It was genocide then and it is genocide now
On the anniversary of the victory over the blockade of Leningrad and on Holocaust Remembrance Day
By Alexander Kiknadze
Redaktionelle Notiz: Bei dem Beitrag handelt es sich um eine englische Übersetzung des Beitrags vom 27.01.2025. Dieser ist hier in der deutschen Fassung zu finden.
Stand up, you children who
were tortured to death by executioners years ago
Seize the murderers, judge them in robes
in the name of all the children of future times
And you who are still alive from those days
in Warsaw, Minsk, Paris, on the Rhine, on the Belt
Let remembrance chase you from your sleep
as long as the murderers live in the world!
As long as the murderers live in the world
(Ernst Busch – As long as the murderers live in the world – “Solang die Mörder leben auf der Welt”)
Today marks the 81st anniversary of the victory of the people of Leningrad over the blockade imposed by German fascism. The aim of the blockade was to destroy Leningrad and its population as a central part of the annihilation of the Soviet Union and its peoples for the colonization of a “new living space in the East” (Lebensraum im Osten). This was to be achieved by sealing off, starving and permanently shelling the city: Dystrophy, disease and mass deaths were to lead to the disintegration of public order and the decomposition of the population of Leningrad. All the cowardice and perfidy, but also fear, can be seen in Hitler’s statement that the Wehrmacht could not be expected to fight against the masses of “Leningrad red workers who had gone wild”1. Hitler’s concern was justified: The “wild ones” fought. The urban population organized and disciplined itself: the scarce food was distributed rationally to allow as many as possible to survive. People worked, as much as calories allowed them, to strengthen the Leningrad Front. And victory was there!
Organized Leningrad defeated the superior and well-equipped fascist enemy: after 872 days of blockade and an estimated 1.1 million dead, 90% of whom starved, the blockade was broken by the Red Army2.
Leningrad was genocide
The facts speak for themselves and even many Western historians agree: Leningrad was by definition a genocide. Hitler’s, Himmler’s and Goebbels‘ statements on this are clear: the city should not be sieged, but the Soviet population in Leningrad should be destroyed by starvation3.
The Russian Federation has been demanding a recognition regarding the Leningrad genocide from the FRG since 2024. The latter’s answer: rejection, as the blockade was only a “simple war crime”. Maria Zakharova, spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, also criticized the fact that the FRG only paid compensation to the Jewish victims of the blockade and demanded that this compensation be extended to all nationalities. The FRG’s approach is ethnic discrimination4.
The FRG’s response to this demand is the height of cynicism: Jews suffered more than other nationalities from the blockade. Furthermore, the Soviet Union waived reparation payments from the GDR after the Prague uprising in 1953. In the legal form GDR was incorporated into the FRG, this waiver of reparations was transferred to the FRG, which, it should be noted, never paid reparations. The issue is therefore closed for the FRG5.
Russia’s demands triggered a wave of outrage in the German media: the Frankfurter Rundschau ran the headline: “In the middle of the war in Ukraine: Germany should admit genocide against Russians”6. And der Spiegel stated that with this demand, the Russian president, in all his meanness, had identified “Germany as a weak point in Europe”7. This is remarkable: Germany’s genocidal past is identified as a weak point and “just now” (!) “we” are supposed to recognize a genocide “against Russians”. What does this say about “our historical responsibility”, which FRG politicians have been talking about since 1949?
The FRG’s Confrontation with Fascism
Der Spiegel actually has a point here. In confronting the crimes of its predecessor, the FRG made a clear distinction between “usable” and “unusable” crimes, which were objectively the same:
It allows the charge of genocide in World War II to apply exclusively to the European Jews. In 1948, the “State of Israel” was defined as its sole and exclusive representative – an identity that all Jews worldwide are kindly requested to accept, and for which they may be beaten by the police if they do not comply in Germany. All other peoples of the Soviet Union, who were just as deliberately destroyed in the course of the colonization efforts of the “living space in the east” as the Jews, contrary to this obvious reality, are explicitly not recognized as equal victims of genocide. A “weak point” – indeed – whose exposure by the old new enemy Russia is now being commented on with correspondingly nervous shouting. Why?
The FRG was founded and built in 1949 as NATO’s central battering ram for an attack on the Soviet Union. Therefore, the recognition of the genocide of the Soviet people was not allowed to happen. This is the reason for the distortions, trivializations and lies that numerous West German historians sought to perpetuate in their institutes – some of them in direct personnel continuity with their fascist predecessors. That is the truth about the FRG’s reappraisal of fascism: it has never been more than buying moral freedom from its genocidal past in order to be allowed to wage new wars of aggression.
The Soviet Union is history, NATO is not. Today it is waging a war against its legal successor Russia and the many peoples who live in this state. She wants to “ruin” Russia (Baerbock) – if not today, then in a few years. This is the core of the nervous outcry of the German press at the Russian demands. One could almost read these articles as if one had to feel sorry for Germany that it is to be thwarted “now of all times” by the descendants of the victims with disturbing memories of their genocidal past.
Gaza is genocide
Presumably, the founders of the FRG in 1949 were also aware that genocide would continue to be a means of future warfare even after the end of the Nazi dictatorship. That this is the case can be seen (not only) today in Palestine. The statements of the fascist minister Itamar Ben-Gvir reveal this: humanitarian aid to Gaza is to be reduced8, the Gaza Strip is to be “repopulated”9 and not so many prisoners are to be taken10. In plain language, this means that the people of Gaza are to be starved by the blockade and destroyed by bombing raids until the small remaining remnant can finally be expelled to the Sinai. The land will then be colonized by Jewish settlers.
That this is also a genocide is as clear as the blockade of Leningrad was. Cynically, the argument for its denial in this country points to differences in the “number of people murdered” (“only” 50,000!), Although even this number is greatly understated. These cynics must realize that regardless of the “number”, genocide is the targeted extermination of people because of their ethnic and national identity. This is the case in Gaza.
And in this case, too, the reactions of the Federal Republic of Germany are grotesque: Israel has the right to defend itself. This is FRG’s “Reason of State” (Staatsräson) and its “lessons from the past”.
Chase the hypocrites out of their sleep!
Today is Holocaust Remembrance Day. German politicians will explain with crocodile tears in their eyes that “the past” “obliges us as Germans in particular” to “take more responsibility in Europe and the world” again. In plain language, this means preparing for the great war in Europe and being in a position to wage it. For this, genocides are carried out as required.
If the FRG recognized the Leningrad genocide, then it would also have to do the same for Gaza. Then the whole house of cards of coming to terms with its fascist past would collapse from one day to the next. Then the preparations for war against Russia and the “new responsibility” would be over. Those who want this must stand up and say, and not only on this Holocaust Remembrance Day: Leningrad was genocide and Gaza is genocide.
As Ernst Busch wrote: “Chase (with this truth) the hypocrites and murderers out of their sleep!”
1 “It is known that nothing could be done with the population of St. Petersburg if the city were surrendered, since it has always been and remains a Bolshevik cell of the largest caliber and one of the two main reservoirs of the Russian Communist movement. We do not want to suffer losses due to street fighting with the red workers who have gone wild. Therefore, St. Petersburg will not be stormed. We want to avoid creating another Verdun there.” From: Marlis G. Steinert: Hitlers Krieg und die Deutschen. Stimmung und Haltung der deutschen Bevölkerung im Zweiten Weltkrieg. Düsseldorf 1970, Pg. 225
2 Impressive and detailed reports on the organization of city life can be found in the German translation of the “Blockadebuchs” by Ales Adamowitsch and Daniil Granin, which can be ordered from the Federal Agency for Civic Education.
3 Telepolis has provided a detailed collection of sources from leading fascists: https://www.telepolis.de/features/Blockade-Leningrads-Das-schaurigste-Stadtdrama-das-die-Geschichte-jemals-gesehen-hat-9609882.html
4 https://germany.mid.ru/de/aktuelles/pressemitteilungen/pressesprecherin_maria_sacharowa_antwort_der_bundesregierung_auf_offenen_brief_der_blockade_berleben/
5 The Ministry of Finance of the Federal Republic of Germany already expressed this legal opinion in 2017 following a minor question from the left-wing faction in the Bundestag; see Bundestag document 18/11496 of March 9, 2017, question and answers available at jankorte.de
6 https://www.fr.de/politik/kriegsverbrechen-ukraine-krieg-deutschland-zweiter-weltkrieg-genozid-leningrad-russland-92904200.html
7 https://www.spiegel.de/geschichte/russlands-geschichtspolitik-putin-hat-deutschland-als-schwachstelle-europas-ausgemacht-a-bac2d2bd-1be5-48c6-b9c3-daa5985e3307
8 https://www.commondreams.org/news/ben-gvir-2668477326
9 https://www.timesofisrael.com/12-ministers-call-to-resettle-gaza-encourage-gazans-to-leave-at-jubilant-conference/
10 https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/may/08/cant-you-kill-some-netanyahus-political-survival-in-hands-of-far-right
