Posted on 06/26/2005 1:37:09 PM PDT by americanbychoice2
Berlin Outrage: Checkpoint Charlie Monument to be Bulldozed July 4th We didn't think it could get much worse in Germany...well, it just did. Davids Medienkritik recently learned that the Berlin city government, made up of a coalition between the SPD (Gerhard Schroeder's Social-Democrats) and the PDS (former SED party that ran Communist East Germany), has decided to allow the razing of the Checkpoint Charlie monument by court order.
And get this: The monument, which consists of over 1,000 crosses adorned with the names of those murdered attempting to escape Communist East Germany for freedom, will be bulldozed on the 4th of July!
The Checkpoint Charlie monument scheduled for destruction July 4th in Berlin: Each cross has the name, and in some cases, photo of a victim of Communism murdered attempting to escape East Germany during the Cold War.
Berlin's Socialist-Communist City Government: Massive Conflict of Interest
What makes this story all the more disturbing is the obvious conflict of interest involved. As we indicated above, the Communist PDS is currently a member of the coalition that governs the city of Berlin. But prior to 1990, the PDS was known as the SED, the party that ruled East Germany with an absolutist iron fist. It was the SED dictatorship that was directly responsible for the hundreds of murders that the crosses at Checkpoint Charlie memorialize. And guess what? The PDS wants the monument torn down!
To justify their decision, both members of the SPD and PDS have described the Checkpoint Charlie monument as an eye-sore or as something that trivializes the Cold War by turning the city into a Disneyland-style theme park. (How solemn rows of crosses with the names and faces of those murdered by the SED government could possibly make any place seem like Disneyland is something that perhaps only members of Germany's Left can truly comprehend.) According to Deutsche Welle:
"The Berlin Senate for Urban Planning, one of the project's main detractors, fears that the capital is fast becoming a "Disneyland" version of its former self and insists the wall monument is too reminiscent of the Holocaust project at the Brandenburg Gate. The authority stresses that the East German dictatorship cannot be equated with the atrocities of the Third Reich."
In other words, the Communists in Berlin's city government don't want to be constantly reminded of the murders that the SED dictatorship committed during the Cold War. How unpleasant that would be for them! So they would rather bulldoze the entire thing on July 4th and associate the monument with Disneyland, a place that many Germans see as a symbol of trivial American commercialization.
President Bush Ought to Ask Schroeder About the Monument's Destruction
Certainly, we feel that the outrageous timing of the monument's destruction is incredibly insensitive not only to the families of those killed at the wall, but also to all those Americans and their families who served in Berlin and around Germany during the Cold War. To bulldoze this monument on a date that symbolizes liberty to millions of Americans around the world is an incredibly insulting gesture. We hope that President Bush brings the matter up with Chancellor Schroeder tomorrow during their White House meeting. Hopefully the media present at the meeting will also quiz Mr. Schroeder on the matter.
Need Another Reason to Demonstrate?
This much we can say: Davids Medienkritik will absolutely, positively bring the matter up tomorrow during our demonstration at Lafayette park in Washington, DC. We will also be supporting plans already underway to demonstrate in Berlin on July 4th should the plans to raze the monument go ahead unchanged.
Like Disneyland? How can Schroeder's SPD Support the Monument's Destruction on July 4th of all Days?
Ah ha! Now we know the real reason for the demolition. Too many people were learning the truth.
No but "Checkpoint Charlie" in Berlin is pretty much the definitive America icon of the "Cold War"service in Europe so tearing down a monument at Checkpoint Charlie on July 4 shows about the same tack as lets say tearing down a monument at Omaha Beach on July 4...
Considering the politics of the day it could rightly be perceived as a German snub of the Americas and there Cold War service in Europe
After all if it were different times and Europe wanted to honor America's Cold War defense of Europe and you wanted to find an appropriate and symbolic time and place to do so.... Checkpoint Charlie on July 4 would be high if not top on the list
Unbelievable.
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.
no but the left does usurp dates of relevance.
For example May 1 was hijacked by the commies from its previous celebration.
"You don't suppose the Clintons would love to bulldoze a bunch of stuff?"
They already have!(ie.-Vince Foster!?)
These types of monuments cause severe cognitive dissonance among many on the left.
In 1981-83 I saw "Amis Raus!" spraypainted on walls. Rumors that the local gougers had stockpiled East German Reichsmarks to make change when the Warsaw Pact `liberators' arrived. Street signs in cellars with names of Communist heroes ready to go up when that happened. A "Karl-Marx-Strasse" in every German town. The Greens running rampant (Die Gruenen).
Then a happier note: every bridge or overpass on the autobahn has premolded holes for packing explosives to blow them up in case of invasion. Some Greens were caught filling in the holes, and got the living s@#t beat out of them by outraged locals.
As to the Checkpoint Charlie museum, I think the main complex is safe. I'm skeptical about the date, though.
I do agree that the lack of a concept for a proper memorial
of the berlin wall is somewhat embarrassing.
To suggest a calculated insult when it comes to the razing
of this private installation would give the spd/pds too much
credit though - they are simply incompetent.
I'm sure the July 4 date is not a coincidence. What petty anti-American jerks!
They seem to want to sweep the Cold War under the rug... oh, but that's when West Germany was allied with the evil Americans, so it is essential to erase or rewrite history.
Yeah, right. Given the sick demonization of Americans rife in German media and society (most recently, American businesses were compared to a plague of locusts!), I have no doubt this is meant as just another petty insult from the oh, so morally superior descendants of the Nazis...
My point is that Germany has the right to do damn well what that please with a monument. If the US decided to destory the Statue of Liberty on any given day, be it a French holiday, it's no business of the French. The US must realize that every county in the world need not seek approval of the US if they decide to do something.
You overestimate your own importance if you think
that a german civil court would pay special attention
to the very ordinary working day 4th of July.
And when it comes to insults, you are an expert, no doubt
about that.
The Germans like America and like Americans, and once the miserable craven throwback leftists in the SPD are heaved out of office in three months time, hopefully the new government will apologize for the sick policies of the SPD/Green pukes.
Go Angela Merkel, Go Wolfgang Gerhardt!
Title should be changed. The memorial that has been up for a year is being torn down, not the entire museum.
Questionable nonetheless but quite a bit different...
I actually preferred Germany when it was divided - at least you really knew who was your friend and who was yoru enemy.
I was in Berlin in 1980 for a while as a young student.
My buddy and I entered into East Berlin and walked and walked and explored the city - followed by Stassi everywhere. The money was like toilet paper, the food was inedible, and there was nothing to buy ( you had to "change" some DM into DDR currency at a false exchange rate).
We entered back into West Berlin by walking into freedom through Check Point Charlie. What a blast - and what an appreciation of the freedom we had as Americans.
The Sargent on duty talked to us and invited us in - as it was cold and he wanted to talk about the States.
He had me sit in his chair in the Checkpoint - it was really a trailer - and some traffic came by. He told me to wave them through and that I was now an official Check Point Charlie Checker.
Later that night a man was shot and killed trying to get to West Berlin by swimming across a canal.
Now they want to forget who protected them and gave them their freedom.
We ought to pull every single US soldier out now.
Sad, sad, sad.
I actually preferred Germany when it was divided - at least you really knew who was your friend and who was yoru enemy.
I was in Berlin in 1980 for a while as a young student.
My buddy and I entered into East Berlin and walked and walked and explored the city - followed by Stassi everywhere. The money was like toilet paper, the food was inedible, and there was nothing to buy ( you had to "change" some DM into DDR currency at a false exchange rate).
We entered back into West Berlin by walking into freedom through Check Point Charlie. What a blast - and what an appreciation of the freedom we had as Americans.
The Sargent on duty talked to us and invited us in - as it was cold and he wanted to talk about the States.
He had me sit in his chair in the Checkpoint - it was really a trailer - and some traffic came by. He told me to wave them through and that I was now an official Check Point Charlie Checker.
Later that night a man was shot and killed trying to get to West Berlin by swimming across a canal.
Now they want to forget who protected them and gave them their freedom.
We ought to pull every single US soldier out now.
Sad, sad, sad.
I actually preferred Germany when it was divided - at least you really knew who was your friend and who was yoru enemy.
I was in Berlin in 1980 for a while as a young student.
My buddy and I entered into East Berlin and walked and walked and explored the city - followed by Stassi everywhere. The money was like toilet paper, the food was inedible, and there was nothing to buy ( you had to "change" some DM into DDR currency at a false exchange rate).
We entered back into West Berlin by walking into freedom through Check Point Charlie. What a blast - and what an appreciation of the freedom we had as Americans.
The Sargent on duty talked to us and invited us in - as it was cold and he wanted to talk about the States.
He had me sit in his chair in the Checkpoint - it was really a trailer - and some traffic came by. He told me to wave them through and that I was now an official Check Point Charlie Checker.
Later that night a man was shot and killed trying to get to West Berlin by swimming across a canal.
Now they want to forget who protected them and gave them their freedom.
We ought to pull every single US soldier out now.
Sad, sad, sad.
In this case, they are exercising their right to be assholes.
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