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A Different Kind of Memorial Day

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COMMENT: Memo­r­i­al Day is the hol­i­day on which Amer­i­cans remem­ber and hon­or the coun­try’s fall­en in for­eign wars.

The Bavar­i­an gov­ern­ment has des­ig­nat­ed a spe­cial day of remem­brance for the ver­triebene groups–eth­nic Ger­mans expelled from East­ern Europe for their part in facil­i­tat­ing the Nazi con­quest of the coun­tries in which they lived.

Nur­tured by a min­istry of the Ger­man gov­ern­ment, the ver­triebene groups are a focal point of con­ti­nu­ity between the poli­cies of the Third Reich and the con­tem­po­rary Fed­er­al Repub­lic of Ger­many.

Hitler once said that; “The future belongs to the youth and the youth belong to the future.” The memo­r­i­al day estab­lished by the Bavar­i­an gov­ern­ment is specif­i­cal­ly aimed at pre­serv­ing the polit­i­cal mythol­o­gy of the “expellees” for future gen­er­a­tions. This is deemed impor­tant for future Ger­man claims against oth­er Euro­pean nations.

The Bavar­i­an gov­ern­ment is also estab­lish­ing a muse­um ded­i­cat­ed to sus­tain­ing the polit­i­cal mythol­o­gy embraced by Sude­ten Gera­mans and their revi­sion­ist allies.

It will be inter­est­ing to see if the muse­um man­i­fests the same open­ly Nazi revi­sion­ism demon­strat­ed in a pre­vi­ous exhi­bi­tion about the Sude­ten Germans–the eth­nic Ger­mans who played a pri­ma­ry role in the Fifth Col­umn that helped sub­vert Czecho­slo­va­kia in the run-up to World War II. (Hitler first occu­pied the Sude­ten Land, then the rest of Czecho­slo­va­kia after Neville Cham­ber­lain’s sell-out at Munich. We note that, as dis­cussed in AFA #1, Cham­ber­lain was a pro­tege of Sir Mon­tagu Nor­man, who was pro-Hitler and turned over the Czech gold stored in the Bank of Eng­land to the Third Reich after Hitler took con­trol of the coun­try.) 

The 2007 Bavar­i­an exhi­bi­tion about the Sude­ten Ger­mans made the fal­la­cious claim that the Sude­ten Land was nev­er ful­ly incor­po­rat­ed into Czecho­slo­va­kia. The claims made in that exhi­bi­tion were traf­ficked by a pub­lish­ing out­fit head­ed by Nazi lumi­nary Karl Her­mann Frank, who sub­se­quent­ly helped per­pe­trate the Lidice mas­sacre.

Below, we review two key aspects of the ver­triebene issue.

In addi­tion to being a major ele­ment of the future strate­gic plans of the fuehringsring–the Nazi exile gov­ern­men­tal struc­ture in Spain–the ver­triebene groups had ful­ly par­tic­i­pat­ed in Nazi crimes dur­ing the occu­pa­tion of Europe.

“Protest against Pots­dam”; german-foreign-policy.com; 5/17/2013.

EXCERPT: In the run-up to this week­end’s annu­al “Sude­ten Ger­man Con­ven­tion,” the Bavar­i­an region­al gov­ern­ment has announced the intro­duc­tion of a memo­r­i­al day in com­mem­o­ra­tion of Ger­man reset­tle­ment. Begin­ning 2014, the sec­ond Sun­day in Sep­tem­ber will annu­al­ly be ded­i­cat­ed to the com­mem­o­ra­tion of the Ger­man vic­tims of “flight, expul­sion and depor­ta­tion” as a result of the Sec­ond World War. The des­ig­na­tion of this memo­r­i­al day is one of the Ger­man polit­i­cal estab­lish­men­t’s mea­sures, to seek to embed the notion that the reset­tle­ment was “an injus­tice” in the mind­set of future gen­er­a­tions. Based on this — his­tor­i­cal­ly erro­neous — opin­ion, Ger­many can raise advan­ta­geous polit­i­cal claims vis à vis East­ern and South­east­ern Euro­pean coun­tries. Besides the cre­ation of a memo­r­i­al day, Bavaria is also sup­port­ing, with 20 mil­lion Euros, the estab­lish­ment of a “Sude­ten Ger­man Muse­um” in Munich. The Ger­man Bun­destag has ear­marked anoth­er 10 mil­lion Euros to the project. An expo­si­tion, which could serve as the cen­ter­piece of the muse­um, put the legit­i­ma­cy of the found­ing of Czecho­slo­va­kia into ques­tion, using con­tro­ver­sial quotes from Nazi sources. The Bavar­i­an prime min­is­ter will be hon­ored, with a Sude­ten Ger­man Home­land Asso­ci­a­tion award at Sun­day’s events for his sup­port of the “expellees.”

Memo­r­i­al Day for the Reset­tled

As was announced, last Wednes­day, by the Bavar­i­an state chan­cellery, the gov­ern­ment of Bavaria has decid­ed to declare a state-wide memo­r­i­al day in com­mem­o­ra­tion of Ger­man reset­tle­ment. Begin­ning in 2014, the annu­al memo­r­i­al day in com­mem­o­ra­tion “of Ger­man suf­fer­ing caused by flight, expul­sion and depor­ta­tion” [1] as a result of the Sec­ond World War, will be the sec­ond Sun­day in Sep­tem­ber. This ini­tia­tive has been jubi­lant­ly wel­comed by reset­tle­ment asso­ci­a­tions. Bavaria has always been “exem­plary” toward the “expellees,” declared the Pres­i­dent of the Ger­man League of Expellees (BdV), Eri­ka Steinbach.[2] There is no doubt that the BdV would like to see a sim­i­lar memo­r­i­al day estab­lished nation­wide. Ulti­mate­ly, a “non-par­ti­san con­sen­sus” on this ques­tion must be reached in the Ger­man cap­i­tal, demand­ed BdV Chair­man Bernd Fabritius.[3]

On the Injus­tice of Expul­sion

The memo­r­i­al day’s polit­i­cal thrust can also be sur­mised from its sched­ul­ing, in direct con­nec­tion to the “Home­land Day.” Since 1950, “Home­land Day” has been annu­al­ly com­mem­o­rat­ed by the BdV and oth­er asso­ci­a­tions of the reset­tled as a means of keep­ing the mem­o­ry alive of a Ger­man past in their regions of ori­gin. Orig­i­nal­ly, this had been com­mem­o­rat­ed on the first week­end in August, a delib­er­ate jux­ta­po­si­tion to the date of the sign­ing of the Pots­dam Agree­ments (August 2, 1945). This date was cho­sen in “protest against the deci­sions tak­en at the Pots­dam Con­fer­ence in 1945,” explains the BdV.[4] This is refer­ring to pas­sages in the Pots­dam Agree­ments that legal­ly jus­ti­fy the reset­tle­ment of Ger­mans — as a con­se­quence of Nazi crimes in East­ern and South­east­ern Europe. The gov­ern­ment of Bavaria open­ly aligns itself with this protest. Prime Min­is­ter Horst See­hofer explains that, with this new memo­r­i­al day, “we are send­ing out the mes­sage that expul­sion is and remains an injustice.”[5] The fact that the memo­r­i­al day will not be held on the first week­end in August, but rather in Sep­tem­ber — like the “Home­land Day” — has a prac­ti­cal rea­son. In Bavaria, school sum­mer vaca­tion lasts through­out August, usu­al­ly only end­ing on the sec­ond week­end in Sep­tem­ber. To estab­lish a memo­r­i­al day dur­ing the sum­mer vaca­tion would pre­des­tine it to fiz­zle out with­out effect.

The Younger Gen­er­a­tion

As can be seen in Bavari­a’s prime min­is­ter’s state­ments, the insti­tu­tion of a memo­r­i­al day is also aimed at influ­enc­ing future debates. Until recent­ly, it had always been claimed — for exam­ple in the con­tro­ver­sies sur­round­ing a “Cen­ter against Expul­sions” or the Foun­da­tion Flight, Expul­sion, Rec­on­cil­i­a­tion [6] — that per­son­al sat­is­fac­tion must be giv­en to those who fled or were reset­tled since 1944. This is viewed as nec­es­sary, even though the major­i­ty of those con­cerned have died. The Bavar­i­an prime min­is­ter, on the oth­er hand, even pro­claims that “the mem­o­ry of flight and expul­sion must be kept alive, par­tic­u­lar­ly for the younger gen­er­a­tion.”[7] In fact there is an upsurge in gov­ern­ment activ­i­ties around reset­tle­ment in the field of col­lec­tive mem­o­ry poli­cies, because those, who had been reset­tled are either no longer alive or they are very old — and their asso­ci­a­tions, which had kept the mem­o­ry of reset­tle­ment alive, pro­claim­ing it an injus­tice, are steadi­ly los­ing influ­ence, due to their decline in mem­ber­ship. For Prime Min­is­ter See­hofer, the reset­tle­ment must be embed­ded in the mem­o­ry of the “younger gen­er­a­tion,” because it will be they, who “will con­fig­u­rate the Euro­pean house of tomor­row.” The mem­o­ry of reset­tle­ment and its clas­si­fi­ca­tion as “injus­tice,” per­mit Ger­many to uphold its polit­i­cal demands vis à vis East­ern and South­east­ern Euro­pean coun­tries. (german-foreign-policy.com reported.[8])

Total­ly Indif­fer­ent

Plans to estab­lish a “Sude­ten Ger­man Muse­um” in Munich are among the mea­sures of col­lec­tive mem­o­ry, aimed at keep­ing the alleged “injus­tice of the reset­tle­ment” on the Euro­pean agen­da for a long time to come. . . .

The Occu­pa­tion of the Sude­ten­land

. . . . The elab­o­ra­tion of the con­tents of the Sude­ten Ger­man Muse­um is still in a state of flux. An expo­si­tion, first pre­sent­ed pub­licly in 2007 — in the Bavar­i­an Region­al Par­lia­ment and then shown in sev­er­al fed­er­al regions of the coun­try — could serve as the cen­ter­piece for the muse­um’s exhib­it. Pan­els in this expo­si­tion alleged, among oth­er things that, at the begin­ning of 1919, Czecho­slo­va­kia did not have con­trol over the entire ter­ri­to­ry, but rather had “occu­pied Sude­ten­land” in vio­la­tion of “the inter­na­tion­al Hague Land War Con­ven­tion of 1907.” Pan­els also alleged that in Czecho­slo­va­kia an unprece­dent­ed “dis­crim­i­na­tion of Sude­ten Ger­mans” took place, quot­ing a pub­li­ca­tion as its source that had been pub­lished in 1936 by the print­ing house of the Nazi Karl Her­mann Frank. Frank, soon there­after, had become a mem­ber of the inner cir­cle of the Nazis in pow­er in Prague and was lat­er respon­si­ble for the Lidice Mas­sacre. The expo­si­tion explains pos­si­ble jus­ti­fi­ca­tions behind the 1938 Munich Agree­ments, for exam­ple that the choice of words “hint” that the “Sude­ten­land could have been inter­pret­ed as occu­pied ter­ri­to­ry, hav­ing nev­er legit­i­mate­ly been part of Czecho­slo­va­kia.” . . . .

The New Ger­many and the Old Nazis by T.H. Tetens; Ran­dom House [HC]; Copy­right 1961 by T.H. Tetens.

EXCERPT . . . There is lit­tle doubt that the expellees played an impor­tant part in the cal­cu­la­tions of Dr. [Wern­er] Nau­mann and his asso­ciates in Madrid. A secret cir­cu­lar let­ter issued by the Nazi head­quar­ters in Madrid stat­ed: “The mil­lions of expellees must be regard­ed as an impor­tant valu­able trump card in our pol­icy toward the restora­tion of Ger­man pow­er . . . The expul­sion of 10 mil­lion racial com­rades was a bless­ing for the Reich. The expellees strength­ened the bio­log­i­cal sub­stance of our race, and from the begin­ning, they became a valu­able asset to our pro­pa­ganda. The expellees, dis­con­tented with their fate, infused a strong polit­i­cal dynamism in our demands. Very soon, we were able to drown out noisy pro­pa­ganda about Ger­man ‘crimes’ with our own coun­ter­ac­cu­sa­tion about the heinous mis­deeds com­mit­ted against 10 mil­lion of our racial com­rades. . . . The dis­tress of the refugees has cre­ated a com­mon polit­i­cal ground among all Ger­mans, regard­less of polit­i­cal affil­i­a­tion. The demand for the resti­tu­tion of the stolen Ger­man ter­ri­to­ries keeps our agi­ta­tion alive. The mil­i­tant ele­ments among the refugees are work­ing in the best tra­di­tions of Nation­al Social­ism, where­as the broad mass­es of expellees are kept togeth­er in well-dis­ci­plined home­land orga­ni­za­tions .

The expul­sion of mil­lions of our racial com­rades pro­vides us with a heav­en-sent oppor­tu­nity to exac­er­bate the prob­lem of the bleed­ing bor­der and to ham­mer con­stantly for its revi­sion.” . . . . (pp. 129–130.)

. . . The 3,000,000 Sude­ten Ger­mans lived in a tru­ly demo­c­ra­tic coun­try and enjoyed the same polit­i­cal, cul­tural and social free­doms as all the oth­er cit­i­zens of Czecho­slo­va­kia. Yet 92 per­cent ral­lied behind Hitler, embarked on a pol­icy of trea­son and vot­ed “Ein reich, Ein Volk, Ein Fuehrer.” Accord­ing to cap­tured Ger­man doc­u­ments, in 1937, Hitler decid­ed that Czecho­slo­va­kia must be “wiped off the map.” A year lat­er, at the height of the cri­sis, the Sude­ten Ger­mans revolt­ed, help­ing to under­mine the repub­lic and on March 15, 1939, Hitler occu­pied Prague and made the tiny remain­der “a Ger­man pro­tec­torate.” Sub­se­quently, the sude­ten Ger­mans par­tic­i­pated in the “Ger­man­iza­tion” of the coun­try by dri­ving the Czechs and their neigh­bors from their homes and by killing the slav­ic intel­li­gentsia by the thou­sands. Only recent­ly, a con­ser­v­a­tive Catholic paper in Aus­tria print­ed the num­ber of death sen­tences hand­ed down in Prague and Bruenn alone from June 8 to June 21, 1942. Alto­gether 340 teach­ers, lawyers, offi­cials and Catholic priests were exe­cuted in the short span of two weeks, not count­ing the hun­dreds who found death in the  Gestapo tor­ture cham­bers  and con­cen­tra­tion camps. From 1939 to 1945, sev­eral hun­dred thou­sand Czechs were mur­dered by the SS. It was for these crimes that the Sude­ten Ger­mans, the chief per­pe­tra­tors of the ter­ror regime were expelled from the soil of Czecho­slo­va­kia. . . . (p.126.)

Discussion

One comment for “A Different Kind of Memorial Day”

  1. Drugs Traf­fick­ing and Nazis?
    So Wolf­gang Droege was born in Ger­many. Nazi Julius Stre­ich­er was a friend of Droege’s fam­i­ly accord­ing to Wikipedia. In 1976, Droege joined David Duke’s
    (of Louisiana) KKK. Remem­ber that Elo­him City, which was involved with the Okla­homa City bomb­ing was start­ed by Robert G. Mil­lar. Mil­lar emi­grat­ed from Kitch­en­er Ontario to Okla­homa City in the 1950s.

    The west­’s unend­ing and cost­ly “War on Ter­ror” alba­tross was born in Mon­tre­al Cana­da with Alger­ian born Ahmed Ressam & French born Zacarias Mous­saoui. Ressam trained Mous­saoui and the rest is his­to­ry.

    Tim McVeigh is said to have been inspired by the Turn­er Diaries. That book ends with the pro­tag­o­nist fly­ing a nuke equiped plane into the Pen­ta­gon.
    Mohammed Atta was Egypt­ian, was brought to Ger­many on a Carl Duis­berg Soci­ety schol­ar­ship. Hop­sick­er has report­ed that he hung out with Ger­man, Swiss, Dutch
    and Aus­tri­an Nazis at Flori­da flight schools tied to drug traf­fick­ing.

    So this Van­der­bough char­ac­ter writes a book that is a call for insur­rec­tion against the U.S. gov­ern­ment? Van­der­bough will also call for U.S. cit­i­zens to throw bricks through the win­dows of Demo­c­ra­t­ic head­quar­ters to protest Oba­ma’s health­care plan. He has been a con­trib­u­tor to Fox News... no sur­prise since Roman Catholic to Mor­mon con­vert Glenn Beck was on Fox for ages try­ing to incite peo­ple against the gov­ern­ment.

    Now I hate to link things back to race & reli­gion, but to be hon­est, when it comes to Mus­lim Arabs it is always com­plete­ly ok to scru­ti­nize racial and reli­gious con­nec­tions when deter­min­ing motives. Just the oth­er day in the UK, a Cub Scout leader mom who had just trav­elled to France and then back to the UK, and who appar­ent­ly has no fear what­so­ev­er of men with bloody hands, hold­ing knives, and stand­ing next to dead bod­ies, approached this British/Nigerian guy and chat­ted with him. Ms. Loy­au-Ken­net told the world that the bloody hands guy said “We want to start a war in Lon­don tonight.” She also asked the man “Did he do it?” to which he replied “Yes.” Why? Loya-Ken­nett said he said “I am fed up with peo­ple killing Mus­lims in Afghanistan.” These are in line with things bloody hands guy (Ade­bo­la­jo) said on the video tape of course.

    Flash for­ward to Sat­ur­day and you have anoth­er mur­der of a sol­dier in France just like the one in Lon­don.

    The French MP Jacques Myard has tak­en this occa­sion to warn of a “civ­il war” start­ed by a “fifth col­umn” of Islamist assas­sins... Myard is of course fan­ning the flames.

    No one ever seems curi­ous about a fifth col­umn of Nazis bring­ing Mus­lim extrem­ists into west­ern nations in order to stir up racial ten­sions do they?

    Con­sid­er­ing the Nazi & Mus­lim Broth­er­hood his­tor­i­cal con­nec­tions to destruc­tion of var­i­ous democ­ra­cies... this might all be by design.

    Van­der­bough, what type of name is that? A Dutch name?

    Maybe the mil­lions of peo­ple in west­ern nations try­ing to fig­ure out why Chi­na is run­ning cir­cles around the west, owns their debt, is fly­ing off to the moon and beyond while the west blows up expen­sive tax­pay­er fund­ed ordi­nance in the mid­dle east will final­ly open their eyes and wake­up some day? Ya think?

    http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2012/06/daily-chart-19
    http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/13/science/space/nasa-and-russia-begin-new-chapter-in-space.html?_r=0

    Posted by corndogger | May 26, 2013, 4:34 am

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