In my village of Schöneiche near Berlin there is a memorial stone for those Soviet soldiers who died in the last fighting in April 1945 or later succumbed to their wounds in May. There are the names of 272 soldiers, non-commissioned officers and officers. Just a few are mentioned here: Corporal Antonenko, born in 1912, he died on April 28, 1945, Private Drozdov, born in 1905, he died on May 19, 1945, Private Klochkov, born in 1911, he died on April 29, 1945, lieutenant Makschanov, born in 1903, he died on April 25, 1945, Private Vorona, born in 1925, she died on April 21, 1945.
For over seventy years their names and the words “Eternal Glory” were written on the obelisk. But this year, 79 years after the end of the war, the names had been painted over white with German thoroughness. Children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren of those who committed the German crime of the century during the Second World War have dared to lay hands on the memorial. What a shame on them, on us!
27 million citizens of the Soviet Union died as a result of Germany’s war of conquest and annihilation. Almost six million Polish citizens suffered the same fate. 2.6 million Jews were murdered on German orders in the Soviet Union, and even more in Poland. As it says on the memorial stone of the Piskarovskoye Cemetery in Leningrad: »We cannot mention all their noble names here, / There are so many under the eternal protection of granite. / But know, who looks at these stones: / Nobody is forgotten and Nothing is forgotten.« Nikto nje zabyt i nitschto nje zabyto.
Thanks to the efforts of Jelena Dmitrieva, who has lived in Berlin since 2013, we now know the names of 7,000 of the 7,200 Soviet soldiers buried here in Treptow. Thank you for that! Nobody should remain nameless!
I have in mind the cemeteries in the Russian and Ukrainian villages: the fathers and sons of the families are remembered here. Only a few returned after 1945. Konstantin Simonov had written: »Жди меня, и я вернусь./Только очень жди.« Wait for me, I’ll return./But wait a lot. – Many mothers, many women, many daughters waited in vain.
We have a duty not to forget anyone or anything. But to the shame of our country, the Federal Republic, the crime against humanity of a war of extermination and enslavement that began with the attack on the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, has largely been erased from memory. The article by Federal President Franz Walter Steinmeier in the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung” in April of this year demonstrated this. The Total guilt of the Second World War is not recognized. The Holocaust was an inseparable part of this crime: the Barbarossa plan and the Nazi colonization plans aimed at the destruction of Judaism and communism. Being a Jew, being a communist – both were equally a death sentence in the eyes of the fascists. And it was about decimating the Polish people and the peoples of the Soviet Union and subjugating the survivors as slaves.
We have to thank those who stopped the crimes of extermination and slavery committed by German National Socialism every day. It was the people of the Soviet Union, it was the Poles who fought alongside the Allies in East and West, the citizens of the USA, Great Britain, Canada and Australia and their armies, the resistance fighters of France, Yugoslavia, Greece, Italy, Slovakia and the Czech Republic, the German anti-fascists, the upright and the righteous of many peoples.
These upright and righteous ones have left a message: Never again war! Never again fascism! But we live at war. And fascism as an idea, as a movement, as a political force and form of destruction of civility is rearing its head again. That is why we need the strength that those who came before us and resisted fascism had.
There must be an outcry against a new bloc confrontation, against new war ideologies, against expulsion and racism. Against the false teaching: If you want peace, prepare for war. Whoever prepares this will enable and lead it. Defense capability yes, war capability no! But above all: training for active peace policy!
Our hearts are bleeding: war is being waged between brotherly nations on the soil of Ukraine and Russia. Bombs and grenades tear apart hundreds of men and women every day, reducing the 75-year-old structure to rubble and ash. In this case there is no just war. France is talking about sending its own soldiers to the front. Russia responds with a tactical nuclear weapons exercise close to the war zone. Continuing like this is an unimaginable catastrophe. The path to peace does not lead through the battlefield and surrender, but through an immediate ceasefire and peace negotiations without any preconditions except one: not a single shot, not a single death!
The war in Gaza also stems from the guilt that Germany has assumed. Our solidarity must extend to both peoples, the Jewish and the Palestinian. Germany must do everything it can to support a two-state solution.
We salute those who defeated German fascism through their struggle and gave their lives for it. We won’t forget them!
No white paint, no chisel can and must not be used to make the names of those who died for the freedom of the people, for the liberation from fascism, forgotten!
Nikto nje zabyt i nitschto nje zabyto!
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