{"id":114796,"date":"2021-06-22T10:18:31","date_gmt":"2021-06-22T14:18:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=114796"},"modified":"2021-06-22T10:18:31","modified_gmt":"2021-06-22T14:18:31","slug":"germany-to-remember-millions-of-victims-of-world-war-ii-the-german-people","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=114796","title":{"rendered":"Germany to remember millions of victims of World War II; the German people"},"content":{"rendered":"

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I feel like this is the sort of thing you should expect to happen when you start a world war 25 years after starting the previous world war. Especially when the world war you start sees to the systematic extermination of entire races of people. The literal rape, murder, and scorched earth retreats by the Germans during the war\u00a0would\u00a0<\/em>tend to leave a bad taste in one’s mouth.<\/p>\n

Berlin museum centering on Germans expelled after WWII opens<\/a><\/h3>\n

Germany on Monday opened a museum exploring the fate of millions of Germans forced to leave eastern and central Europe at the end of World War II, along with other forced displacements of the 20th and 21st centuries \u2014 a sensitive project that has taken years to realize.<\/p>\n

The Documentation Center for Displacement, Expulsion, Reconciliation, is opening more than 13 years after Chancellor Angela Merkel\u2019s government gave the plan the go-ahead. Housed in a late-1920s building in downtown Berlin, it features some 700 exhibits over 1,500 square meters (16,000 square feet).<\/p>\n

\u201cThis center was discussed at length and intensively, in Germany but also with our partners in Europe,\u201d Merkel said in an address to the opening ceremony, welcoming the presence of the Polish, Czech and Hungarian ambassadors. \u201cThe discussions about this place really were not always easy, but they were important.\u201d<\/p>\n

Merkel said the new center, complete with a library, \u201cfills a gap in our coming to terms with history.\u201d Still, making the project reality was long viewed as \u201can impossible balancing act,\u201d according to the center\u2019s director, Gundula Bavendamm.<\/p>\n

Controversies revolved around one central question, Bavendamm told reporters ahead of the opening: \u201cHow can the exodus and expulsion of Germans at the end of and after World War II be portrayed without raising the slightest doubt that this country is aware of its lasting responsibility for the German crimes of World War II and the murder of European Jews?\u201d<\/p>\n

The project centers on the millions of Germans who fled from advancing Soviet forces or were kicked out of parts of eastern and central Europe as Germany\u2019s borders were moved westward after the war, \u201cin the historical context\u201d of Nazi crimes, said Bavendamm \u2014 the project\u2019s third director.<\/p>\n

\u201cWithout the Nazi policies of expulsion and annihilation, 14 million Germans wouldn\u2019t have lost their homes as a result of flight and expulsion,\u201d she added. \u201cBut that doesn\u2019t change the fact that their expulsion by the Allies and the eastern and central European states in the aftermath of World War II was also an injustice.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I feel like this is the sort of thing you should expect to happen when you start a world war 25 years after starting the previous world war. Especially when the world war you start sees to the systematic extermination of entire races of people. The literal rape, murder, and scorched earth retreats by the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":664,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-114796","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-historical"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4ozh1-tRy","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114796","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/664"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=114796"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114796\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=114796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=114796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=114796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}