Monday, January 27, 2014

Koalitionsvertrag und "Doppelter Genozid" // German politics and "double genocide"

[english below

Anlässlich des heutigen "Gedenktages für die Opfer des Nationalsozialismus", der an die Befreiung des KZ Auschwitz vor 69 Jahren erinnert, möchten wir eure Aufmerksamkeit auf einen Artikel in der "Jüdischen Allgemeinen" lenken, der eindrücklich vor der Ausbreitung der Theorie vom "Doppelten Genozid" auch in Deutschland warnt.



ehem. KZ Auschwitz-Birkenau, Aufnahme kurz nach der Befreiung (Bundesarchiv, B 285 Bild-04413 / Stanislaw Mucha / CC-BY-SA)


On occasion of today’s "International Holocaust Remembrance Day" which commemorates the 69th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp, we like to draw attention to an article on the rise of "double genocide" theory in Germany politics which appeared in "Jüdische Allgemeine" (in German).

The article states that Germany’s new coalition government of conservatives (CDU) and social democrats (SPD) agreed on prioritizing the reviewing and commemoration of the injustice of the socialist German Democratic Republic. In the coalition’s agreement, the commemoration of Nazi crimes does no longer play a special role. While the agreement holds nothing for the survivors of Nazi crimes of which many still have not been compensated, the rates for victims of GDR injustice will be increased. The author sees a political paradigm shift at work: Had the mixing of Nazi crimes and GDR injustice been previously avoided, the equation is just around the corner. Linguistically, the turn towards a totalitarian view of 20th century history is clearly noticeable. Terms like "Nazi reign of terror" and "Stalinism" or the formula of "two German dictatorships" seem more than semantic coincidences.