80 years after Hitler's war: Difficult commemoration between Soviet graves and the Ukrainian front

The victor's message to the vanquished was delivered in clear, military-like, concise sentences. Colonel General Nikolai Berzarin , Commandant of Greater Berlin since April 28, 1945, spoke at the inauguration of the new Berlin City Council on May 20, 1945. His message was addressed to all Berliners, to all Germans who had believed in their "Führer" just days before:

"We came here to destroy the Hitler gang once and for all. It was from here that Hitler's German army launched its attack on the peaceful Soviet people in 1941. Never, and under no circumstances, did the Soviet people consider going to war against the German people." They had no interest in conquering foreign territory: "We have enough land." But the defeated German leaders had promised "the people without space" new "living space in the East."

Berlin destruction: “a small thing”

Eighty years ago these days, the approximately 2.8 million Berliners still remaining in the city felt the consequences of this policy, and in a few sentences, Bersarin confronted them with the immeasurable suffering inflicted on the peoples of the Soviet Union by the Germans. In the first year of the war after the treacherous invasion, the Soviet Union had to bear the full weight of the war: "Our people shed their blood and suffered great hardship."

Then he got personal: "In my entire life, I have never seen anything like what happened when German officers and soldiers acted like beasts against the peaceful population. All the destruction you have in Germany is trifle compared to the destruction we have experienced."

Yes, our united Germany is and remains the land of the perpetrators. A country that lacked the will to liberate itself, and consequently, the strength to liberate itself. With due humility, let it be said without reservation: The 80th anniversary of the liberation should be dedicated to the liberators, their dead, their families, people of more than 100 nationalities.

Remembrance never takes place in a space free from politics or history. But this year, the criminal aggression emanating from Russia poses a greater challenge than ever before to take a stand. Those who want to portray themselves as the best friends of invaded Ukraine are instrumentalizing the commemoration to exclude Russians and take sides in the Ukraine war—and making a point. Putin 's Russia is instrumentalizing it to reinforce its narrative of the continued fight against fascism—and making a point as well. This will be addressed later.

Bersarin's speech appeared in the first edition of the Berliner Zeitung on May 21, 1945. The reporter describes how those present felt a mixture of shame and grief. This feeling still arises today when one considers the monstrous crimes committed by Germans. 18 million men were drafted into the German Wehrmacht. Many fought to the end, believing their leaders' lies about the enemy and following the slogans of perseverance.

More than 60 million human lives were lost in World War II, the majority (27 million) in the Soviet Union. Germans deliberately murdered six million Jews. 4.7 million German soldiers and 1.65 million civilians also died as a result of the aggression emanating from Berlin. These days, one cannot remember this often or clearly enough.

The invasion of the Soviet Union marked the beginning of a war of plunder and racial violence of unprecedented proportions. The declared goal of Operation Barbarossa was permanent control of the granaries in the Russian and Ukrainian Black Earth Zone. Other targets included the oil wells around Baku and the raw material deposits in the Donbass.

Exterminating people in the “Eastern region”

German civilian strategists planned the extermination of people in the Eastern territories on a grand scale: "Tens of millions of people" were to starve so that Soviet wheat would comfortably fill German stomachs despite the British naval blockade. Wehrmacht soldiers, and indeed all occupiers, were to obtain their food from the occupied territories anyway. Immediately before the outbreak of the war, Heinrich Himmler declared: "The purpose of the Russian campaign is to decimate the Slavic population by 30 million."

Recent research also shows that the German government under Hitler sought to forestall its own bankruptcy by plundering other countries. Rearmament and military campaigns in all directions had completely devastated the Reich's finances by 1941, and the debts were so exorbitant that they could no longer be reported.

The war against the Soviet Union followed the logic of a heavily indebted criminal organization seeking to survive from crisis to crisis with repeated robberies. "Victory or downfall" was the motto with which the German leadership began the war in 1941. They kept their own people in line with promises of a golden age for Germany once the temporary slump had been overcome with a great deal of faith in the Führer.

But Hitler and his many fellow thinkers, endowed with unscrupulous imaginations and dedicated, creative employees in administration, business, the military, culture, and the media, had not reckoned with the supposedly subservient peoples; the people of the Soviet Union resisted their subjugation. As in the defensive struggle against Napoleon, a willingness to sacrifice and resilience unknown in the West emerged. The West must continually relearn what it means to underestimate the East.

In any case, Nikolai Berzarin reminded those gathered in the first restored hall of the Red Town Hall for the installation of the new magistrate that the Red Army and its allies had advanced into the “nest of fascism” “for one purpose only”: “so that a new fascism would never arise again.”

Fascist elements in Ukraine

Vladimir Putin is now using this story to justify the war against Ukraine – successfully, because the majority of the Russian population clearly follows his argument that Russian citizens in Ukraine, and indeed Russia in general, must be protected from fascist forces.

They do exist in Ukraine. Their strength and influence on the government are difficult to assess. More than 20 right-wing extremist groups, parties, and combat brigades are known. Given the Ukrainian leadership's unwillingness to deal with fascist elements, sympathy for the invaded country is declining.

The real criminal aggression emanating from Russia is not only directed against Ukraine. The Baltic states, Moldova, and Georgia feel threatened; Poland, too, has many historical reasons to fear its neighbors in the East and West.

But is Russian aggression directed against Germany? Will Putin, as some security experts warn, invade NATO territory in 2029, thereby forcing Germany into a war against Russia? This terrifying prospect is used to justify multibillion-dollar spending on German rearmament. Is this appropriate or excessive, in keeping with the spirit of a new military-industrial complex?

Germany's freedom was supposedly already defended in the Hindu Kush and Somalia, now it is supposed to be the Donbass, said CDU politician Johann Wadephul, the designated foreign minister, recently.

In light of the war effort, millions of Germans are wondering whether Russia really intends to attack Germany. After the invasion of Ukraine, no one can be sure. Strengthening the defense force seems plausible, as does supplying Ukraine with weapons that would enable it to defend its existence.