Open letter – Embarrassment about the exclusion of the Russian ambassador from the commemoration in Sachsenhausen

cc. The Sachsenhausen Memorial does not want to admit representatives from Russia and Belarus to commemorate the victory over Nazi Germany in the Second World War. The East German author and songwriter Hans-Eckard Wenzel sharply criticised this in an open letter.

As the “Berliner Zeitung” wrote on 23 April, the German Foreign Office had recommended that Brandenburg districts and municipalities “not extend any invitations to Russian or Belarusian diplomats – and if necessary even send uninvited guests away again”. While there were no incidents for the Russian ambassador Sergei Nechayev and the Belarusian envoy Andrei Shuplyak at the commemoration ceremony in Seelow (Battle of the Seelow Heights near Berlin), the Brandenburg Memorials Foundation, which owns the former Sachsenhausen and Ravensbrück concentration camps, even wants to exercise its domestic authority if necessary and have the Russian ambassador removed from the site “by security forces”. The main commemoration in Sachsenhausen is to take place on 4 May.
Hans-Eckardt Wenzel has now written an open letter to Axel Drecoll, the director of the Brandenburg Memorials Foundation and director of the Sachsenhausen Memorial and Museum:

Dear Professor Dr Drecoll,
I was horrified to read in the press that you have disinvited the Russian representatives for the celebrations to mark the liberation of Sachsenhausen concentration camp or are refusing them access to the ceremony. The general ideology of a “values-based foreign policy” is truly warlike fruits. My friend and long-time companion, the composer Eberhard Schmidt, was an inmate in your camp. His experiences left a deep impression on me. The director Konrad Wolf, then a soldier in the Soviet army, was involved in the liberation of the concentration camp and created an impressive memorial to this moment in his film “I was Nineteen”. Take a look at this film! It is carried by a great humanity and describes precisely those moments when the full horror of the Nazi era becomes apparent, that it is not revenge or dogmatism that can dispel the dark aspects of that time, but greatness and humanity.
The horror, the inhumanity, indeed the cynicism of the German fascists were unparalleled and were ended by nothing other than the efforts of the Soviet soldiers and officers. Do you want to rewrite this history and reinterpret ourselves as liberators? Do you want to sacrifice the fundamentals of humanism to political dodges and self-empowerment? What do you want to remember when you rob this place of horror of its history? Even if you don’t agree with the course of German history, that doesn’t change the facts. You have been appointed Director of the Culture of Remembrance. Follow this call!

Hans-Eckardt Wenzel

Source: Berliner Zeitung of 23 April 2025

(Translation Current Concerns)

“It is our duty to commemorate the upcoming anniversary of the Great Victory with dignity”

Statement by Russian Ambassador to Germany Sergey Nechayev on the participation of Russian representatives in commemorative events in Germany

Against the backdrop of the widespread discussion in the German media regarding the participation of official Russian representatives in commemorative events at Soviet war graves in Germany, and in view of the numerous speculations on this matter, I would like to emphasise the following points:
  Victory Day is a public holiday that is sacred to every person in Russia. The war of annihilation waged by the Nazis against the Soviet Union claimed the lives of 27 million Soviet citizens. The crimes of the Third Reich and its henchmen must be recognised as genocide against the peoples of the USSR. We call on the new German Bundestag and the new German Federal Government to do the same as soon as they are formed.
  As the successor state to the Soviet Union, Russia honours the memory of the fallen. Our country has never distinguished between nationalities when it comes to the heroic deeds of Soviet soldiers and the immense sacrifices made by the Soviet people for victory. Victory is our common good and the memory of the victims of the war is our common pain. Russians, Belarusians, Ukrainians, Kazakhs and members of more than a hundred peoples of the USSR stood shoulder to shoulder and could only win together.
  There are more than four thousand gravesites on German territory, where over 700,000 Soviet soldiers are laid to rest. We express our heartfelt gratitude to the German municipalities and local communities, the Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge (German War Graves Commission) and the people of Germany for their caring treatment of Soviet war graves and memorial sites.
  In the run-up to the 80^th anniversary of the liberation of Germany and Europe from Nazism, Russian diplomatic missions, together with colleagues from the Commonwealth of Independent States, are planning a number of commemorative events at which we will lay wreaths and flowers, bow our heads in deep respect at the graves of Soviet soldiers and reflect on their immortal heroic deeds. We invite veterans, Russian compatriots, German citizens and all those who honour the memory of the liberators to join us. We are also happy to accept invitations addressed to us.
  We firmly reject attempts to accuse us of “propagandistic exploitation” of the commemorative events. We have always made it clear, and wish to make it clear today, that the memory of the Second World War, the decisive role played by the Red Army in defeating Nazism, and the colossal sacrifices made by the Soviet people must not be distorted or concealed for the sake of the political agenda of the day. That is our firm conviction.
  However, we see attempts at instrumentalization in the bans on displaying symbols of victory and the national flags of the USSR and Russia in public, in the exclusion of Russian and Belarusian representatives from joint commemorations, and in the allusions to the possible removal of official representatives of our countries from the memorial sites, possibly by force. Those who came up with such measures do not deserve credit for them.
  It is our duty to commemorate the upcoming anniversary of the Great Victory with dignity, to remember those who liberated Germany and Europe from Nazism, to lay flowers and wreaths at their memorials and to bow our heads at their graves. That is exactly what we will do. All those who wish to join us in this commemoration are warmly invited to do so.

Source: https://germany.mid.ru/de/aktuelles/pressemitteilungen/stellungnahme_des_russischen_botschafters_in_deutschland_sergej_netschajew_hinsichtlich_der_teilnahm/
of 24 April 2025

(Translation Current Concerns)