World War II

Alexander Gauland, AfD parliamentary leader addresses the Bundestag in opposition to a petition to make VE Day a public holiday in Germany.

By Carolyn Yeager

On May 8, Europe will once again commemorate Victory in Europe Day. This year will mark the 75th Anniversary and some people in Germany  want it to become a “public holiday.”

A petition by a “Holocaust survivor” Esther Bejarano urges President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Chancellor Angela Merkel to proclaim May 8th a public holiday because “This is the day of German liberation and the defeat of the NS regime.” The petition has been signed by 80,000 people as of May 6. Germany's population is 80 million people.

In memoriam ...

This digital composite image (click to enlarge) shows a statue on the tower of City Hall looking down in compassion at the ruins of the city center wrought by the British-American firebombing of February 13, 1945 as well as the same scene on February 12, 2015 to the left and the right. This area that was the cultural pinacle of historic Germany and the Third Reich has become a parking lot. I think there is a song that goes something like that. The vast majority of the city was devastated by the Allied firebombing of February 13-14, 1945. 

For more photos like this, go here. [photo courtesy The Atlantic.com]  For previous Dresden Anniversary posts, go here.

A demonstrator carrying the VVN organization's flag with the red triangle symbolizing political prisoners, mainly communist, in front of the former Buchenwald concentration/internment camp entrance in Germany.

By Carolyn Yeager

THE LONG-RUNNING SCAM OF a “holocaust camp survivors organization” that dates back to 1945 may be coming to an end.

The Union of Persecutees of the Nazi Regime/Federation of Antifascists (VVN-BdA), is being denied its nonprofit tax benefits status by Berlin because it was cited as a left-wing extremist organization or group by the Bavarian state domestic intelligence agency. According to a report in Der Spiegel magazine, German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz is keen to cut tax benefits for groups that try to influence political debate.

Federal Republic of Germany President Frank Walter Steinmeier speaks in Poland on September 1 on the 80th anniversary of the 1939 invasion of Poland by Reich forces after months of failed negotiation attempts.

By Carolyn Yeager

"MY COUNTRY UNLEASHED A HORRIFIC WAR THAT WOULD COST MORE THAN 50 MILLION PEOPLE — among them millions of Polish citizens — their lives. This war was a German crime," the president of the Federal Republic of Germany said in a speech before Polish President Andrzej Duda, and US Vice President Mike Pence, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe as well as representatives of 30 other countries. No Russian representative was invited.

Shame, shame, shame! Disgusting behavior by the top representative of today's Germany.

By Carolyn Yeager

TRADITIONALLY, GERMANY'S CURRENT LEADERS LAY FLORAL ARRANGEMENTS IN the national colors of red and gold in the courtyard of the Bendlerblock, the large army headquarters in Berlin from where the plot leaders staged their attempted takeover of the German government and military known as Operation Valkyrie in 1944. It's still not known whether this year's 75th commemoration will be a more elaborate affair.

President of Germany bows his head in remembrance of the failed conspirators during a past July 20th commemoration ceremony at the Bendlerblock Army headquarters in Berlin.

In Central Berlin, the entrance to the memorial built to commemorate alleged crimes of the National-Socialist government (1933-1945) that never occurred. More of the same is now being proposed for Poles.

By Carolyn Yeager

HOW TO CONQUER the Germans … one way or the other. The Poles were never able to reach the 'promised land' in their historical quest to conquer and occupy Berlin, but they will never stop trying. The latest plan is to have the German government build a major monument to them as “victims of Nazism” in the center of Berlin, on a par with the memorials to the allegedly murdered Jews, the Sinti-Roma and the Homosexuals that currently take up large amounts of prime space in the German capital near the Reichstag. These are cultural groups that existed within Germany, at least, while the Poles are a foreign national population on foreign soil. What nation with any self-respect puts up a monument in the center of their capital city memorializing their enemy in a previous war? None that I know of.

A painting by Heinz Georg Lutz while a prisoner at Lodge Moor POW camp in Scheffield, England. Lutz was an architect and ex-Wehrmacht officer who was confined in the camp September 1945-April 1948. He made several linocuts and watercolour sketches of the camp and the area around it. Credit: Picture Sheffield

By Carolyn Yeager

REMAINS OF THE LARGEST PRISONER OF WAR CAMP IN BRITAIN, housing at least 11,000 Germans and Italians at its peak in 1944, has been uncovered by archaeologists from University of Sheffield.

The site is overgrown with woodlands and was forgotten for more than 60 years.