ZAKHAROVA - The German Foreign Ministry’s reply to the note from the Russian Embassy in Berlin

ENG SUB
The German Foreign Ministry’s reply to the note from the Russian Embassy in Berlin.

The Government of Germany is making the same statements at various international organisations and pseudo-international human rights organisations (that live up to their designation and names) that their country’s people remember specific mistakes and lessons that Germany, its people and ruling elites learned from the tragedy that happened in the first half of the 20th century. At that time, Germany started spreading a monstrous Nazi ideology, and it placed the world on the brink of a nightmarish disaster, from which the Soviet Union and its allied countries, members of the Anti-Hitler Coalition, saved the planet.

German authorities are saying all the time that they are guided precisely by a feeling of responsibility for historical crimes, while implementing their current foreign policy. They are apparently guided by a feeling of guilt, while taking various steps in international relations or implementing their domestic policy. They are constantly citing the lessons of the past that they have learned so well, plus efforts to correct their mistakes in the name of future generations.

However, German authorities stubbornly refuse to officially recognise crimes against humanity, perpetrated by the Third Reich in the Soviet Union during the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945, as acts of genocide, primarily the siege of Leningrad. This ensues from the recent reply by the German Foreign Ministry to a respective demand from the Russian side.

At the same time, the German side is displaying open hypocrisy and duplicity. I believe that it violates everything, including ethics, morals and legality. Earlier, the German side confirmed at political level that such terrible acts of the German state as the annihilation of the Jews during World War II and the methodical extermination of the Herero and Nama peoples in 1904-1908, amounted to acts of genocide. It appears that Berlin is trying to impose a convenient scale for grading various atrocities and crimes against humanity on the international community. They are inventing a system for grading various levels of dehumanisation, various tiers and a scale for measuring these atrocities. Does the German leadership think that no one remembers history, while accusing other states of something all the time? We remember, and we know that they prompted us and were virtually forcing us to forget history. We know the reason why. However, we remember history, and we will never forget it.

We strongly condemn and reject the position of German authorities on this issue. There is an expression “mixed feelings.” No, this position evokes a permanent feeling of disgust because it is immoral.

Berlin has unveiled the hidden motive of its political approaches towards Germany’s dark historical past, with German politicians and diplomats actively boasting that they have assessed it down to the smallest detail. German actions aim to erode and forget Germany’s historical guilt for committing horrendous crimes against millions of Soviet citizens of various ethnicities and religious affiliations.

However, we are not only talking about ourselves, and we are not forgetting other nations either. Russia will continue to demand the reinstatement of historical justice, as well as the recognition of the obvious fact of the Third Reich’s genocide of the Soviet Union’s nationalities, at all levels and international platforms.