The civilian tolls were terrible, and the firestorms have become a bitter but largely silent German memory. Even Churchill wasn't sure the Allies should have studied firebombing techniques - that is, deliberately setting intense fires with a carpet of bombs over the civilian-dense heart of a city - between 1942-45. They don't call it an "Allied Bombing Holocaust," like the neo-Nazis, but they remember that almost every German city was bombed to rubble during the war. The problem has even more significance in Dresden because a huge number of Germans think the firebombing of the city was a war crime. Holocaust denial is illegal here, and a lot of the demonstrators in Dresden last weekend thought the "grief marches" ought to be outlawed, too. On the other hand, the presence of neo-Nazis is intolerable to Germans with a conscience. On the one hand, Germany wants to be a liberal democracy with all the usual freedoms. They're an awkward answer to an impossible problem for German officials. But the demonstrations and counterdemonstrations were a controlled form of street theater - not quite what would be called "free speech" in the states. ("Everyone wants the same thing / Toss the Nazis in the Elbe!") One crowd of black-dressed anarchists broke into various chants: The cops stood for hours in riot gear while neo-Nazis and counterdemonstrators made a lot of noise on opposite sides of the line, and finally the cops called off the march because of the risk of violence. Around 5,000 demonstrators from the neo-Nazi scene collected at Dresden's Neustadt train station, but the police called off the march because about 6,000 other Germans - activists from the Green or Left Parties, trade unionists, anarchists, members of the anti-fascist or "Antifa" scene - held street demonstrations nearby.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |