Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-05-11-Speech-3-135"
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".
Mr President, the fine speech delivered by Mr Junker together with the particular emphasis of subsequent speeches are in stark contrast to the extremely disappointing and worrying content of the draft resolution submitted to us on behalf of the majority of groups on the 60th anniversary of the Nazi surrender. I am convinced that in the majority of political groups represented within our Assembly, men and women will feel a sense of unease when faced with this text, which is more or less a revision of history.
With every day, something became clearer, and this must be stated today on behalf of us all: 8 May was a day of liberation. It liberated us all from the inhumanity and tyranny of the Nazis.’
When an institution such as ours evokes that founding event of Europe and the world today that was the victory of all the allies – US, British and Soviet of the anti-Hitler coalition, every word counts. Let us wager that in a declaration of this type, many men and women expected to read lines such as the following: ‘8 May 1945 was a day of liberation for Europe’. Why not, since it is the truth; it was a day when the Soviet army contributed in a decisive manner.
Without choosing to overlook Stalinist oppression in any way, a number of Europeans, when confronted with various demonstrations of nostalgia for the Third Reich, would without doubt have also hoped to hear us say that excusing the Nazi atrocities by pointing the finger at Stalinist crimes is unacceptable from an intellectual and moral viewpoint, and indeed that – in view of the war of remembrance that is currently bringing the Baltic republics and Russia into conflict – we should keep in mind Nazi Germany’s share of the responsibility in the tragedy of the Baltic States.
Ladies and gentlemen, I will clarify a point: all the arguments that I have just put forward were in fact taken from an article published the day before yesterday in the French daily
under the name of Michael Mertes, a former adviser to the ex-Chancellor, Helmut Kohl. That is your political family, members of the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats! Thank God! We lost that war, it concludes, adding a line which I suggest you contemplate: the way we envisage the past teaches us more about our current attitudes than about the past itself.
At a time when the European Union is consulting its citizens on a draft Constitution, how will these citizens interpret the concept of an enlarged Europe that starts by questioning the cornerstone of the vision of Europe and the world, born on 8 May 1945, namely that Nazism was neither a dictatorship nor a tyranny like any other, but rather the complete break with society as a whole?
As far as we are concerned, we are ready for a debate that leaves no stone unturned, whether it focuses on the crimes of Stalinism, on the German-Soviet Pact of bleak memory, or further still on the history of the Baltic States. Nothing, absolutely nothing, however, should allow us to trivialise Nazism, the intended aim of which – should we need reminding – was to exterminate sub-humans and to enlarge the essential space of the superior race through mass warfare. That is the reason why we had a right to expect a text on 8 May 1945 from the European Parliament with a completely different focus. Might it not even have been too much, furthermore, to pay tribute to the anonymous soldiers on this occasion, who, with no other ambition but to live and act as upstanding men and women, became involved in the resistance at risk of their lives, which so many of them sacrificed for our freedom. One word – just one word – on the horror of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and their tens of thousands of dead in a defeated country would likewise not have been too much.
The European Parliament has truly failed to reconcile itself with history on this occasion. In addition, my group unanimously refuses to back this resolution, which is far removed from our concept of the Europe of 25, 27 or 30.
I shall leave the final word to a European leader who, 20 years ago, found the appropriate words to speak about 8 May 1945, and in a country where it was most difficult to speak them openly. I am talking about the former German President, Richard von Weizsaecker. If I may quote him.
‘We have the strength to look the truth in the face as best we can, without embellishment and without distortion."@en1
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