I am ashamed!
- Bernd Liske
- 1 day ago
- 6 min read
On the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz
In the morning devotion broadcast on Deutschlandfunk radio on January 27th – the day marking the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz – Pastor Stephan Krebs recounts a trip he took with a group to Lebanon a few years prior. At a restaurant, they were initially refused service. When they inquired about the situation, it turned out that the waiters had assumed they were from the USA and that the USA supported Israel. Once it became clear that they were from Germany, the waiters became completely different and extremely friendly: because the Germans had murdered as many Jews as possible. "I am deeply ashamed," he states, and concludes in a way that reminds me of my peace plan for the Middle East :
The madness persists. ... Guilt has a long-lasting effect. Even across generations. To truly overcome it requires great human strength – perhaps even superhuman strength: the willingness not to hate, but to acknowledge. ... Reconciliation lasts far longer than hatred. ... The real dividing line in the Middle East is not between Israelis and Palestinians, not between Jews, Muslims, or Christians: the real dividing line is between those who wage hatred and war and those who desire peace and coexistence.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz posted:
Sons and daughters, mothers and fathers, best friends, neighbors, grandparents: More than a million people with dreams and hopes were murdered in Auschwitz, murdered by Germans. We sympathize and remember. We will not tolerate forgetting, not today and not tomorrow.
Do we truly not tolerate forgetting? Isn't it true that we merely recall the historical facts without learning from history – thus adding further facts to history that future generations will then have to remember as well? Are we incapable of considering the 11th commandment of Auschwitz in our actions, and not just in our remembrance: "Thou shalt not be indifferent. Indifference kills."
Every era has its own challenges.
You have to recognize them and you have to confront them.
Must experience, the first death,
The second has hardship, the third has bread.
follow, bringing hardship to the sons and death to the grandchildren,
Because the spirit of the times, in its narrow-mindedness, refuses any moral change?
I have already dedicated a PERSPECTIVE and several posts to the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz ( 1 , 2 ). Rabbi Meir Lau, who expressed the following at Yad Vashem before world leaders, remains a lasting memory for me:
You decide the fate of millions. Choose love, friendship, and peace. For making a statement is one thing; you will be judged by your actions.
Tragic and telling that a video or article with this content can no longer be found : For me, it was the birth of @LiskeZitate on TWITTER.
Five years have passed since then. Among the facts of these five years is that Chancellor Olaf Scholz could have prevented the war with Russia on February 15, 2022, but did not ( 1 , 2 , 3 ) and instead proclaimed a " turning point " on February 27, 2022. Yet, in an interview on December 8, 2021, on ARD, he had expressed his intention to follow in the footsteps of Willy Brandt's peace policy (from 8:00 onwards). Since then, we have spent several hundred billion euros to achieve persistently high energy prices in Germany, a weakening of its competitiveness, the relocation of important companies abroad, particularly to the USA, inflation and recession, and to bring the country closer to another war with Russia.
The federal election on February 23rd is intended to secure voter approval for the further course of action, as Friedrich Merz, Robert Habeck, and Christian Lindner have all clearly expressed their willingness to supply TAURUS aircraft to Ukraine. Their parties, along with the SPD, want to further empower Ukraine, weaken Russia to the last Ukrainian citizen, and these parties, as well as the AfD, are aligning their support for arming the Bundeswehr with President Donald Trump's demand to spend 5% of GDP on this. This time, unlike during the "turning point" of the past, voters cannot claim ignorance of what was coming: This election is a referendum on Germany's willingness to become "military-ready"—to the detriment of social justice, education, innovation, competitiveness, and, more generally, resilience to the real challenges of our time. Russia is not one of these challenges, and therefore, the taxpayers' money spent on this is money down the drain.
In line with these intentions, the media are orchestrating the narrative of the evil Russian in a variety of ways and with increasing abandon. They don't even shy away from misusing the Holocaust for this purpose. For example, the Süddeutsche Zeitung writes:
The last survivors still bear witness to the history of this collapse of civilization, but that doesn't stop those in power from manipulating this history for their own purposes. The Red Army liberated Auschwitz in 1945. Vladimir Putin uses this historical act to whitewash his campaign of murder against Ukraine as a continuation of the fight against 'Nazis'.
The fact that this war is a war between the USA and Russia, and also Germany, and that so far there have been approximately 12,500 civilian casualties in this war, while around 47,000 people died in Gaza – including 17,000 children – is completely ignored. This also applies to the fact that January 27th marked not only the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, but also that of Leningrad . The 872-day siege of the city by the German Wehrmacht resulted in the deaths of 1.1 million people – a similar number to those in Auschwitz. As early as 2014, I wrote in the FAZ :
While Germany, in humility before six million murdered Jews, accompanies the path of present-day Israel with great forbearance, it should not forget that 20 million killed Russians also fall under German responsibility.
Allow me one final quote: When I wrote in 2016 about my concern that I might one day have to say, "Germany – I am horrified by you," or even, "Germany, its tragedy," Germany has since embarked on precisely that path. It runs completely counter to the "Never again" of Auschwitz and has absolutely nothing to do with the AfD – if I focus on primary responsibilities and, for the moment, ignore the undoubtedly existing responsibility for the social fabric. This manifests itself not only in the way we deal with Russia but also with Ukraine, and here we need only look at the media reactions to the plan to " detoxify " Crimea. Does it really need to be pointed out that classifying something as genocide and as a crime against humanity doesn't require first verifying nationality?
Therefore: I am ashamed,
that we Germans fail to derive from German raison d'état that the premises according to which one can speak of a genocide – derived from the Holocaust – do not lead us to condemn the genocide against the Palestinians accordingly and even support it with German weapons,
We will not be doing justice to the raison d'état if we do not consistently act in accordance with the principles of Albert Schweitzer (I am life that wills to live, in the midst of life that wills to live), Pope Francis (call to heal and to start at the very bottom) and Rabbi Meir Lau (Choose love, friendship and peace).
that, in light of our historical responsibility – which also includes 24 million deaths in the Soviet Union – we fail to extend German raison d'état to Russia – because "respect" for the legacy of the Holocaust is impossible without universal "respect" for creation – and instead, with our Russophobia, our drive towards the East, our weapons and our sanctions, we are responsible for further suffering: already to our greater detriment.
that no German politician and no leading media outlet has taken up my thoughts on anti-Semitism and my peace plan for the Middle East or discussed its naivety, and that I am thus given similar experiences in the sense of repression as I already had to gather in the NSA affair .
Germans don't like conventional dialogues.
They prefer monologues – they remain silent and think their own thoughts –
or they discuss with third parties what is on their minds.
A lack of critical engagement leads to a weakness in critical thinking skills.
and from it the lack of teachability.
Such a people – trained in silence – prefers to talk about-
Instead of collaborating, it excludes instead of including, it is rather subservient.
Instead of being humble and aggressive, instead of conciliatory, it strengthens the appearance
Instead of strengthening being, it prefers to strengthen armor rather than morale.
Such a people – equipped with almost everything necessary,
To make history – sets out to become history.
It's due to his nature .
