May 8 and the Rehabilitation of Nazism in Germany

 

On 8 and 9 May, Berlin traditionally hosts numerous commemorative events to mark the end of the Second World War in Europe. On these two dates, the German Wehrmacht signed the unconditional surrender in 1945 in Reims, France, and in Berlin-Karlshorst, Germany. The Nazi regime was finally crushed. Adolf Hitler had committed suicide eight days earlier.

The main burden of the struggle against Hitler’s Germany was borne by the Red Army of the Soviet Union, which defeated the Wehrmacht under immense sacrifices. At least 13 million Soviet soldiers and 14 million civilians lost their lives in the war. But at the Berlin commemorative events this year, the displaying of the Soviet flag was forbidden. The Berlin Senate called on more than 1,500 police officers to enforce the ban on the three Soviet memorials in Treptower Park, Tiergarten and Schönholzer Heide. There were more police officers than visitors.

On the other hand, it was permissible to show the Ukrainian flag, which was only used by collaborators who were deeply involved in the crimes of the Nazis during World War II. For example, the Melnyk wing of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN-M) used the blue-yellow flag with a trident, as it is also used today in Ukraine.

While the vast majority of Ukrainian men and women, along with their Russian and other Soviet comrades in the Red Army, fought against the Nazis, the OUN-M and the rival wing around Stepan Bandera (OUN-B) joined German SS units and participated in mass murders that claimed the lives of tens of thousands of Jews, Poles, Russians and Ukrainians.

The decision to ban the display of the Soviet flag at the commemorative events was ultimately taken by the High Administrative Court of Berlin-Brandenburg. The police originally banned both Soviet and Russian as well as Ukrainian flags and justified this on the grounds that they could provoke violence against the background of the Ukrainian war. The Berlin Administrative Court lifted this ban again on the basis of a lawsuit. At the request of the police, the High Administrative Court decided to ban only the Soviet and Russian flags and to admit the Ukrainian flag.

The political significance of this decision is unequivocal: 78 years after the defeat of the Nazi regime, it is forbidden in the German capital to show the flag of the liberators. The flag of collaborators and war criminals is welcome. A clearer commitment to the criminal policy of the Nazi regime is hardly conceivable.  (more...)

May 8 and the Rehabilitation of Nazism in Germany