Posted on 2/15/2005, 10:56:16 PM by Cornpone
DRESDEN - In Germany's biggest neo-Nazi rally for decades, 5,000 rightists marched through Dresden on Sunday as the city marked the 60th anniversary of its World War II destruction.
They were outnumbered by tens of thousands of mainstream Germans who paraded in demonstrations in Dresden against the right, attended memorial church services or pinned white, silk roses to lapels in a massive show of revulsion for latter-day admirers of Adolf Hitler.
Thanks to a huge police presence there was no violence apart from a scuffle or two between the opposing groups. After the neo-Nazis dispersed in the late afternoon, civic groups began lighting tens of thousands of tiny candles on a city square in an anti-Nazi vigil.
The dozens of city memorial services reached a climax after dark with a silent memorial service attended by 50,000 in the town centre.
Dresden's annual day of sorrow includes the bells of all the city churches tolling at 9.45 pm, the hour when the first wave of US and British incendiary bombs hit the city on 13 February 1945.
The fire-bombing, in three separate Allied attacks, has been described as Germany's Hiroshima, with between 25,000 and 35,000 people suffocated and many burned beyond recognition in the inferno.
The great majority saw the commemoration as a cry for peace and reconciliation between former enemies.
That contrasted with the "nationalist" demands of thousands of young men with shaved heads waving black flags, but also many older people, who gathered in frigid weather on a square next to Saxony's state parliament on the Elbe River for the far-right rally.
"What is the difference between cold blooded concentration camp guards ... and American bomber pilots?" said Franz Schoenhuber, a former Waffen SS member and ex-leader of Germany's far right Republikaner Party, in a speech to cheers and applause.
The march was led by four wooden crosses with the words "Dresden", "Hiroshima", "Vietnam" and "Baghdad" - and the anti-American tone of the protest was palpable with frequent reference to "US bombing terrorists".
"America and Britain should have stopped bombing innocent people in 1945," said Herbert Jeschioro, aged 77, who said he had spent six years as a prisoner of war.
Leftist protesters, kept away from the rally by police, shouted "Nazis out" and "Down with Nazi slime".
In Berlin, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder warned against those who wanted to hijack the day of mourning and use it minimise Nazi guilt.
The Dresden protest was supported by the far-right National Democratic Party (NPD) which is by far the best organised of Germany's three main rightist parties. Last September the NPD won 9.2 percent in Saxony state elections and entered the state parliament.
A police spokesman said about 5,000 people took part in the far- right demonstration making it bigger than a 4,500-strong rally in 1997 in Munich. There have been no bigger rightist rallies since at least the 1950s.
Mainstream German parties voiced alarm at the neo-Nazis seizing the limelight on a day of so much international attention.
In his statement, Chancellor Schroeder said: "We mourn today the victims of war and of Nazi dictatorship in Dresden, in Germany and in Europe." He attacked those trying to hijack the mourning, saying they denied the responsibility of Nazi Germany for World War II.
"We will fight with all our might against this attempt to rewrite history," said the Chancellor.
British and American bombers destroyed Dresden three months before the end of the war. Many of the dead were women, children and refugees fleeing the advance of the Soviet Red Army.
Saxony premier Georg Milbradt and the US, British and French ambassadors laid wreaths at a cemetery where 20,000 are buried. Milbradt later voiced relief that Dresdners had not let themselves be provoked to violence by the "insupportable" neo-Nazi parade.
Elderly survivors attended smaller memorial services in the different sections of the city rebuilt after the war.
As a protest against neo-Nazis, organizers called on Dresdners to wear the white rose as a symbol of new life without bitterness.
At a service in the crypt of the Frauenkirche, rebuilt over the past 10 years as a symbol of peace, pastor Stephan Fritz told the premier and ambassadors, "Christians say no to revenge and yes to forgiveness."
John Irvine, the dean of England's Coventry Cathedral, which was destroyed in a 1940 blitz by the Nazis, voiced sorrow at Dresden's destruction and told the congregation it should never have happened.
I still struggle with Nazis being called "rightists"...
This is a great example of how the Evil uses our sense of guilt to try to gain power. Why don't they march against Hitler's bombing of Britain civilian targets?
Oh, but you see, we are all Nazis...
National Socialism doesn't exactly sound conservative.
I was particularly disturbed by this statement. Can you explain why this needless apology was made to the people who first did to Coventry what was later visited on them?
It's not. "Rightist refers to a general socio-economic theory that while typically nationalist needs not be.
The closest would be "reactionary radical nationalists.
Well, the left gets Stalin, Pol Pot, and Red China. There are idiots on both sides.
I still struggle with Nazis being called "rightists"...
You and me both, pardner. I've probably written ten pieces on that matter here.
Probably because the Church of England has moved to the Extreme Left - they don't even worship G-d in some churches!
I still struggle with Nazis being called "rightists"...
So do I. I can't remember who said it, but somebody once said that those who call Hitler a conservative should be challenged to name one thing Hitler wished to conserve.
The writer of the story and the Nazis share an ignorance of history. The night time fire bombers were British, not American. The Americans aimed at specific targets in much more dangerous daylight raids. The British dumped bombs on cities at night. In this case, the Americans primarily targeted rail facilities.
Yes, those darn German women and children fleeing the Red Army in East Prussia, Silesia, etc. deserved to be firebombed.
Nazis...I hate those guys. The total iron of the situation being that all the leftists marching against these clowns probably agree with their anti-US message 100% but only march against them purely on semantics. Notice the anti-US tone to what was primarily a British operation.
"Nazis...I hate those guys"
"You didn't bring the book, did you?"
"I should have mailed it to the Marx Brothers!"
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