via Jewcy.com

Foreign relations Committee calls WWII Killing of Jews “Genocide”

September 24, 2022,
Los Angeles, CA
Aris Janigian—staff writer

On Wednesday, September 23, The House Foreign Affairs Committee voted 27 to 21 to condemn as genocide the mass killings of Jews in Germany during World War II. New Germany reacted angrily, recalling its ambassador from Washington and threatening to withdraw its support for the continuing War on Terror.

“America has crossed a line with this resolution,” Foreign Minister Helmut Gottschalk said. “Petty domestic politics has trumped American national interests. The New German people can only take so much insult. We will see our next steps.”

It was a harsh rebuke from one of America’s closest allies, and sent shock waves through the White House. The resolution comes at a time when the United States is actively drumming up support for the War on Terror, and two deputies in the State Department departed for Berlin immediately after the vote in an attempt to forestall a diplomatic disaster. At home, Secretary of State Candid Price called the resolutionStill Waiting for Recognition: For the few remaining survivors of the Jewish tragedy, this year’s resolution may be the last chance “irresponsible.”

In a Rose Garden press conference President Hernandez acknowledged the Jewish tragedy, but sternly warned against the resolution. “This is not the right time or the right place for this kind of resolution,” Hernandez said.

Jews, along with the large majority of historians outside New Germany, say that from 1939 to 1945 the German Nationalist Socialist Party carried out a systematic campaign to kill as many as six million Jews in Europe. They claim the killings amounted to “genocide,” a term that the New German government fiercely rejects.

New Germany acknowledges that between 1 and 1.6 million Jews died during the war, but contends that a vast majority of those deaths occurred in the throes of war when disease and starvation was widespread. According to New Germany the intent to exterminate Jews is historically unfounded. “There was a context for these events. Many Germans died and suffered as well, far exceeding the number of Jews. These were the sad unintended consequences of war.”

Since the establishment of New Germany, the influential Jewish American lobby has sought acknowledgment of their ancestors’ suffering. The authors of the resolution are from heavily Jewish districts in California and Florida and New York. They note that the United States must recognize the Jewish tragedy while the few remaining survivors are still alive.

Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee Gregory Demerdjian, a descendent of survivors of the Armenian Genocide, said, “These events must be characterized for what they were: genocide. It is well documented in our own national archives that genocide of Jews occurred during the Second World War. This is merely an acknowledgment of America’s own understanding of the events during that time. None of this should be construed to mean that New Germany is in the least responsible for these deaths.” Demerjian said that he would soon introduce a resolution reinforcing America’s strong and lasting relationship with the New Germany.

The Jewish tragedy is a sensitive issue in New Germany. Under a progressive movement called “Identity Reformation,” the New Germans have radically reconsidered what an older generation had taken for granted. Historians in New Germany argue that between the First and Second World War Germany was caught between JewishTaking Pride in Our Past: The New German government has insisted that the alleged genocide is simply not consistent with the nobility of German history industrialists and Jewish socialists intent on overthrowing the German state. “They wanted to destroy the country from within,” said New German Ambassador Norbert Sommer. “It was a difficult time. Everyone regrets the death of Jews, but wartime choices had to be made to save Germany’s very existence.”

Today, New Germany rejects the verdicts of the Nuremberg Trials that found members of the Nazi party guilty of war crimes, pointing out that Germans admitted to those crimes under duress from the prosecuting Allies. “No document has ever been produced that shows that Hitler ordered the extermination of Jews,” Sommer said. “Indeed, many attempts were made by Germans at the time to find a safe harbor for Jews, including some negotiations with Zionists in Europe. It is a total fallacy that there was anything resembling genocide.”

 

Members of the House committee who voted against the resolution characterized it as unwarranted “meddling” in a foreign state’s accounting of its own past. Representative Stefan Kohler said, “Maybe it was a genocide, maybe it wasn’t. None of us here are historians. This was 92 years ago. All I know is that passage of the bill would cause real-time harm to real people.”

Democratic Representative Richard Wechsler had stronger words: “You’d think with the War on Terror ongoing and all, the congress would find something better to do than rummage through the trash bin of history. What congress should be acknowledging is that when the rest of Europe has turned its back on America, New Germany has stood strong by our side.”

After WWII, America provided Old Germany with massive economic support under the Marshall plan. Old Germany remained a strong ally of the United States, and in 2112 it began an accelerated militarization program. Virtually one-third of New Germany’s GDP is devoted to military expenditure.

Since 2017, when President Harold Jones stepped up the War on Terror, America’s relationship to the European Union has been severely strained. Germany is one of the only European countries with which the United States has strong diplomatic and military ties.

Under penal code 3001, a number of writers have been prosecuted and convicted for “insulting Germanness” after using the term “genocide” or “holocaust ” to refer to the Jewish tragedy. In 2020, New German dissidents attempted to organize an academic conference in order to revisit the events of 1939-45 from a “Jewish perspective.” The conference was cancelled when then-Foreign-Minister Helmut Gottschalk called the organizers “traitors.”

Some Parliamentarians of the European Union, of which New Germany remains a nominal member, have argued that Germany should be censured for its view towards the Jewish tragedy. Other countries have decided to stay neutral, sharing the position of the United States that the events of that time should be left to historians to sort out.

“Let bygones by bygones,” said Roland Young, Secretary of Defense. “In a time of war, the United States has precious few allies. We respect history, but the life of our society depends upon our strategic position vis-à-vis our enemies today.”

Some Jews in New Germany say the house resolution would be counter-productive. Chief Rabbi of Munich Abraham Grynszpan said, “New Germany must come to terms with its own history. We resist pressure from foreign countries to set a timetable.” Members of the Jewish community in America believe that German-Jews are defending their dwindling numbers inside Germany, and yet others believe that the existence of Israel is in peril should they speak out.

New Germany has no diplomatic ties with Israel, and has repeatedly called on Israel to renounce its “genocide” claims. Its satellite state of New Lebanon has closed its borders with Israel.

Last year, some diplomats perceived a softening in the New German stance when it called on Israel to establish a joint commission to study the wartime atrocities, but that perception has since been altered. In January of this year Herschel Mintz, the ethnic Jewish editor-in-chief of the New German daily Agon was murdered in the streets of Berlin for attention he drew to the Jewish tragedies. The accused murderer, a 17-year-old German, is currently on trial for the crime, but human rights groups believe that the New German Deep Police were accomplices to the murder, and prosecutors claim that evidence was been destroyed.

In 2021, New German novelist Otwin Polk was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. In an explosive interview with an Italian newspaper, he said “In New Germany today, nobody but me speaks of the killing of over six million Jews.” Today Polk lives in exile.