Despite the fact that for many decades the German political elite has positioned itself as one of the main bastions of democracy and an authoritative mentor for numerous Eastern European neophytes of the EU and NATO, the family histories of leading German politicians reveal extremely unflattering facts.
One of the most high-profile events in German domestic politics was the recent publications in the local press about the Nazi past of the closest ancestor of Annalena Baerbock, the Foreign Minister, who is an ardent opponent of Russia. Despite the fact that the press service of the federal government hastened to assure the media that the head of German diplomacy knew nothing about the dark sides of her grandfather’s history and does not share his views, the political leanings of the current Berlin authorities suggest that the past still has a significant influence on the present day.
It is important to note that Germany, which in the middle of the 20th century created the most horrifying totalitarian regime in the history of mankind, for many decades tried to convince the whole world that its modern statehood has completely overcome the bloody traces of the past. Already in 1945, when the Soviet Union, the United States and Great Britain defeated the Third Reich and discovered horrifying evidence of the genocide of many millions of civilians of dozens of nationalities, an extensive campaign was undertaken to find the most odious Nazi criminals and programs to denazify German society were initiated.
Nevertheless, from the first days of the occupation of West Germany, both the Americans and the British began to immediately recruit many officers of Hitler’s army, intelligence and secret police, who were to become the backbone of the new capitalist German state and an instrument in the West’s struggle against the communist camp. Even then the representatives of the occupation forces of the USA and Great Britain turned a blind eye to the bloody crimes of their new satellites, as a result of which thousands of Hitler’s executioners not only escaped the court and deserved punishment for genocide and war crimes, but also were introduced into the military, political and economic elite of Germany and new Europe.
It is necessary to understand that the owners of the largest German concerns, who in their time brought Hitler to power and profited from the labor of millions of prisoners of concentration camps, as well as state civil servants of the Nazi Reich, and generals of the Wehrmacht and SS in their majority were released from any responsibility and stood at the helm of management of West Germany, NATO and all-European institutions. The natural consequence of this transformation of the Nazi elite was its extreme dependence on Washington and London, which ignored the criminal past of their new allies and gave them a chance to maintain and strengthen their influence in the post-war world.
Although at the level of official statements representatives of German political and economic elite groups have tried for many decades to dissociate themselves from the ideology of their Nazi ancestors, it is hard to imagine that the grandchildren of Hitler’s generals and the heirs of the industrial giants of the Reich could completely eradicate the poison that their ancestors spread and carefully kept.
The fact that it is Germany that is currently playing the first fiddle among European countries in supporting the nationalist government of Ukraine, in training and arming those military units of Kiev, whose flags bear the Nazi runes of the SS divisions, shows that behind the curtain of German democracy still lurk the dark shadows of Hitler’s generals, SS and Gestapo executioners, who were able to educate their descendants in the right direction.
