What was the deal with Reagan and Bitburg Cemetary?

I was reading this thread -- http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=705280

The other stuff I know about, but what's the deal with Bitburg??

And he was totally clueless about it. I believe he even laid a wreath there.

:hi:

Germans died for their country and they are dead. I went to college with Germans out of the German army and they were like all young men. Told to go and they did.They were just as nationalist(sp) as we were with this war in Iraq. Anything the boss wanted and they did it. My mother would only let us hate the govt. Looking back I swear it had something to do with their music and xmas items we had. To put flowers on war dead is just that.

A lot of tombstones there feature SS-runes. The media had to edit those out of the TV-pictures and chose their angels carefuly.

but He praise the soldiers of all the countries in World War 2 buried at Bitburg - thereby praising the Nazi SS murderers.

Reagan actually said that the SS buried there were "victims just as surely as the victims in the concentration camps."



:puke:

:hi:

Feeling ok I presume?????

:loveya:

but he strongly wanted to signal his hatred of Jews, so he deliberately choose that site.

4/18/85
While Michael Deaver is in West Germany searching for an "appropriate" concentration camp for the President to visit, President Reagan defends his visit to Bitburg by claiming the German soldiers "were victims, just as surely as the victims in the concentration camps."

4/29/85
President Reagan defends the Bitburg visit as "morally right," adding, "I know all the bad things that happened in that war. I was in uniform for four years myself." President Reagan spent his time during World War Two in Hollywood, making training films.

5/5/85
After having visited the Bergen-Gelsen death camp, President Reagan makes an eight minute stop at Bitburg. During the ceremony, he cites a letter from 13-year-old Beth Flom who, he claims, "urged me to lay the wreath at Bitburg cemetery in honor of the future of Germany." In fact, she urged him not to go at all.

http://www.quickchange.com/reagan/1985.html

Yeah, so Raygun has 'advance' people to find a cemetery for him
(as if he'd actually have a valid opinion on this himself...). Why
go to one that has SS in it? I mean, were there actual people in
his admin that wanted to court the vast pro-NAZI constituency?

It makes little sense. The potential problems MUST have outweighed
the benefits. Even bigoted Republicans don't have any real love
for f*cking actual Nazis, especially SS, who most know committed
war crimes against GIs in WWII.

I subscribe a LOT of evil to the Reagan Admin overall, but I just
think he was a big DOPE and didn't even know much about what
the SS were...he just wanted some crummy ol' cemetery to lay
a wreath to make nice-nice with some dumb ol' furriners. I just
can't imagine someone in the GOP saying "well, every Jew in the
US will hate us forever for doing this, but a handful of redneck
bigots will like it and vote for us next time (as if they weren't
going to already)".

Bonzo Goes To Bitburg, then goes out for a cup of tea
As I watched it on tv somehow it really bothered me
Drank in all the bars in town for an extended foreign policy

My brain is hanging upside down
I need something to slow me down

Shouldn’t wish you happiness,
Wish her the very best
Fifty thousand dollar dress
Shaking hands with your highness

See through you like cellophane
You watch the world complain,
but you do it anyway
who am i, am I to say...

Bigby

dump on Jews?

The fact is that for 2 weeks before the visit thw world - outside the US - screamed don't go.

And for Reagan not to hear ....? Sorry - impossible.

So the SOB made his point - got whatever reward was hidden from us - proved his control of the media - and we all moved on.

were buried there. It became a bit of a controversy because, obviously, these were members of Hitlers army, as well as Nazis.

Personally, I didn't have much of a problem with it. A lot of those soldiers where just concsripts, like any war.

I don't have any problem with laying a wreath at a Confederate soldier's cemetary either, and that's a lot more personal, since I'm black.


:shrug:

There were other locations that had Wehrmacht and no SS - But Reagan wanted to make a point.

And as always our media reported - and buried - those critical comments and Reagan had a page 1 photo showing the touching moment as he laid the wreath at Bitburg.

What is fun is to try to find a US Media photo of Reagan observing or commenting on the Jews and others that died at the Bergen-Gelsen death camp - which he "visited" - where the photo shows the death camp in the background.

Some of the worst storm troopers Hitler had. No one would have minded one little bit if they'd all been Sgt. Schultzes. The average German soldier did his duty and often suffered terrible hardships. But the people Reagan honored were scum.

He obviously should have gone to a site that did not have SS mixed in with the general soldiers. And any visit to such a place must be followed by a visit to a concentration camp, regardless.

It's just that I remember a lot of argument against him visiting any German WW2 graves, period. And I didn't accept that argument, completely.

Waffen means fighting. The Waffen SS, especially the first three divisions Liebstandarte, Todtenkopf and Das Reich were elite divisions to be sure. They were the best equipped and were used to spearhead attacks, but they largely served at the front lines fighting right beside the Wehrmacht divisions.

Far worse would be the non-Waffen SS, the behind the front guys who ran the concentration and extermination camps and other parts of the terror hierarchy.

Largely the Waffen SS were front line soldiers who fought in all the great battles of the Western and Eastern Fronts. There were great successes like the recapture of Kharkov, and great failures like the Lake Balaaton offensive. There were also outrages, especially in Russia from the Waffen SS, but I wouldn't rank them as the worst Nazis by far.

PS- After the war, many of them ended up in the French Foreign Legion and ended up fighting for the French in of all places, Vietnam. There's a great book called "Devil's Guard" written by a Waffen SS officer who joined the foreign legion, was surprised to see so many of his Waffen SS comrades there, and in Indochina was allowed to form an all-German-speaking brigade of former SS sodiers who fought the Vietnamese guerrillas with great ruthlessness and effectiveness. He wrote the book to tell the US what they were doing wrong in Vietnam. The French were forced to break up the SS brigade when they got a lot of bad publicity by invading communist China in chase of Vietnamese guerrillas.

Why write novels when history has so many amazingly true stories like this.

his staff later tried to spin it as to mean that ALL war dead were victims, but if you saw it, he was clearly referring to the SS troops buried there.
it was as if....actually, pretty clear ... that he had no idea of the difference between 'ordinary' Germans and SS murderer/torturers.
I think Elie Weisel, the Nazi-hunter and all-around good citizen, who also pleaded with Reagan not to go there.
"Mr. President, your place is not there," he said. (that may not be precisely verbatim but it's very close.)

another blunder by one of the worst presidents in history....

He did seem to go out of his way to make apologies for the Nazis. I'm sure he could have found a less controversial burial ground, if he was so intent on laying a wreath. But consider the source...

he's just a very out-spoken and eloquent humanitarian who happens to be a Jew. He's also won the Nobel Peace Prize. (bio here: http://xroads.virginia.edu/~CAP/HOLO/ELIEBIO.HTM; website here: http://www.eliewieselfoundation.org/)

BTW - he not only begged Reagan not to go, he asked Reagan TO HIS FACE not to go! I well remember that video clip as Wesel looked the a-hole in the eye and begged him not to go. Reagan sat there like the empty suit that he was.

Bonzo Goes To Bitburg

(Dee Dee Ramone/ Jean Beauvoir)

You've got to pick up the pieces C'mon, sort your trash
You better pull yourself back together Maybe you've got too much cash
Better call, call the law When you gonna turn yourself in? Yeah
You're a politician Don't become one of Hitler's children

Bonzo goes to bitburg then goes out for a cup of tea
As I watched it on TV somehow it really bothered me
Drank in all the bars in town for an extended foreign policy
Pick up the pieces
My brain is hanging upside down I need something to slow me down
My brain is hanging upside down I need something to slow me down

Shouldn't wish you happiness, wish her the very best Fifty thousand dollar dress
Shaking hands with your highness See through you like cellophane
You watch the world complain, but you do it anyway Who am I, am I to say

Bonzo goes to bitburg then goes out for a cup of tea
As I watched it on TV somehow it really bothered me
Drank in all the bars in town for an extended foreign policy
Pick up the pieces

My brain is hanging upside down I need something to slow me down
My brain is hanging upside down I need something to slow me down

If there's one thing that makes me sick It's when someone tries to hide behind politics
I wish that time could go by fast Somehow they manage to make it last

My brain is hanging upside down I need something to slow me down
My brain is hanging upside down I need something to slow me down
My brain is hanging upside down I need something to slow me down
My brain is hanging upside down I need something to slow me down

back to top

He did it anyway.

3/21/85
At his 29th press conference, President Reagan explains that he has no intention of visiting a concentration camp site during his upcoming visit to West Germany. To do so, he explains, would impose an unpleasant guilt trip on a nation where there are "very few alive that remember even the war, and certainly none of them who were adults and participating in any way." A soldier who was twenty in 1940 would only be 65 at the time this was said.

4/11/85
The White House announces that President Reagan will lay a wreath at the Bitburg, West Germany, military cemetery housing the graves of both American and Nazi soldiers. It is quickly noted that there are, in fact, no Americans buried there.

4/18/85
While Michael Deaver is in West Germany searching for an "appropriate" concentration camp for the President to visit, President Reagan defends his visit to Bitburg by claiming the German soldiers "were victims, just as surely as the victims in the concentration camps."

4/29/85
President Reagan defends the Bitburg visit as "morally right," adding, "I know all the bad things that happened in that war. I was in uniform for four years myself." President Reagan spent his time during World War Two in Hollywood, making training films.

5/5/85
After having visited the Bergen-Gelsen death camp, President Reagan makes an eight minute stop at Bitburg. During the ceremony, he cites a letter from 13-year-old Beth Flom who, he claims, "urged me to lay the wreath at Bitburg cemetery in honor of the future of Germany." In fact, she urged him not to go at all.


http://www.quickchange.com/reagan/1985.html

If Reagan had been a mensch, he could have visited the graves of Hans Scholl, his sister Sophie Scholl and their friend, Christoph Probst in Alte Perlach Cemetery in Munich.

http://www.jlrweb.com/whiterose/articles_inspires.html

http://www.dw-world.de/english/0,3367,1441_A_783992_1_A,00.html

:hi:

:)