![]() ![]() Hubertus Knabe, a German historian, has called for a re-evaluation of the agreement, which also commits both countries to peace and respect for territorial integrity. ![]() The Russian Embassy has used the pact to draw the German government’s attention to Soviet monuments, including the one in Lützen, that have been damaged or neglected. Most of the Red Army monuments in Germany are believed to have been built above the graves of Soviet soldiers or prisoners of war. Yet, far from removing Red Army monuments, local officials across eastern Germany have been renovating and expanding some of them, even as the national government has spent billions of euros to defeat Russia in Ukraine. To a small group of German politicians, activists and scholars, the Scholz government’s refusal to re-evaluate public symbols glorifying Russia are indicative of Germany’s ambivalent European leadership, seen most recently in the drawn-out decision to provide Germany’s modern battle tanks for Ukraine. The police removed them hours later, and the news coverage quickly moved on. Shortly after the Russian invasion, the Soviet tanks standing near the Parliament building were briefly covered by Ukrainian flags. But the rare attempts by antiwar activists to draw attention to the militaristic Soviet monuments have failed to gain traction, and few German politicians have called for their removal or even perfunctory changes in them they say their hands are tied by a pact signed around three decades ago. ![]()
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