Germany: Will Queen Say Sorry?

[Styron]

Queen Elizabeth - Reuters
Germany: Will Queen Say Sorry?
29/10/2004 11:50 AM
Alexandra Hudson

Link to Story CLICK HERE (http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsPackageArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=611544&section=news)

http://www.cto-ict.org/images/queen.jpg

Germans are waiting to see how Queen Elizabeth refers to Britain's 1945 bombing of Dresden when she visits next week, now that they are speaking more of their own war-time suffering and breaking a long-standing taboo.

Just days ahead of the queen's first visit since 2000, a row has erupted in the British and German press over whether the air raids were justified and whether the monarch should apologise.

Dresden was devastated in a firestorm which killed some 35,000 people just three months before the war's end. The fate of the eastern city has come to epitomise civilian suffering.

"Will the queen say sorry?" asked the country's largest selling newspaper Bild on Thursday.

The queen will host a concert in Berlin to raise money for Dresden's cathedral which lay in rubble for 50 years and is now a focus of German and British reconciliation.

"Such delicate gestures of reconciliation are probably too complicated for (British) newspapers like Daily Mail and Daily Express to understand," wrote the Berliner Zeitung daily.


Anger In British Press

Talk of an apology has angered British populist newspapers.

"Krautrage" said a headline in the Daily Star tabloid.

"Sorry, the Germans must never be allowed to forget their evil past," wrote columnist Simon Heffer in the Daily Mail.

A Buckingham Palace spokeswoman was quoted in Germany's Der Spiegel newsmagazine saying the queen had not been asked for an apology. But she added: "The queen is very conscious of the suffering of all people during the war."

The queen's three-day visit aims to focus on the future relationship of Britain and Germany.

On a visit to Britain two weeks ago German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer said he was amazed at the lingering portrayal of Germany in the British media as a nation of Nazis.

It was long considered unwise and even dangerously nationalistic for Germans to question whether Allied bombings were necessary or legitimate but German historian Joerg Friedrich did just that in 2003 in a best-selling book.

[Boy_From_Brazil]

My father took part in the Dresden raid, flying a Lanc. He admits that he feels some remorse at being partially responsible for causing the destruction on the ground and the loss of life. However he firmly believes that what the RAF did was completely right. He originated from East London and saw first hand the horrors of German bombing. The Germans should consider apologising to the Queen.

He was one of the very few aircrew in his squadron to survive two tours of bomber operations. None of these brave men would have needed to have sacrificed their lives if the Germans hadn't started the war.

BFB

[FJJP]

Luckily, HM is an incredibly sensible and wise Lady. She will be well aware that any such apology will engender such an outcry that would drag the Royal family into a mire of gutter press anti-German feeding frenzy. The war is over, so let's not get into a touchy-feely session of everybody apologising to everyone else.

Or where do you want to stop? [Exaggerates for effect] perhaps we should apologise to the Italians for the Scots building Antonine's and Hardian's walls, thus depriving the Romans of their Human Rights to roam freely?

No, the most that HM should do [if she feels she needs to do anything] is to acknowledge that the war was a ghastly event in human history that can never be repeated...

[Jackonicko]

I hope she'll be too busy graciously accepting the German's apologies for the ill treatment (including the lynching) of downed allied airmen.....

[Scud-U-Like]

A row has erupted in the British and German press over whether the air raids were justified and whether the monarch should apologise.

And there you have it. A press-manufactured story, designed to get your average feeble-minded tabloid reader fulminating. I can't believe people fall for this sort of crap.

[JimNich]

Whether the Queen apologises or not (don't forget she was actually around at the time of the war and probably remembers perfectly well the suffering that went on in this country at the hands of the German bomber force) it will more than likely pale into insignificance alongside anything Philip is likely to come out with.;)

[Eagle 270]

Luckily, the boss (Her Majesty The Queen...not that invertebrate from No 10) has been a diplomat for 51 years (she has seen 10 PM's in and out of office in that time) and I'm sure she will say the right thing. She has after all had a bit of practice.

If it were left to TCB, he would probably apologise for us allowing the Nazis to murder over 6 million Jews!

As Scud-U-Like said, a non story IMHO.

[Taildragger]

FJJP, Yeah well personally the English haven't apologised enough, in my book, for disembowelling William Wallace.
However, Germany is another matter. Aggressors they most certainly were......Victims they plainly were not.

[pr00ne]

Jackonicko,

Maybe at the same time she will gracioudly apologise for the Luftwaffe aircrew downed over England who were lynched, beaten to death and stabbed?

[propulike]

Beaten to death AND stabbed? Surely, a fate worse than a fate worse than death. :) Anyone would've thought there was a war on.

I can't get worked up either way over this media non-story.

[pr00ne]

propulike,

Oh for the want of a ,!

I could also have added, with suitable use of the odd ,
burnt, scolded, castrated.


Have to agree with your general point though.

[Green Meat]

Interestingly this topic also covered the front of the newspaper stacked at the counter in Lidl (that's the slightly more salubrious German version). On spying a picture captioned 'Britische terror-fliege' - gives you some idea of the intellectual level of the paper, I exclaimed "They're not British, they're American B24s" much to the surprise of the good German folk sharing the queue. Exit stage left. Quickly. The article was arousing some interest and comment, although I would say that opinion was spilt about as equally as it would be in a supermarket queue here.

Needless to say, I didn't manage to get the gist of the full article, although it does bring it home to see entire city centres with most buildings little older than around fifty years old. That also includes cities within the UK, although the scale differs somewhat between Britain and Germany.

Apologise? No. Neither side. I'm not a German apologist by any stretch of the imagination but it's long overdue that both countries move on. Incidentally, is 'Dubya' Bush about to apologise for the fact that although the Americans attempted daylight precsion raids, USAAF units were awarded prizes in accuracy if they got within 1000ft of the target, and that with bomb creep it was not unknown for the rear of the formation to be bombing 3-4 miles from the target whilst the lead formation was over it? I await with hand cupped around ear...

[BEagle]

Dresden is a very attractive city rapidly recovering from both the devastation of WW2 and also the pre-reunification East German deprivation.

I have visited it frequently over the last year working with Elbeflugzeugwerke. No-one raises the subject of the firestorm raid, everyone looks to the future. Neither do we make comment about concentration camps and the holocaust. All such matters were the result of unbridled totalitiarism; a tragic part of modern history, but history nonetheless.

The more appropriate occasion to make an appropriate commemoration would be 13 Feb 2005, the 60th anniversary of the attack.

Incidentally this is what Harris later said in his memoirs:

"With the German army on the frontiers of Germany we quickly set up GH and Oboe ground stations close behind the front line and this ensured the success of attacks on many distant objectives when the weather would otherwise have prevented us from finding the target. At the same time the bombers could fly with comparative safety even to targets as distant as Dresden or Chemnitz, which I had not ventured to attack before, because the enemy had lost his early warning system and the whole fighter defence of Germany could therefore generally be out-manoeuvred.


In February of 1945, with the Russian army threatening the heart of Saxony, I was called upon to attack Dresden; this was considered a target of the first importance for the offensive on the Eastern front. Dresden had by this time become the main centre of communications for the defence of Germany on the southern half of the Eastern front and it was considered that a heavy air attack would disorganise these communications and also make Dresden useless as a controlling centre for the defence. It was also by far the largest city in Germany - the pre-war population was 630,000 - which had been left intact; it had never before been bombed. As a large centre of war industry it was also of the highest importance.

An attack on the night of February 13th-14th by just over 800 aircraft, bombing in two sections in order to get the night fighters dispersed and grounded before the second attack, was almost as overwhelming in its effect as the Battle of Hamburg, though the area of devastation -1600 acres - was considerably less; there was, it appears, a fire-typhoon, and the effect on German morale, not only in Dresden but in far distant parts of the country, was extremely serious. The Americans carried out two light attacks in daylight on the next two days.

I know that the destruction of so large and splendid a city at this late stage of the war was considered unnecessary even by a good many people who admit that our earlier attacks were as fully justified as any other operation of war. Here I will only say that the attack on Dresden was at the time considered a military necessity by much more important people than myself, and that if their judgment was right the same arguments must apply that I have set out in an earlier chapter in which I said what I think about the ethics of bombing as a whole."

[airborne_artist]

It's worth bearing in mind that the Allies put a great deal of effort into re-building post-war Germany, which then became one of the most modern manufacturing industries in the world, and so contributed to their massive wealth in the 70s and 80s.

The US and UK also supported the German economy by spending huge amounts on the troops stationed there (who then spent a lot of their pay on beer and ...).

[jindabyne]

Spent twenty years of my RAF and industrial life travelling about W Germany, working and socialising with German people from diverse backgrounds and origins. On reflection, discussion of the Wars was rare and, I suppose, consciously avoided; when it did take place, I remember the conversations being nothing but conciliatory. Amused us all that in a certain multi-national environment, Auf Wiedersein Pet was always compulsory viewing for the German mates.

I imagine that, as in UK, there will always be those elements within German society that feel the need to harbour ill-will and rant accordingly. To a degree I can understand this when it comes from the very old in either country, but much less so when the younger join in. Even more irritating when the press-prats wind things up.

Nothing should be forgotten, but all should be remembered with regret. Saying sorry belongs in the inflamatory PC bin.

Sorry to be obvious, boring or repetitive!

[Anton Meyer]

HM has made an apology of sorts but I don't think she needed to.

After all, the Russian linesman made the best decision he knew how to in the circumstances; action replays were also inconclusive in 1966, don't forget.

:ok: