German Ambassador to Belarus regrets about Buchenwald stunt

12 апреля 2022
Belarusians are deeply offended by attempts to besmirch the heroic feat of grandfathers and great-grandfathers. A provocative stunt was performed on the grounds of the Buchenwald concentration camp memorial, where they hung out a cloth of the Belarusians, who were traitors during the Great Patriotic War. It is not difficult to guess who initiated the provocation - the followers of the same ideology, with the same bloody intentions - the White-Red-White terrorists and their handlers. However, it is worth emphasizing that the event was official. "Don't you dare touch the flag of the victorious people". This was an answer to the stunt the German Ambassador to Belarus heard today. Ekaterina Tikhomirova with details of the picket. 

"Open your eyes", "Nazism has revived in Europe", "Do not dare touch the flag of the victorious people". The resolute "No" to fascism walking tall again was expressed by the Belarusians at the German Embassy in Minsk. The protesters came with a demand to condemn the desecration of the national flag of Belarus. Representatives of parties, public associations, prisoners of concentration camps, and simply partial Belarusians took part in the event. They raised the flags of Belarus, the Soviet Union and sang the "Victory Day". 

A picket participant:
We have come here to express our position that we are very concerned about the current situation and what is happening in the world. Raisa was a little girl in the Ozarichi concentration camp. Many children died there. And I was a prisoner. My mother was taken to captivity at 16, and I was born there.The voluntaristic stunt happened last Sunday during a commemorative action on the grounds of the Buchenwald Concentration Camp Memorial in Germany. An unknown person defiantly removed our state flag from the flagpole and replaced it with a cloth used by the traitors of the Belarusian people, accomplices of the Nazi regime during the occupation period. The White-Red-White symbols were used twice in the territory of our country occupied by Germany: during the World War I and the Great Patriotic War. In 1941, it was approved and endorsed by the occupation administration of Wilhelm Kube for use by collaborators from among the Belarusian traitors. The flag was hung, including during events with the highest ranks of the Third Reich and on administration buildings next to the portraits of Hitler. 

That is why the Belarusians are not just outraged by the appearance of the banner in the place of memory, but deeply offended. 

Anna Mikhailova, chairperson of the Gomel regional organization "Belarusian Association of Former Underage Prisoners of Fascism":
We are so bitter, so offended that they have trampled on our holy flag and the memory of what happened in that terrible camp. I was in a German camp, it wasn't a concentration camp, it was a labor camp. When they took us away, I was five and a half years old, so I remember well how my sister was dying, I remember well how she said: "Mom, don't cry, you still have Anya.Vladimir Semochkin, son of the defender of the Brest Fortress:
We have our own flag, we have our own country, our own anthem, which we respect and love and appreciate. You know, it would be great to simply go beat their faces in for such a substitution.  But this is not enough. They should be tried. This is a criminal offense against our state. If this provocation was intended to evoke emotions among the Belarusians, they succeeded. It turned out to cause a flurry of indignation, which was heard inside the walls of the German Embassy, and the ambassador was forced to come out to the protesting Belarusians. 

Manfred Huterer, German Ambassador to Belarus: 
As the Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany, I am very sorry that such complications and misunderstandings have arisen. Our government recognizes your national flag. I also have it in my office. I am really very sorry that what happened at the event in Buchenwald hurt your feelings. But you need to know that this event was not organized by the federal government, this event was organized by a non-governmental organization.A picket participant:
It was not you who did it, but it was done on your land. This is the first step towards fascism. First, they hang out the flag of collaborators, and swastika will be next, and this is over Buchenwald, Mr. Ambassador! If you don't take any measures now to stifle fascism, it will rise again and again from German soil, Mr. Ambassador.The participants of the picket showed under what symbols the collaborators killed the Belarusians during the Great Patriotic War and under what banners the neo-Nazi gangs now kill civilians in Ukraine. The materials were handed over to the ambassador so that he could send them to Berlin.

A picket participant:
The European media now says that our protesters have nothing to do with Nazism. These are the pictures of our Belarusian nationalists: these are the White-Red-White symbols, these are the tattoos they have, I think this is a familiar symbolism. The Western media, unfortunately, does not show this at all.  And this is a historical photo. These are the Belarusian nationalists participating in the hostilities in the Donbass and killing civilians along with Ukrainian nationalists, against whom a military operation is now underway. We would like you to hand over these photos to the German government so that they finally ended up in the Bundestag, so that the German public, the media and state authorities finally started telling the truth.And the West, apparently, is not accustomed to telling the truth. At the very least, it does not fit into the political outline, where followers of the ideas of fascism and admirers of the purity of the Aryan race have been shown almost as the defenders of Ukraine. 

Evdokia Kolosova, former underage prisoner:
Therefore, the whole world must fight against Nazism. And we are the friendly nations: Belarusians and Russia. Ukraine was a friendly nation as well. When Poroshenko was in power, many people were against him. But Zelensky is a banner of the Ukrainian Nazism. And so now Belarus supports the Russians and we are all together in one fist to stop the war, to stop Nazism, so that this plague did not spread everywhere - that's what this is about. Where is Russia? You see, its flags are being trampled on everywhere.In order to try to remedy the situation related to the incident with the Buchenwald symbols in the territory of the concentration camp, the ambassador was proposed to simply join the nationwide subbotnik on April 16 and take part in the cleaning of Khatyn Memorial. 

Alexander Lukyanov, First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Belarusian National Youth Union:
We invited Mr. Ambassador, as a sign of his understanding of the enormity of the situation, to take part in the subbotnik. So that he himself came and joined the cleaning up in the territory of the state memorial "Khatyn" together with the youth, thus, expressing his conviction that fascism and Nazism should not exist.  He will not be there, and the Belarusians are persistent in this belief.