>Germany’s defence minister has called for the names of Nazi-era figures to be removed from military barracks.
>“The armed forces have to make it clear, both internally and to the outside world, that they are not a continuation of the Nazi Wehrmacht,” Ursula von der Leyen said on Sunday.
>(((Historians))) welcomed the initiative, but called for an exception to be made in the case of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, the “Desert Fox”, because of his part in an assassination plot against Hitler.
>While there are no modern German barracks named after major Nazi war criminals such as Hitler or Hermann Göring, several are still named after military figures from the Third Reich.
>“It’s long overdue to rename the last barracks named after Wehrmacht officers,” Prof Johannes Tuchel, head of the German Resistance Memorial, told Bild am Sonntag.
“Officers like Schulz, Lent and Marseille fought in Hitler’s war and were part of Nazi propaganda.”
>But he called for an exception to be made in the case of two barracks named after Field Marshal Rommel because of his part in the von Stauffenberg plot to assassinate Hitler.
>While it has never been fully clear exactly what role Rommel played, he was forced to commit suicide by Hitler loyalists over his support for the failed plot.
>The case has reopened debate over the role of the military. The Bundeswehr was founded in West Germany in 1955 as a completely new military force, officially eschews any link to the Nazi Wehrmacht. But Nazi memorabilia was found on display in the officer’s mess at a barracks where the two arrested men were based.
>The barracks should be renamed after soldiers who resisted the Nazi regime, he said. “Those who fought for human rights and the rule of law cannot be commemorated enough.”
Germans doing the same thing white people did in usa. topmeme
