Polish-German tensions rise as Poland accuses Germany of ‘foisting guilt for its own Nazi crimes off on others’

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Polish-German tensions rise as Poland accuses Germany of ‘foisting guilt for its own Nazi crimes off on others’

May 21st, 2009 by mikecg

While Holocaust denial is at an all time high in the Arab world, those who actually committed the atrocities are quite sure that it happened… they’re just not so sure who is to blame.

Earlier in the week, popular German weekly Der Spiegel published a cover story entitled Hitler’s European Holocaust Helpers. The story starts off profiling Ivan Demjanju, a Ukrainian former concentration camp guard who may be on trial in the summer for the murder of 29,000 Jews, and uses this story as a springboard for making the case that 200,000 non-Germans were involved in war crimes, which almost equals the number of Germans and Austrians involved, and if it weren’t for them, the Holocaust would never have been able to happen.

This has caused outrage in Poland. Their former Prime Minister stated in response that “Germans are trying to free themselves from taking responsibility for the major crimes of Holocaust.” Poland’s Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski is going to send a protest letter to the weekly.

The debate continued today, with Der Spiegel publishing a response. Here is an excerpt:

For decades, SPIEGEL has focused sharply on Germany’s Nazi crimes. During the last year-and-a-half alone, the magazine has published numerous articles dealing with the subject. The November 2008 feature about Heinrich Himmler, Hitler’s “Executioner,” is just one example. In March 2008, a story ran with the headlin “The Perpetrators: Why so Many Germans Became Murderers.”

Stay tuned. I’m sure the Poles and the Germans have got plenty more excuses.