Statement by Alant Jost owner of the site www.Siegerjustiz.de
I do not mean to trivialize the hurt and suffering victims of the East Germany state have had to endure. But having West-German judges judge East-German citizens is like having Ronald Reagan sit in judgment on the former members of the Politburo of the Soviet Union - not only its illegality would be unacceptable. But this is what had happened in Germany. Thus, these hateful acts of ideologically motivated vengeance against former East Germans (notwithstanding the, nevertheless, real concern for the victims) need to be researched and publicized (awareness of this "Siegerjustiz" (Victor's Justice) is particularly lacking in the non-German speaking world), as well as the accompanying demeaning acts of slander against former East German citizens trying to integrate themselves into the political system of reunited Germany. Particularly repugnant to me were the comparisons that were made comparing the Jewish leader of the PDS, Gregor Gysi, with Nazi criminals such as Joseph Göbbels - Hitler's propaganda minister - and Hans Globke, the official commentator to the Nuremberg race laws (in the case of Joseph Göbbels by none other than the then practicing Finance Minister Theo Waigel). Unacceptable is also the general desire by most Germans to constantly compare the GDR with Hitler's Third Reich, as if the differences between the two were irrelevant with the Nazi state exterminating 6 million Jews and setting the world on fire with a world war of extermination that surpassed any act of human cruelty mankind had ever seen before. No amount of often de-humanizing polemics seems to have gotten spared.
Since most research done in Germany on former East Germany tends to be done to confirm a black and white stereotypic view of a "solely benevolent non-aggressive" West-German state in a ceaseless 40 year struggle against an evil totalitarian East-German regime, I have concentrated here exclusively on gathering material that expounds upon the one-sided, vengeful and illegal prosecution/persecution of former East German citizens. Those who want a more "official" and popular view of the West-German state's (not one judge is from the former East-Germany) prosecution of former East German citizens need only use any of a number of the popular Internet Search Engines to find, for example, as in articles by the Berliner Morgenpost, articles with such telling headlines as "Von Siegerjustiz keine Spur"-- Victor's Justice - Not a Trace. To the extent that victims of the former East German regime need to be compensated, let the current German regime scrap the deadly Euro-Fighter and other unnecessary military projects and spend the money instead on compensation. Those prosecuted and persecuted in West-Germany in the name of anti-communism would also be pleased to await compensation - which of course is no issue for most Germans. West-German courts are the wrong place to work through the history of the Cold War.
Alant Jost
E-mail me at:
alantjost@yahoo.comThis statement is similar to one that I made in July of 2000. It can be found on my English link page at: http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Lobby/9362/english_links.html