Berlin Outrage: Checkpoint Charlie Monument to be Bulldozed July 4th

Update: The Monument Has Been Destroyed.

Important Update: Henry Nickel of Republicans Abroad in Germany has been closely following the planned removal of the monument and has just emailed us this vital information:

"Dear Friends:

It looks like the Berlin bureaucracy has bent a bit to pressure, apparently they have postponed demolishion one day (rather more cynical than considerate).  Nonetheless the story is taking on a life of its own and has spread considerably. (...) Thanks to all of you who kept the story alive.

Henry"

So now instead of bulldozing the site at 4:01 AM on July 4th, the monument will be razed at 4:01 AM on July 5th. (Yes, the authorities wanted to remove the monument at a minute past 4 in the morning so that no one would notice.) The irony of this? At 4:01 AM Berlin time on the 5th, it will still be July 4th in the USA! It will be 10 PM in New York and 7 PM in LA, just about the time Americans will be setting off fireworks to celebrate the anniversary of their independence! There is even more to this story...and it has already been mentioned in the Wall Street Journal and the Sueddeutsche Zeitung. Stay tuned for more soon...

---

Original article: We didn't think it could get much worse in Germany...well, it just did. Davids Medienkritik recently learned that the Berlin city government, made up of a coalition between the SPD (Gerhard Schroeder's Social-Democrats) and the PDS (former SED party that ran Communist East Germany), has decided to allow the razing of the Checkpoint Charlie monument by court order.

And get this: The monument, which consists of over 1,000 crosses adorned with the names of those murdered attempting to escape Communist East Germany for freedom, will be bulldozed on the 4th of July! (See update above, now rescheduled for July 5th because of the pressure we put on!)
 

The Checkpoint Charlie monument scheduled for destruction July 4th in Berlin: Each cross has the name, and in some cases, photo of a victim of Communism murdered attempting to escape East Germany during the Cold War.

Berlin's Socialist-Communist City Government: Massive Conflict of Interest

What makes this story all the more disturbing is the obvious conflict of interest involved. As we indicated above, the Communist PDS is currently a member of the coalition that governs the city of Berlin. But prior to 1990, the PDS was known as the SED, the party that ruled East Germany with an absolutist iron fist. It was the SED dictatorship that was directly responsible for the hundreds of murders that the crosses at Checkpoint Charlie memorialize. And guess what? The PDS wants the monument torn down! 

To justify their decision to allow the removal, both members of the SPD and PDS have described the Checkpoint Charlie monument as an eye-sore or as something that trivializes the Cold War by turning the city into a Disneyland-style theme park. (How solemn rows of crosses with the names and faces of those murdered by the SED government could possibly make any place seem like Disneyland is something that perhaps only members of Germany's Left can truly comprehend.)

The monument grounds were leased to Ms. Alexandra Hildebrandt of the Checkpoint Charlie Museum by a bank named Bankaktiengesellschaft (BAG) headquartered in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, and Ms. Hildebrandt and a team of others began erecting the crosses in October 2004. The bank subsequently refused to renew the lease and, when Ms. Hildebrandt refused to remove the monument, sued and won. Ms. Hildebrandt wants to buy the land from the bank and keep the monument at its historic location, but the city government has made it clear that it will oppose her and wants the monument to go despite its enormous popularity.* 

According to Deutsche Welle:

"The Berlin Senate for Urban Planning, one of the project's main detractors, fears that the capital is fast becoming a "Disneyland" version of its former self and insists the wall monument is too reminiscent of the Holocaust project at the Brandenburg Gate. The authority stresses that the East German dictatorship cannot be equated with the atrocities of the Third Reich."

In other words, the Socialists and Communists in Berlin's city government don't want to be constantly reminded of the murders that the SED dictatorship committed during the Cold War. How unpleasant that would be for them! So they would rather allow the crosses to be bulldozed on July 4th and mockingly associate the monument with Disneyland, a place that many Germans see as a symbol of trivial American commercialization.

President Bush Ought to Ask Schroeder About the Monument's Destruction

Certainly, we feel that the outrageous timing of the monument's destruction is incredibly insensitive not only to the families of those killed at the wall, but also to all those Americans and their families who served in Berlin and around Germany during the Cold War. To bulldoze this monument on a date that symbolizes liberty to millions of Americans around the world is an incredibly insulting gesture. We hope that President Bush brings the matter up with Chancellor Schroeder tomorrow during their White House meeting. Hopefully the media present at the meeting will also quiz Mr. Schroeder on the matter.

Need Another Reason to Demonstrate?

This much we can say: Davids Medienkritik will absolutely, positively bring the matter up tomorrow during our demonstration at Lafayette park in Washington, DC. We will also be supporting plans already underway to demonstrate in Berlin on July 4th should the plans to raze the monument go ahead unchanged.

Like Disneyland? How can Schroeder's SPD Support the Monument's Destruction on July 4th of all Days?      

You can email Berlin's mayor Klaus Wowereit (SPD) at: Der-Regierende-Buergermeister@Skzl.Verwalt-Berlin.de

You can email Berlin's Senator for City Development, Ingeborg Junge-Reyer (SPD) at: oeffentlichkeitsarbeit@senstadt.verwalt-berlin.de

You can email Walter Momper (SPD), who compared the monument to Disneyland and is also the president of the Berlin state parliament at: walter.momper@parlament-berlin.de

The bank that owns the leased land and sued to have the crosses removed, Bankaktiengesellschaft (BAG), can be contacted at: info@bankaktiengesellschaft.de

Our commenter Trish writes:

"The land may be the (is the) property of the bank, but Checkpoint Charlie is a part of history. It is difficult to understand that neither the city of Berlin nor the Federal Government preserved this property to do what Ms. Hildebrandt is doing, namely commerating more than 1000 people who died trying to attain FREEDOM! Furthermore the choice of the 4th of July, our Independence day, the birthdate of the oldest Democracy on the face of this earth, a Beacon of Freedom to many, to bulldoze this site is quite curious. The educated Germans pride themselves on being knowledgable of history - should the choice of the 4th of July really just be a coincidence?"

Thanks Trish. Very well said. As an aside, the US is one of the world's oldest democracies, but not the very oldest. That honor goes to Iceland.

(Article by Ray D., *hattip Americanbychoice)

Comments

@Irena Mitzka

The SU payed the highest price and has the biggest share in defeating Hitler and Nazi Germany. If you like it or not.
But in the same way the SU was bad totalitarian country.

But all that is history.
The US president relly need people like you at the moment in such unpleasant times in Iraq and other parts of the world. People who belive in black and white and in all that big words like democracy and freedom... that are used so often and more often without any real meanings.

So sign up and stop talking and do soem work for the white part of the world.

[James]

@whoever

The US president relly need people like you at the moment in such unpleasant times in Iraq and other parts of the world. People who belive in black and white and in all that big words like democracy and freedom... that are used so often and more often without any real meanings.

Let me tell you that the world doesn't need anyone like you who obfuscates issues and dilutes history. The world will not move forward as long as nihilists run the German government. Ideology can be a dangerous thing, especially when a defunct form of it comes into power as was in Nazi Germany, the US, Iraq, China, etc. What is desired in any country is a strong ideology based with a constitution recognizing the rights of man, minorities and property. Only then can a democracy flourish, like South Korea and Taiwan as examples.

@Helian

Excellent point. Maybe this reacquisition will exonerate the bank from the prying eyes of the German government’s locust fighting.

[Irena Mitzka]

@ whoever

like I said , don´t tell me about the SU role. And above all don´t accuse me of any " like it or not " . I made no mention or made any stance on that whatever.

Punk.

So you don´t believe in Democracy and Freedom. You don´t deserve it, thats all.
Are you one of those " alles Scheiße außer Kuba " ?
Well then, piss off , off you go, please, just leave. I´ll pay your plane fare, on the promise you stay there for 40 years.... with connecting flight to NK, in case Cuba changes government.

[Trish]

Here's an article in Stern on Checkpoint Charlie and the Crosses.
http://www.stern-verlag.de/politik/panorama/:Checkpoint-Charlie-Das-Kreuz-Kreuzen/542318.html

[Tish]

and a new one
http://www.berlinonline.de/berliner-zeitung/berlin/461501.html

[Irena Mitzka]

@ James

can you give details on this :

" Ideology can be a dangerous thing, especially when a defunct form of it comes into power as was in Nazi Germany, the US, Iraq, China, etc. "

?

@Irena Mitzka

I do belive in democracy but i don´t belive in people that use that word or others so often and as a PR campaign for the true belivers as you are.

People like you stoped thinking and stop posing questions. So everything is black and white. I really hope you are just 10 years old.

" alles Scheiße außer Kuba "
I am a member of the conservative party for nearly 20 years now. So i belive you are the one that really should leave our country because nobody shares your view here ( or at least no one important).

[Irena Mitzka]

"I don't like that "good democratic countries, bad communist countries". I believe the democracy is the better system but it's by far not perfect. Any country can be bad in a way, no matter if democratic or not."

These are your words.

You are playing down the massive negative nature of communist countries.

again : quote me:
„and your asumption is wrong " any country can be bad in a way "
my goodness.
A democratic country is almost certain to NOT "be bad" in a way totalitarian countries have been over and over.“

„ People like you stoped thinking and stop posing questions. „

Incorrect, I have „ überrundet „ you.

„ So everything is black and white „

Typical „ Unterstellung“ . No one said everything. And I say it again, your method is to change a black or white issue to a grey one in order to justify doing nothing.

As for the CDU , well , I known them also. They have lost their bite and have by and large aquired the same „gleichgeschaltete Einheitsmeinung „ as the Left.

I AM leaving . I regret greatly having paid oodles of taxes in this country.
Oh, yes, 40000 Germans left Germany in 2004 according to „ die Welt“ . These are highly qualified people BTW.
And more will be leaving. I know many who are fed up and pissed off and would leave in a minute if they had a green card.

"I don't like that "good democratic countries, bad communist countries". I believe the democracy is the better system but it's by far not perfect. Any country can be bad in a way, no matter if democratic or not."

These are your words.

You are playing down the massive negative nature of communist countries.

These are comments from another guy and they are too general.

You are leaving good luck and i hope you find the country where things are so easy and white is white while black is black.
If you belive the middle east policy of Bush is a good example for someone making a clear decission while others just see everything grey.
Save your comment and oppinion and think about it in ten years. The world is grey and i wonder what type of job you might have that you not have come to such a conclusion. Everytime you have to negotiate or ineract with other people the result will be grey otherwise there will be no deal.
There will be no victory for the US in the middle east and iraq in particular. Hopefully they get the chance to leave in some years with limited losses and limited spendings otherwise it will be a real blow for the whole west in this important region.

In my oppinion it is just childish retoric. the same is true for the comment on tax issue. To compare tax burdens in different countries is a very complex issue especially if you try to compare it with regions in the US.
If you are trying to point out that our tax system in combination with our federal system is insane and a burden to our economy than i would agree.
If you want a economic debate about differenst systems and countries bring it on i am here.

[Irena Mitzka]

I will continue in Part 2.

[DrPat]

I have quoted your post and linked to the picture of the monument in my Weekly BlogScan at BlogCritics.org, this week titled "Huffing Nitrites on the Fourth of July." To view the citation or join in the commentary, join the two lines below into the complete URL.

http://blogcritics.org/
archives/2005/07/01/231938.php

Happy Independence Day!

Did I miss something here? Did the writeup really use the phrase "historical location" for a display that is not a year old (began in October, 2004)?!?! What we really have here is a case of a private citizen (of ?) deciding for themself what the appropriate memorial should be and the OWNERS of the property - we Republicans used to think ownership was important - deciding they wanted to go another way. Puleez! Some people obviously need to be angry at something, thus they pile on to idiotic non-issues like this one. Get a life!

Did I miss something here? Did the writeup really use the phrase "historic location" for a display that is not a year old (began in October, 2004)?!?! What we really have here is a case of a private citizen (of ?) deciding for themself what the appropriate memorial should be and then making a stink when the OWNERS of the property - we Republicans used to think ownership was important - decided they wanted to go another way. Puleez! Some people obviously need to be angry at something, thus they pile on to idiotic non-issues like this one. This kind of "group think" endangers real democracy. Happy Fourth of July - get a life!

[jeff]

I am the American Soldier whose picture hangs in the middle of the street at the former checkpoint location. Although I found this blog a bit after the conversation ended, I thought to comment that it is very interesting. I cannot say much more than that as I am still in the U.S. Army.

All the best,
Jeff