Ingratitude

Davids Medienkritik has an interesting item about the reconstruction of Germany after the Second World War, and recent statements from German Chancellor Schroeder in the context of his speech in connection with the D-Day ceremonies.

As Davids Medienkritik points out, the speech

took great pains not to mention the U.S. as "liberator". The closest he came to mentioning the U.S. was in the context of "the Allies":

"Ladies and gentlemen, the fall of the Hitler dictatorship was the work of the Allies in the West and the East."

Compare this to Schroeder's treatment of Russia:

"The millions of victims of the Nazis in eastern Europe are not forgotten, the men and women of the western Alliance are not forgotten, neither are all the Russian soldiers who gave their lives for the liberation of their homeland."

Schroeder goes on to thank France, not the United States, for German reunification!

"Without the hand, which France in its generosity and political wisdom stretched out to us, we would not have found been able to complete the path which led us to reunification. And for this Mr. President I would especially like to thank you for your constant help and commitment. It is a good day -- today on June 6, 2004 -- to thank France and its Allies for that."

The item is also noteworthy for its inclusion of a link to a revealing 1974 interview with Lucius D. Clay, who was commander in chief of U.S. Forces in Europe and military governor of the U.S. Zone in Germany from 1947 to 1949. Clay throws some sobering light on the process of denazification that was begun with the Nuremberg war trials: "We were in a difficult position on this," Clay says, "because with the exception of the few notorious leaders, neither the British nor the French cared a thing about denazification. We were pursuing a policy in our zone that was not being pursued anywhere else..."