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Vereinigung der Verfolgten des Naziregimes Landesvereinigung NRW |
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01.10.03 Ulrich Sander at September 20th 2003 on the demonstration against the marching-up of the fascists in Dortmund: For a restitution of the victims of the "Wehrmacht" and for the punishment of the perpetrators! Speech given by Ulrich Sander standing in front of the building of the district court and the prosecuting attorney's office in Dortmund We have come together here in the yard of the Head Office for the Prosecution of Nazi mass crimes (NRW-Zentralstelle für die Bearbeitung von NS-Massenverbrechen) where we handed over a detailed list of former members of those Wehrmacht Units who had been involved in serious crimes. The Head Office (Zentralstelle) is asked to include all our papers and documentations in their investigations, to accelerate these inquiries - and we ask the Government of North Rhine-Westphalia to see to it that the Zentralstelle will be adequately staffed in order to eventually give these perpetrators the punishement they deserve. To put it in more concrete terms: There are about two hundred still living presumed perpetrators, former members of the Wehrmacht (German Army) who committed mass murders in Italy and Greece. We want Alois Eisl, Anton Ziegler and furthermore 198 war ciminals to be finally sentenced after all these years. We were working hard for one and a half years to investigate these persons - we, that means our 'Arbeitskreis für Angreifbare Traditionspflege' und the VVN-BdA. We demand for compensation of the victims and punishment of those who are guilty. It is a shame that the German Government and the German courts of justice dismissed the cases of thousands of Greeks seeking for compensation. The district attorney in charge, Mr. Ulrich Maaß, gave an interview complaining about not being able to find out the truth, because the estimated eight hundred still living perpetrators who mudered five thousand victims in Kephalonia, "had agreed on what to say in advance". We can give him a response: We found out that these 'arrangements for obstruction of punishment' are made under the auspices of the Bundeswehr and the same Bavarian authorities which are today boasting about their assertive action against Nazi terrorists. These agreements on what to say in advance are made among the comrades of the mountain troops where old and young soldiers and reserve soldiers meet each other. And they are also made in units bound to tradition such as the parachutists and the holders of the Knight's Cross (Ritterkreuzträger). The Bundeswehr turns out - even fifty years after the foundation - to be a 'union for the obstruction of punishment' being in favour for murderers. In 1950 the leading Nazi generals around Heusinger and Speidel were asked by Chancellor (Bundeskanzler) Adenauer to form a new German Army. He was given the following answer: "We are ready to co-operate under one condition: All the soldiers who are in prison for war crimes must be released. And furthermore there will be no more punishment for the former members of the Wehrmacht even if they had been involved in 'crime against humanity' (Verbrechen gegen die Menschlichkeit)." The generals' condition was satisfied. Some former members of the Wehrmacht were sentenced by German courts but - at the latest - The federal Supreme Court (Bundesgerichtshof) in Karlsruhe used to reverse the verdict.. 'Obstruction of punishment' was also made by the fact that all the officials who worked for the 'Zentralstellen' (Head Offices for the Prosecution of Nazi mass crimes), -there are three of them in Germany, we have gathered in front of one of them- were former Nazi jurists. So the pending files 'disappeared' in the basement - the Nazi criminals dressed in uniforms were safe. That also happened in Dortmund. Some years ago, we could prove that the case of the murderer in the Adreatinischen Höhlen (Caves) near Rome, Erich Priebke, was handled in this way by this office we are standing in front of. Today, here in Dortmund, they are spreading out the lie about the "saubere (decent, respectable) Wehrmacht" and the Nazi saying: "Our grandpas were ok". Indeed, their grandfathers found it quite right that their headquarters of the Wehrmacht received reports such as: "During attempts to purge the region of gangs destroyed:120
'enemy deads'" That happened in November in 1943 in Voskopje/Montenegro. The "Feindtoten" (enemy deads) were civilians, women children. At the same time when people in Italy and Greece are commemorating the 60th anniversary of numerous massacres of the Wehrmacht and SS in Southern Europe, Nazis are demonstrating against the Wehrmachtsausstellung (Exhibition: War crimes of the German armed forces), this exhibition in the Museum für Kunst- und Kulturgeschichte in Dortmund, Hansastraße, was inaugurated this weekend. And just one week after the authorities busted the Nazi terrorgroup "Kameradschaft Süd" in Munich, the Ruhrgebietskameradschaften (comrades of the Ruhr Area) are planning to march durch the Western part of Dortmund. The residents are strictly against this march. We also protest against it. The VVN-BdA, the Community of the Greeks in Dortmund and the Dortmund Alliance against Right-wing radicals are demonstrating together. We have the same motto: "For a restitution of the Wehrmacht victims and for the punishment of the perpetrators." At the same time we protest against the presence of the old and young Nazis in our city. In Munich the Neonazis' plans of terrorist assassinations have been uncovered, this is the reason why we wrote a letter to the Dortmund chief of police: This terror-network has to be destroyed, you must not guarantee their right of assembly. Fascism is not a point of view but a crime. There must be no room for the Nazi network in Dortmund! The extent of provocation by the old and new Nazis makes it clear. They claim their right to hold demonstrations and their freedom of speech - protected by three judges of the constitutional court in Karsruhe, who admit that they are allowed to have an "unpopular point of view" which we have to respect. They deny the crimes of the past in order to repeat them in the near future. They strive a future of new fascist terror in Germany. Among those who are threatenend by the Kameradschaftsnetzwerk (Network of Comrades) in Munich are, beside the Jewish Communities, also institutions of the Greeks and Italians. Also part of the South German "comrades" are those from Mittenwald and Germisch-Partenkirchen who -being members of the cercle of the mountain troops- reinforce the thinning ranks of the aging perpetrators of the Wehrmacht (German armed forces). In 1993 the Anti-Antifa "Einblick" (Insight) had already put on their threatening list the names of antifascist groups and Jewish institutions. In spite of that, these criminals are protected by the courts and by the police. The preparations for further Nazi attacks and for the Nazi march through Dortmund coincide with the commemoration of more than five thousand defenseless Italian war prisoners who were assassinated by soldiers of the Wehrmacht sixty years ago, which is celebrated on the Greek island Kephalonia. Also sixty years ago, on the 25th September in 1943 seven hundred Italian war prisoners were murdered on Korfu by the notorious 1. Gebirgsdivision ( mountain division). More Italian war prisoners were shot dead by the Wehrmacht in Sarande, Kucjk and Gahavo - against all international convents of war. From September til November 1943 innocent Greek civilians -women, children, old people- were murdered by Wehrmacht units in Lyngiades und about thirty other places in Greece. Many of these villages were burnt down. During the period of September til November in 1943 alone, we have to recall the victims of the following Greek villages: Kura, Anoion, Skliwani, Terowon, Arta, Paramythia, Thereakision, Neochoratti, Megarchi, Tunta, Akmotopos, Agios, Georgios, Rapsai, Strumy, Muliana, Anoion Tereion, Jimnopolos, Klisura, Lagatora, Argyrookastro, Kolonja, Plesat, Kardhiq, Zhulat, Progonat Golem, Periwoli, Dragumi and Zragumi. The historian Martin Seckendorf explains the frightening enormous amount of devasted villages and killed people as follows: During the German occupation in Greece from 1941 to 1943, they committed two massacres like that one in Lidice each fortnight The tragic fate of Lidice is well-known all over the world, whereas the crimes of the Wehrmacht in the Balkans are still nearly unknown. The Federal Government of Germany (Bundesregierung) calls those crimes "effects of war" and declares that "the time for reparations is over." Today in Greece, Italy and our country citizens give evidence for their wish that war and crimes likes those in Kephalonia and Lyngiades and other places have to be banished from the living together of the peoples. Especially the inhabitants of our country have to take responsibilty for celebrating the commemoration days of the dead and for supporting the Wehrmachtsausstellung with dignity. According to this spirit we now start our walk through the streets of Dortmund. Nie wieder Faschismus - Nie wieder Krieg! Fascism - never again! No more war! more informations in english: Corelli's Comrades Article from The Sunday Times, London, 08.19.01 by John Follain (documentation) "'Real Corelli' gets close to Germans linked to massacre"/"Germany confronts Nazi atrocity: Reunion of war veterans intensifies calls for prosecutions over Cephalonia massacre" more informations in german: "Bitte lassen Sie dies nicht länger zu" Offener Brief an den Dortmunder Polizeipräsidenten
VVN-BdA und Bündnis Dortmund gegen Rechts übergeben Namen von Wehrmachtsverbrechern an die Justiz Protest gegen den Aufmarsch von Naziterroristen in Dortmund Aktuelle Infos zu den Demonstrationen gegen den geplanten Neonazi-Aufmarsch |
