On MemorialDay, a plea to ignore demagogues (Guest Column)
Today is Memorial Day saluting veterans and a few weeks ago we observed the 75th anniversary of the unconditional surrender of the armed forces of Nazi Germany. The Americans and the British call it Victory in Europe Day, the Germans call it Tag der Befreiung, Liberation Day, because that’s what it was for them, although it took Germans many years, if not decades, to understand it as such, and to even begin to come to terms psychologically with what their nation had done to the world.
Because of our history, any sense of pride in our country, or patriotism, has always been an odd and somewhat unnatural feeling for most Germans after the end of. I’m very proud what has become of my native country in the 75 years since then, although I have not lived there for a long time now. While Germany today certainly has its share of fools and people who hate, it has become mostly a modern, peace-loving nation of people who appreciate solidarity, kindness, decency, and reason.
I can’t even begin to express what it does to me now when I see pictures of Americans forcing themselves into their elected government buildings, carrying rifles, Confederate flags and swastikas and screaming hateful messages about “sacrificing the weak” and the Auschwitz slogan ”Arbeit macht frei” when all their own elected officials are doing is trying to keep them safe.
Democracy is the highest value that I have known in my lifetime. It’s something Germans have not taken for granted ever since they lost it during the Nazi regime. It is something that hundreds of thousands of young American men lost their lives fighting for, restoring it for my parents, for my generation, and for the rest of the Western world. I wish peace to the world, and good luck and good health to all of us in these trying times.
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