas colonies?

Should the Allies have simply allowed the Germans & other Central Powers to sign the surrender documents without any penalties what-so-ever?

Maybe the Allied forces could have rewarded Germany for her usage of poison gas, after all it was only practice for the ovens of the Shoah....the SS state's, Murder Inc.

The German army was the first to give serious study to the development of chemical weapons and the first to use it on a large scale.

Casualties From Gas - The Numbers

Country	Total Casualties	Death
Austria-Hungary	100,000	3,000
British Empire	188,706	8,109
France	190,000	8,000
Germany	200,000	9,000
Italy	60,000	4,627
Russia	419,340	56,000
USA	72,807	1,462
Others	10,000	1,000

Austrian riflemen on the march in Poland WWI

Twenty years later, Germans invading Poland.

,,Der große deutsche Feldzug gegen Polen’’ (The Great German Battle Against Poland)

"A thousand years will pass and the guilt of Germany will not be erased."

Hans Frank

In the long run is a united Germany something the world needs to be concerned with?

[Rummenigge]

The day will come that people are not predominatly interested in the quality of german soldiers if talk come to the topic of germany.

The day will never come that people find it practical and easy to have a demon to blame for everything.

[M. Espinola]

"The day will come that people are not predominatly interested in the quality of german soldiers if talk come to the topic of germany."

The quality of German soldiers is not the question.

"The day will never come that people find it practical and easy to have a demon to blame for everything."

Imagine if Nazi Germany had succeeded in defeating the Allies. You nor I might be here having this little debate.

In terms of the Shoah,

Never Again!

[nkycincinnatikid]

We all might benefit by working on this simple reality "a little'. In the modern era, say the last millenium, the German people lost half their territory to france, Italy , russia, Poland, Czechs in fact every neighbor and its enclaves afield heve been expelled or more likely exterminated. During most of this era there was no hint of German militarism , in fact no German Army, in fact no German nation state. It was actually mostly Mozart.

[Rummenigge]

>> the quality of the german soldier is not the question

What else then German warfare or not warfare is the topic on Freerepublic ?

Everyone seems to be an "expert" in Nazi times - the rest is silence.

The time between 33 and 45 is important to know and the hollocaust not to be forgotten. That's a predominant attitude of germans. We feel to be the sentinels of this important legacy - and we are about the only nation that stands open and without hesitation to the sins of it's own past.

In the US or in France a rememberance and openess like that would certainly not be possible.

[USMCVet]

Your knowledge of European history seems to have some holes. Two millenia or so ago, germanic tribes made life a good deal shorter for invading Romans - until Julius Caesar entered the picture. Nobody "took" territory from the various German entities; what took place were the redistributions of various duchies and petty kingdoms among the major royal families until the time that a German nation-state was formed.

"there was no hint of German militarism..."

Really? Where did the Hessian mercenaries come from during our revolution? How about the battle of Austerlitz during the Napolean era? The reality is that the various German tribes and principalities were always involved in some way or another in Europe's wars and when the German nation was formed, they roared out of the blocks into a war with France (Franco-Prussian War). The only territory Germany "lost" was when they lost an aggressive war with its neighbors.

As I said in an earlier post, Germany has not been involved in a defensive war to protect its territory (other than the Roman invasion) without having first attacked its neighbors.

There is an emerging tendency for Germans with short memories to indulge in victimhood. None of the things that happened to Germany weren't brought on by their own actions. What did they think would happen to them if they lost a war - particularly the kind of war they prosecuted - with the Russians?

[M. Espinola]

"Everyone seems to be an "expert" in Nazi times - the rest is silence."

In your view would Holocaust survivors qualify as being "experts"?

"In the US or in France a remembrance and openess like that would certainly not be possible."

I agree, there is a prevailing 'official' problem, but it is a topic which is debated.

In terms of France, the despicable pro-Nazi Vichy era is not a subject which the majority of Frenchmen wish to discuss. Relating to America as well as England, there were many victims of Nazism which could have been saved - but were turned away, sent back to the Hell of the Shoah.

[Rummenigge]

"Everyone seems to be an "expert" in Nazi times - the rest is silence."

>> In your view would Holocaust survivors qualify as being "experts"?

I don't know - depends on. Beeing an expert doesn't come from beeing a victim.

[nickcarraway]

There was an Armistice. I don't recall that any foreign soldiers ever set foot in Germany. The War was a draw, but they lost the peace. If you'll recall, the U.S. president wasn't exactly approving of the terms, especially considering how much he risked to get involved.

[USMCVet]

"The War was a draw, but they lost the peace"

Not true; Germany had used up all of its reserve strength during the 1918 Ludendorff Offensive and was in general retreat in the West as the Allies mounted the final counteroffensive. The Germans lost the war, primarily as the mounting effect of the new US troops began to take effect. The Germans faced mutiny with the High Seas Fleet and approaching revolution at home.

The combination of the drastic requirements of the Versailles Treaty, the warring political factions in Germany, and then the worldwide economic depression doomed any chance for a peaceful recovery to a democracy.

The knowledge of history is important for these debates and if most of the postings so far are any example, our schools aren't doing very well with that subject.

[nkycincinnatikid]

You are SOOooo knowledgeable! German mercenenaries were of course involved in those many wars, not because they, having no national identity other than Christianity, lusted to die in the new world for the English king ,or in Moscow for a Corscican dictator, but rather because they must have been, as only you can so brilliantly understand, bloodthisty , sub humans satisfied with a crust of bread and a roasted baby every once in a while.