Germany Still Haunted By Its Nazi Past

Execution_of_Poles_by_German_Einsatzkomanndo_Oktober1939

It has been decades since World War II but Germany is still trying to deal with its inescapable past – one that is tainted by that one dictator named Adolf Hitler and his merciless killing machine, the Nazi army.

Last September 4, 2013, The country’s present president, Joachim Gauck, became Germany’s first head of state to make a call on the perfectly preserved ghost village in France, Oradour-sur-Glane, where more than six hundred men, women and children were killed by a Waffen-SS company in June 1944. The president’s visit was hailed by one French citizen as a “key moment in our national history”.

Recently, German federal authorities had made an announcement that the 30 men and women who purportedly acted as guards in the Auschwitz death camp must be prosecuted. On the other hand, 92-year-old Siert Bruins, a former SS officer, who was accused of killing a Dutch soldier while he was patrolling the German borders went on trial in a Hagen court.

The Nazi-hunters’ cry, in its campaign Operation Last Chance, repeatedly rings out:

“Spät – aber nicht zu spät – late, but not too late…”

However, with ex-SS officers in the end of their earth years and in spite of the fuss over 11th-hour prosecutions, a number of Germans feel it is best to move on from the Holocaust as calling on justice about the injustices that happened in the WWII might be, in truth, is already too late.

– Read Full Article in The Telegraph

 

 

Heziel Pitogo

Heziel Pitogo is one of the authors writing for WAR HISTORY ONLINE