Germany's Shameful Unity Day

One week ago, September 27, 2009, the post-Communist party DIE LINKE ("The Left") successful successor of the Stalinist SED of the former GDR, was able to pocket the following election results for the Bundestag (the federal parliament that elects the chancellor):

CDU/CSU 33.8 %
SPD 23.0 %
FDP 14.6 %
DIE LINKE 11.9 %
B90/Grüne 10.7 %.

Had the results of the SPD dropped not quite so dramatically, DIE LINKE might have become part of a coalition to rule the country together with them.

In the constituency of Werdau, the CDU ended first with 34.6 % to a second of DIE LINKE with 28.7 %.

Why do I specifically mention Werdau, a small town in West Saxony in the former GDR? Here is why:

A commemorative plaque at today's Werdau high school says:

In memoriam of the 19 young people who were sentenced by the GDR-judiciary on October 3, 1951* to altogether 130 years of Zuchthaus**.

In self-made flyers they stood up for Germany's unity and protested against Stalinist terror.

The Werdauer Oberschülerprozess, the court case of the high school students from Werdau, was a trial of 19 young people, most of them students at the Alexander-von-Humboldt-Oberschule in Werdau, in 1951. They were accused of "boycott-baiting of democratic institutions and organisations", Boykotthetze gegen demokratische Einrichtungen und Organisationen.

The first two arrests were made in the night of Friday, May 18, 1951. Many chairs remained empty in Werdau high school on Monday.

Almost half a year, the boys and girls waited for their trial, isolated from each other and without any communication with their parents. Some of them were supposed to pass their final secondary-school examinations to go to university during that time. Instead, they were subjected to one of the most memorable political trials in the former GDR.

Not long ago, Sovjet military tribunals had made short work of comparable cases. Roughly 1,200 high school students are said to have been trialled in Berlin, Mittweida, Güstrow, Jüterbog, Schwerin, Weimar, Wittenberge and other places.

In Altenburg, two students and two teachers were sentenced to death and executed. They had interfered with a radio transmission of President Wilhelm Pieck's speech to celebrate Stalin's birthday. In Werder, Brandenburg, 20 young people were trialled. 9 death sentences were imposed, including two against women, eight were executed. Some of the other convicts ended up in Sovjet camps.

On October 3, 1951, the 19 students from Werdau were sentenced to long-term Zuchthaus* imprisonment by the Landgericht Zwickau. Only "politically reliable" people were allowed to attend the trial. The students' parents and family were excluded, newspaper reports were not allowed. When the West Berlin radio station covered the going-ons, Werdau was cut off the electricity network. Parents who tried to see their children were beaten out of the court building.

The convicts were:

Name Joachim Gäbler	Sentence 18 Years	Age 15 Years
Karl-Heinz Eckardt	16 Years	14 Years
Sigrid Roth	17 Years	12 Years
Theobald Körner	18 Years	10 Years
Heinz Rasch	19 Years	10 Years
Achim Beyer	19 Years	8 Years
Günter Fritzsche	17 Years	7 Years
Gerhard Büttner	17 Years	6 Years
Hermann Krauß	18 Years	6 Years
Gottfried Karg	19 Years	5 Years
Siegfried Müller	19 Years	5 Years
Walter Daßler	31 Years	5 Years
Manfred Stets	24 Years	3 Years
Günther Kahler	19 Years	3 Years
Gudrun Pleier	18 Years	2 Years
Edgar Göldner	17 Years	2 Years
Wolfram Schürer	18 Years	2 Years
Anneliese Stets	16 Years	2.5 Years

There had never been a fair chance of defense, however, the young people remained unfaltering. Joachim Gäbler closed his plea, stating: "I am proud to have fought for freedom."

"Mugshots" of 18-year-old Joachim Gäbler.

They served up to five and a half years of their sentences, sharing cells with murderers and sex offenders and were deployed to clean the excrement buckets. However, they were comparatively lucky. Without the XX. party convention of the Sovjet Communists and Chruschtschow's reckoning with Stalinism in 1956, they wouldn't have been released so relatively soon. Outside, they had to learn again how to eat with knife and fork or how to tie a tie. The days of their youth were over when they had hardly begun.

Anneliese Stets, the youngest of the students, after her release. She had been 16 when she was convicted.

Fifteen of the students left the GDR after the last one of their fellow convicts was released, so as not to compromise him. In West Germany they were, after undignified hassle attempting to deny them their rights, finally recognised as political prisoners.

Was justice done after re-unification?

In 1992, Joachim Gäbler filed, for himself and the other former student convicts, a request for criminal prosecution against the surviving participants in the trial. 1996, the Dresden public prosecutor submitted an indictment against the two judges still alive, Fritz Hübsch and Edith Müller. Proceedings against Hübsch were stopped due to his inability to follow the trial (presumably because of old age). Proceedings against Müller were stopped against a payment of 4,000 DM. Forthousand Deutschmark was the price for the youth of 19 boys and girls.

1990, the "Day of German Unity" was moved from June 17, the anniversary of the 1953 East Berlin rebellion against the Stalinist regime, to October 3 in a successful attempt to remove it firmly from its roots. But, it seems, it wasn't all that easy to find a crimeless day to celebrate German unity, which is, after all, of a twisted higher justice.

2009 almost a third of the votes of the citizens of Werdau electing the federal parliament, the Bundestag, went to the post-Communist successor of the Stalinist SED, DIE LINKE.

---

* Highlighting added by me.
** i.e. an aggravated prison sentence.

The site jugendopposition.de contains a wealth of information, pictures and facsimiles. Click here.

I posted something similar exactly one year ago already to mark the day. It can not be repeated too often.

Cross-posted at Roncesvalles.

"Just for the taste of it!"

The Christian Science Monitor offers some views on the current German election race at their global news blog:

Chancellor Angela Merkel debated Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier on TV Monday, ahead of Sept. 27 elections.

A televised debate between the two candidates for Germany’s highest office was declared a draw by unimpressed Germans, as an election looms two weeks away for Europe’s top economy.

The election will pit center-right incumbent Angela Merkel against her current foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, from the left-leaning Social Democrat party.

At stake is whether Germany will chart a course out of recession with tax cuts and other business-friendly measures (Merkel) or pursue more state-led strategies such as funds for emerging industries, higher minimum wages and tighter regulations on executive pay (Steinmeier).

But many Germans have been left cold by both candidates. Playing on US President Obama’s campaign theme, the German newspaper Bild ran an analysis of the debate with the mocking headline, “Yes, we gahn!” (Yes, we yawn).

Deutsche Welle called the debate “uninspiring” in a roundup of the German press reaction; other descriptions included “shop talk between the chancellor and her deputy,” with “no real verbal sparring.”

The Associated Press said surveys were mixed, and cited a political analyst saying that the “well-mannered duel” was unlikely to change many voters’ minds.

Surveys carried out by three television stations after Sunday night’s duel found that viewers rated it a virtual draw, two putting Steinmeier marginally ahead and one giving a slight advantage to the conservative Merkel.

The debate, like much of the campaign, lacked passion and personal attacks between rivals who govern together in a “grand coalition” of right and left — the result of an indecisive 2005 election.

But the Wall Street Journal said undecided viewers favored Steinmeier, and gave the left-leaning candidate good reviews for a “snappy, vigorous debating performance.”

He argued for new tax rules to deter high executive pay and bonuses, and for minimum wages to slow the growing gap between Germany’s highest and lowest earners.

Mr. Steinmeier warned that the right-leaning government Ms. Merkel is seeking would pursue free-market policies of deregulation that he said had caused the global financial crash. “The thinking that got us into this crisis can’t get us out of it,” he said.

Merkel, by contrast, stuck to a pro-growth message, according to the Journal. The Journal said the candidates’ only significant foreign policy difference was on German troop deployments in Afghanistan, which two-thirds of Germans oppose.

Steinmeier said Germany should by 2013 “lay the groundwork” for pulling its troops out; Merkel offered no timeline.

To start on a negantive note: It is not Germany's "highest office" that the debaters are aiming for. It is the most important office. We have a head of state and that is NOT the chancellor. Frankly, lack of basic knowledge like that doesn't inspire much faith in a political commenter. Get some education. In such a light, it doesn't really amaze that Merkel and her Christian Democrats are dubbed "conservative" all the time by Americans. But hey! Can they really be blamed for it? Germans are doing it all the time themselves. One the other hand, Germans don't know what "conservative" means, Americans do, or at least: they ought to, and, apart from a some issues dear to a Catholic's heart that can be linked to a conservative world view, there is nothing "conservative" about the CDU, never was, never will be. The CDU was founded post-WWII as the successor of the "Zentrum" (which translates, notabene, to "Center") the party of political Catholicism, devoted in considerable parts to the Catholic social doctrine, something which will remind Americans painfully of liberal leftis pinkos, the more dumber ones even of commie marxists. And that knowledge is just a couple of keystrokes and mouseclicks away at Wikipedia.

Now Merkel: During the entire debate she managed to totally and utterly avoid terms like "Christian" (even "Christian-Democratic"), "values", "family", "ethics", "human dignity" and "Lebensschutz" (= "pro life"), and even those who notice that at all and predict that Merkel will thus lose her "party stalwarts" are barking up the wrong tree. What "party stalwarts"? Those who voted for the CDU because they were Christian/Catholic, are dying out rapidly.

Merkel was socialized in the former GDR. Her parents went with baby Angela, who had been born in Hamburg, to the GDR. Only hardcore Socialists went voluntarily to the Stalinist GDR to live there, so this sheds a light on the political proclivities of her father, a Protestant pastor. (By the way, that knowledge, too, is just a couple of keystrokes and mouseclicks away at Wikipedia.) She was never heavily involved in official party politics and described her FDJ youth movement years as "cultural work" later. It is not too amazing for a Protestant pastor's daughter either that she she did not take part in the secular coming of age rite "Jugendweihe", but was confirmed instead. She chose science as a profession, like many bright and gifted students did in the GDR, because it provided a relatively politics- and hassle-free environment. But all that does NOT say that Merkel is NOT a Socialist. Pure and simple, she is. Even if her politics so far were NOT testimony to that (they are) what she is doing now is aiming head-on at another four years of coalition with the Social Democrats. Why? Any other choice would bind her to the free-market Free Democrats (FDP), and that is exactly what she does NOT want. And if Steinmeier, who is bound to know that quite well, is blathering about "the right-leaning government Ms. Merkel is seeking" he is an even worse hypocrite than Merkel herself. Steinmeier, by the way, belonged, together with current minister of justice in Merkel's Cabinet, Brigitte Zypries, to the editorial staff of the leftist quarterly "Demokratie und Recht" (DuR) published by Pahl-Rugenstein-Verlag, who was at that time under observation by the office for the protection of the constitution (Verfassungsschutz). So far about some major members of "conservative" Angela Merkel's Cabinet.

We are heading for a diet version of the GDR -- "Just for the taste of it!". Mark my words.

Cross-posted at Roncesvalles.

Names Nobody Knows Anymore

60 construction workers building the Communist showpiece Stalin-Allee, the "first socialist avenue in Germany" in East Berlin went on strike on 16 June 1953, to demand a reduction in recent work-quota increases. They called for a general strike the next day. By dawn of June 17, 100,000 protesters had gathered with more arriving throughout the morning. More protests were held all over the GDR.

The initial pleas of the protesters for the reinstatement of the previous lower work quotas turned into political demands. SED functionaries took to the streets and began arguing with small groups of protesters. Eventually, the workers demanded the resignation of the East German government. The government turned to their Soviet brethren for military support.

At noon, the Volkspolizei (East Germany's "people's police") had trapped many of the demonstrators in an open square. When dozens of T-34 Soviet tanks appeared, the uprising started to lose its clout and although there were no major assaults on the military, a massacre followed. It is still unclear how many people died during the uprising and by the death sentences which followed. The official number of victims is 55. After the evaluation of documents accessible since reunification, the number of victims appears to be at least 125, whereas higher estimates put the number of dead at 267.

20,000 people were imprisoned as felons, three were beheaded later. Summarily executed were:

Kurt Arndt, Eisleben; Ernst Markgraf, Stralsund; Heinz Brandt, Rostock; Walter Schädlich, Leipzig; Eberhard von Canerin, Geithain; Axel Schäfer, Erfurt; Alfred Dartsch, Magdeburg; Günter Schwarzer, Gotha; Alfred Diener, Jena; Heinz Sonntag, Leipzig; Willy Göttling, Berlin; Hermann Stahl, Eisleben; Hartmann, Delitzsch; Herbert Strauch, Magdeburg; Peter Heider, Magdeburg; Hans Wojkowski, Stralsund; Vera Knoblauch, Rostock; Walter Krüger, Eisleben and three unknown Volkspolizisten.

Willy Göttling was from West Berlin. He was sentenced to death and shot because of the "brigand-like excesses against the ruling power and the people". His body was never released.

In memory of the 1953 East German rebellion, West Germany established June 17 as a national holiday.

Communist poet Bertolt Brecht in his inspired memorial "The Solution" stated in 1953:

After the uprising of the 17th June
The Secretary of the Writers Union
Had flyers doled out in the Stalinallee
Saying that the people
Had idly surrendered the trust of the government
And could win it back only
By redoubled toil. In that case
Wouldn't it be easier for the government
To disband the people
And elect another?

Was justice ever done?

In 1990, the "Day of German Unity" was moved from June 17 to October 3, the date of the formal reunification, in a successful attempt to safely remove it from its ethical roots and the collective memory. Last Sunday, Die Linke, successor of the Communist party of the former GDR, came in fifth at the elections and will enter the European Parliament with 8 seats.


Cross-posted at Roncesvalles.

The Day That Changed Germany

The iconic photo by photographer Jürgen Henschel. Student Friederike Dollinger, a stranger to Ohnesorg, is holding him crying: "What did you do, you've killed him, he is dead and now look at that!"

On June 2, 1967, Benno Ohnesorg, a German student of Romance and German literature, was shot dead by a plain clothes police officer during a rally against the visit of the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. As a pacifist, Ohnesorg was a member of a Christian Protestant community. He was a poet and aspired to become a grammar school teacher, married, his wife being pregnant with their first child. This had been the first rally he had ever attended. He was 26.

Karl-Heinz Kurras, the fatal shooter, was found not guilty of negligent homicide on November 21, 1967.

Benno Ohnesorgs death led to the militant radicalisation of the extreme left and became the central argument for the self-justification of those who later killed almost hundred people. The Movement 2 June was named after the day of his death. The rest is history.

Now two historians, Cornelia Jabs und Helmut Müller-Enbergs, have made an interesting, potentially explosive, discovery. In an article in the respected historic specialist magazine, "Deutschlandarchiv", they published an article "Der 2. Juni 1967 und die Staatssicherheit". While doing research in the Stasi archives, they found documents such as the signed formal obligation of Karl-Heinz Kurras, his SED-membership book and several personnel reviews by his case officers. Kurras had belonged, so it seems, to "Linie IV" within the Stasi, known to have been responsible for "less than pretty dealings", so Müller-Enbergs und Jabs.

Kurras, so the historians, got a radio message from the DDR-Ministerium für Staatssicherheit following Ohnesorge's death, saying: "Destroy material at once. Stop work for now. Consider event as deplorable mishap...".

Anyway, Kurras was, following June 2, 1967, not expelled from the SED and as a member of a special task force of the West Berlin police, a unit that was set up to detect traitors within their own ranks, he was working at an extremely sensitive spot indeed.

So far, the historians can not tell for sure, whether Kurras had killed Ohnesorg at East Berlin's instigation or not. Facts are, that he was a crack shot who was unlikely to have hit Ohnesorg by chance, that he hadn't been "attacked" by anybody and certainly not by Ohnesorg, that he had hopelessly entangled himself in contradictions in the aftermath of the fatal event, and that investigation authorities had done everything to clear the name of "one of them".

Asked 40 years later whether he had, then, made a mistake, Kurras, then 79, replied: "Mistake? I ought to have blasted them to send the scraps flying and not just once; I ought to have shot five, six times. Everybody who attacks me will be destroyed and that's that", letting, incidentally, slip that his defence about the warning shot he had allegedly fired had been a lie.

Elsewhere, Gesine Schwan, professor of political sciences, Greens-backed nominee of the Social Democratic Party for the upcoming federal presidential elections and possessor of a face she duly deserves, informed us, that she refuses to use the epithet "Unrechtsstaat" (lawless state) for the former GDR because not everything had been bad there.

Cross-posted at Roncesvalles.

Berlin Airlift 60 Years Ago

Here!

Opium for The People

In Berlin, a referendum to re-introduce religion as a school subject failed. So the students will go on attending "ethics courses", which had been introduced three years ago.

Over at CathCon, Chris Gillibrand states under the header Communists defeat Religion in Berlin:

Lower turnouts in the East, all former Communist parts of East Berlin voting against and all of West Berlin voting for.

Two interpretations- either East Germans are rejecting what they see as another imposed ideology after they so enthusiastically embraced first Nazism and then Communism or all those years of atheistic indoctrination worked, "Religion is the opium of the People". But is it then democracy?

What a world we live in! There are now restaurants in West(!) Berlin where you can "relive the East German experience". Clearly the residents in the East have still not got over communism.

My reply: I am from West Germany (the Protestant part of Westphalia) and I am living in the East (Saxony) now since September 2006. I think that qualifies me to make an educated guess. Actually, it's more than a guess. You say: "Two interpretations- either East Germans are rejecting what they see as another imposed ideology after they so enthusiastically embraced first Nazism and then Communism or all those years of atheistic indoctrination worked, "Religion is the opium of the People".

It is certainly not the first one. Germans love totalitarian ideologies. They can't exist without one. That is why they are embracing Islam so enthusiastically.

The extent of the destruction of the souls of the people in East Germany is fathomless and the worst is that they are really feeling nostalgic about it. (Which supports the first point I made.) A side-issue in this context is the implied hypocrisy. Everybody would get a seizure if somebody would open a restaurant where you can "relive the Third Reich experience". But the second German dictatorship is quite alright. (This is a legitimate comparison, not an intellectually dishonest and ethically doubtful equation.)

Don't get me wrong, the people in Saxony are kind, helpful and friendly. They have never been, after all, Prussians. But they have been robbed of the core of their being. The only group that managed to resist to a certain extent were the Catholics.

This soullessness, the Communist nostalgia and anti-Christian sentiments of the people from the East are now exploited by demagogues from the West and Atheism and Socialism/Communism are speedily filtering down from the East to the West to form a Brave New Germany.

"But is it then democracy?"

Why, yes! Who says that democracy doesn't support the self-destruction of the people? [End of my reply.]

I have forgotten who said that people who don't believe in God anymore believe not in nothing but in everything. That may be true for the "hip" new Left in West Germany who consider themselves avantgarde. In the East they really and truly believe in nothing. Only a small minority has escaped the virtual death of mind and soul, a sizeable intersection of which is Catholic. The rest just vegetates along from day to day, in a way happily so, or at least not unhappily. Happiness and unhappiness are, in a way, concepts too complex to be applied to that way of life. Maybe it will take forty years again to revive them, they had, after all, had to live under Communism for forty years, but I doubt it. Almost half of that time is already over. The next generation, who has not consciously experienced Communism, if at all, ist just as bad, if not worse. The regime has erased any trace of joy, discernment, good taste and manners ("style"), of responsibility, achievement and optimism.

I am sad.

Cross-posted at Roncesvalles.

The Neverending German Autumn

The day before yesterday it made moderate headlines that one Jürgen Vietor is handing back his "Federal Cross of Merit", the Bundesverdienstkreuz.

Who is Jürgen Vietor and for what did he receive the Bundesverdienstkreuz?

Let me go farther back first, to October 13, 1977. That day, flight LH 181, the Lufthansa Boeing 737-200 "Landshut" with 91 people on board, several children and five crew members among them, was hijacked by Palestinian Arab terrorists on a trip from Palma de Mallorca to Frankfurt/Main, an event that marked a new level of terrorist brutality and government response.

The hijacking was the means to the end of freeing eleven Baader-Meinhof/Rote Armee Fraktion (RAF) terrorists from prison. Crew and passengers had to fly several sectors to various airports in the Mediterranean and the Middle East under threat of death by guns or explosives. Because Yemeni authorities had blocked Aden airport, captain and first officer, facing the fact of being almost out of fuel, managed to land, in a maneuvre of unique aeronautical mastership, the 30 meter long jet safely on a sand strip nearby. At Aden it was, that Captain Jürgen Schumann was forced to kneel down in the aisle, in front of his passengers and the crew, and executed. After the cold-blooded murder of his captain, the first officer had to fly the 737, which had just undergone a gruelling emergency landing, solo to land safely at Mogadishu, Somalia, an airport, that had before, literally and metaphorically, not been on his, a Boeing 737 pilot's, map. Both men had a military background, Captain Schumann was a former Starfighter pilot, his first officer a former navy pilot. At Mogadishu airport, passengers and crew were forced to undergo an ordeal of almost twenty more hours before an elite unit of German federal police, the GSG 9, finally and successfully raided the plane, killing three of the four terrorists and only hurting one of the hostages. The heads of the Baader-Meinhof gang at Stammheim prison commited suicide only hours later, Hanns Martin Schleyer, president of the German employers' association who had been held hostage by the RAF for the same purpose, was found the next day. He, too, had been mudered -- executed.

Lately, more than thirty years after the hijacking of the "Landshut", it transpired that Christian Klar, a leading member of the "second generation" RAF, will be set free early next year after spending 26 years in prison. Klar, 56, has shown no remorse whatsoever for the nine murders and 11 attempted murders for which he was convicted. In 1985, he was sentenced to five terms of life imprisonment and has served the minimum 26 years required by German law. Judges at Stuttgart court declared that he no longer "posed a threat to society", an argument that was used to legally underpin the release of other former Baader-Meinhof gang members before.

Relatives of the victims said they were shocked and dismayed by the court's decision. Joachim Hermann, the Bavarian state's justice minister, pointed out that Klar had refused to identify those who carried out the gang's murders. Hermann described the judges' decision as an "incomprehensible abuse of justice ... Christian Klar deserves no sympathy so long as he continues to show none for his victims and their families." Not many share his views.

Among those who made their opposition to the court decision publicly known, was the then first officer of the "Landshut", Jürgen Vietor, who had been awarded the Bundesverdienstkreuz for his bravery during the hijacking. "Setting Klar free is an insult to all of the RAF's victims," he wrote in a letter to German head of state, President Horst Köhler.

The Landshut in Rome. Italy refused to comply with German wishes and let the aircraft take off.

The odyssey of the Landshut

On October 12, 2007, the Frankfurter Rundschau published a remarkable interview performed by Mark Obert with Jürgen Vietor, which I luckily happened to save, as it is now offline. I translate a few excerpts here.

[...]

Are you frequently asked whether you never made the attempt to overpower Mahmud [the leader of the terrorists]

Sometimes.

Do you consider it a reproach?

No, I always tell precisely what happend aboard. One has to understand: We couldn't risk to antagonize Mahmud. There were 86 passengers we had to bring home safely. Our four hijackers defined themselves as freedom fighters, they weren't suicide assassinators like those on September 11. Our hijackers had two goals: The freeing of eleven prisoned terrorists, including those in Stammheim [i.e. the Baader-Meinhof gang members]. And they wanted to survive -- like we did. Based on this common ground we had to cooperate.

And to cope with the fear of the hijackers?

That too. Mahmud's fear played a decisive role at one point. Before we touched down at Aden ... something happened , which explains Mahmuds later atrocious behaviour. He wasn't able to fasten his seatbelt. He sat there like paralyzed because he was obviously scared to death. Therefore Jürgen [Captain Schumann] and I had to fasten his seatbelt. [Vietor explains earlier in the interview that they had to do that because a dead Mahmud bulleting through the cockpit in case of an emergency would have endangered the entire aircraft.] After touchdown, Yemeni military came to the aircraft straight away and talked to Mahmud, who was still upset. Mahmud then told us: "They are adamant to force us to depart. They have issued an ultimatum." Imagine the humiliation for Mahmud: First the thing about the seatbelt and now the rejection by those he had considered his friends. South Yemen was at that time a training center for the PLO. [Notabene that the Baader-Meinhof terrorists received training at PLO camps, thus reviving a long-standing tradition of cooperation between Arabs and Germans.]

Did you consider Mahmud's defeat as dangerous for yourself right from the start?

Mahmud had suffered a loss of face. I understood that he was bound to compensate it sooner or later...

[...]

At that point you have been for two days in the hands of the hijackers already. Did you have a clear picture of Mahmud and the others?

Something like a profile? No. But that they, too, were highly under stress was obvious from the first moment: all the darting around, the shouting and the gun-waving. The first thing Mahmud did was to sport Jürgen Schumann's captain's cap. That's what he wanted to be, Captain Mahmud. After that, one had to assume that he was a psychopath.

Did you anticipate that Mahmud would kill Schumann?

I had to, because Mahmud had in the meantime informed the passengers as well that he was going to hold a revolution tribunal... In Dubai he had selected passengers for execution. Stupefying. Luckily, he didn't go through with it. But then he became more mistrustful and irritated by the minute because he didn't know what Schumann [who had left the aircraft under the pretense of inspecting the undercarriage which might have suffered through the landing on the sand strip, but, so it became known later, had gone to the airport building to plead for the people in the "Landshut"] was up to. That was an additional loss of authority on top of the other humiliation. I had a very bad feeling, but what could I do?

Does the question haunt you?

It is a non-starter, really. I don't know for sure what Jürgen Schumann would have done in my place, but I think he'd done the same. It was the sensible thing to do.

Feelings of guilt can exist in spite of rational decisions.

His death makes me sad.

The hijackers had thrown his dead body out of the aircraft the next day at Mogadishu.

That wasn't quite so. In fact, they've let him down the rear emergency chute.

Is this difference important for you?

It is a little bit less undignified.

Did you know Schumann well?

He was a young pilot, I was young. [Schumann was 37, Vietor 35.] We had first met before takeoff at Mallorca. And during the hijacking there was no opportunity to talk about private matters.

Do you sometimes think of what Jürgen Schumann might have thought on his way back to the plane?

I thought of it a lot, but without result. Now, after the statement of that General [Sheikh Ahmed Mansur, head of the unit that had surrounded the "Landshut" at Aden airport] I see that he must have known what was waiting for him. And so it happened. Exactly between Economy and First Class before everybody's eyes he had to kneel and Mahmud asked him: "Are you guilty or not guilty?" And Schumann said: "I tried to…" Then Mahmud again: "Are you guilty or not guilty". And again Schumann tried to explain what happened, but Mahmud didn't want to know it at all. He murdered the captain to appear as the resolute leader.

Herr Vietor, is it permissable to think that your chance of survival increased because of Schumann's death because now you'd become indispensable for Mahmud?

One can think that. One can ask as well the basic question why Mahmud murdered the captain and not the first officer.

He almost murdered you as well.

Before Schumann died, I was going to be shot dead twice. First, because I wore a Junghans watch with a "J" on the face and a company logo that looks a bit like the Star of David. Therefore Mahmud thought I was a Jew. The second time, because I was caught calling the Baader-Meinhof group, whom Mahmud intended to free, terrorists instead of freedom fighters. Then there were all the denied clearences to land, the emergency landing in Aden. Five days long it was about nothing but to survive the next hour, not to make any mistake, to keep an eye on the technology... Captain Schumann had just been shot dead when the ancillary unit went out. If one doesn't pinch off the battery pronto, one needs a new one. I didn't want to risk that. Therefore I went to the cockpit as fast as possible and had to step over Schumann's dead body, very carefully, over his legs, his arms, and over his head. Gosh, I couldn't even mourn -- the more as it was me who had to fly the aircraft now. Because I had no idea of the condition of the plane, I had at least to try and to delay the takeoff until daylight to have a better chance for an emergency landing in case of technical problems. I thought feverish how to play for time. First I asked ... for manual refuelling... then for weather charts, which won me ten more minutes. In the end, I had to take off in the middle of the night. Believe me, to fly with an aircraft that had just gone through such an emergency landing was risky enough and then Mahmud topped it all by telling me that we were flying to Mogadishu. Mogadishu? I had no idea, where that was, I didn't even know where Somalia was. As a first officer on a 737, the farest I had ever gotten was Cairo. Lucky for us, on our maps, which only showed the 737-routes, the southernmost spot was just Mogadischu, two millimeter away from the bottom margin.

How was Mahmud after his act of violence?

Very focused. I needed a first officer. And finally he was where he wanted to be all the time, in the pilot's seat, with Jürgen Schumann's cap on his head.

How did you react to him?

We all behaved just right without thinking much about a strategy. We were cooperative without sucking up to the hijackers just as every instructional film recommends.

[...]

Did it help that you had to concentrate on the technology?

Very. Being ruthlessly exposed to those people was the most difficult thing I had to suffer because I like to be in control. But at least I had something to do whereas the passengers were confined to their seats, belts fastened, without information. They weren't even allowed to speak. And because the sunshades had to be down all the time they didn't even know where we were. Sometimes they were allowed to use the lavatory, that was all. That was much worse than what I experienced -- I believe.

[...]

What do you think [of the fact that the 20th- and 25th anniversaries of the "Landshut" hijacking went almost unnoticed, different from the 30th]?

Maybe the media are so eager because most of the witnesses will be dead in a couple of years. To think of how old the then chancellor [Helmut Schmidt] is now. Not to forget the discussion about the petitions for clemency of Mohnhaupt und Klar [Brigitte Mohnhaupt and Christian Klar were among the masterminds of the "second generation" of the Rote Armee Fraktion (RAF) and the crimes commited during the "German Autumn". The were detained, trialled and sentenced in the Eighties, Mohnhaupt to five terms of life in prison and additional 15 years. After the minimum term of 24 years, she was set free in March 2007 on parole. Klar was sentenced to six terms of life in prison and additional 15 years. 1992 he got an additional life sentence in a different trial.] ... This discussion has irritated me very much.

Why?

... When the consequences of terrorism are discussed, it's mostly about the consequences for the state. And now the state is supposed to show mercy because state and society have overcome terrorism. That may be, but have the bereaved overcome it? If somebody is able to show mercy it's the bereaved. I think that Klar and Mohnhaupt deserve more than just those 26 years. They ought to leave prison only in a coffin.

The discussion about pardon [for the Baader-Meinhof terrorists] has offended you.

Very much so. In spite of the fact that my suffering was limited. But I don't even want to begin to imagine how Jürgen Schumann's widow feels, or the widows of Schleyer und Buback [Siegfried Buback, German chief federal prosecutor from 1974-1977, his driver and a security officer, can be considered the first victims of the "German Autumn". They were murdered in a drive-by shooting on April 7, 1977.], or the children of the security officers. I don't intend to mention all the names here, there are so many who were murdered in cold blood. Okay, there may be good reasons to ask for mercy, but then the perpetrator ought to be deserving of it. Does Mohnhaupt? I don't know. But Klar, who is still adamant that the fight insn't over yet? How can he ask a state for mercy he is fighting? That is cowardice. Alright, the president has denied Klar that [in 2007, Christian Klar's mercy petition was rejected], but I fear that Klar will be released sooner or later.

What does a life sentence for Klar mean to you?

Satisfaction? It would go together with my sence of justice. That in any case. I will tell you something: Three of our four hijackers were killed by the GSG 9, and the only survivor, Andrawes, is suffering for life. I am glad for that.

She was shot during the raid and can't walk properly anymore…

… and is in pain. Yes.

Do you wish she were suffering from a bad conscience as well?

How can one determine anything like that? It's not measurable anyway.

[Notabene that Jürgen Vietor's witness account at Souhaila Andrawe's court trial exonerated her in many details because he chose to tell the facts instead of taking revenge.]

[...]

Did you ever have nightmares?

No.

[...]

Never been scared again?

Never.

Did you assess passengers henceforth? Who looks suspicious? Who is acting oddly?

No.

But you surely forewent the "Landshut", didn't you?

I'll tell you something now that is hardly believable. When a colleague asked me years later whether I've ever flown the "Landshut" again, I said that I didn't know.

What? Tourists have nicked pukebags from the "Landshut" and you didn't care whether you had to enter that plane or not?

Wait, it gets even more remarkable: I looked up my old flight schedules. My first scheduled flight after the hijacking was with the "Landshut". Of 80 possible 737-jets the "Landshut". I have proof of that.

[...]

The last hours on October 17 and 18.

Yes, things were coming to a head now. Day five, Mahmud was at the end of his tether. He submitted his last ultimatum. At 15:00 at the latest, the Baader-Meinhof group and the other terrorists were to arrive at Mogadishu or he'd blow us all up. Our last information was that the federal government wasn't going to give in. So they tied our hands behind our backs with the women's nylons, shoved us into seats and fastened the seatbelts. Even the children's seatbelts were fastened. Then they uncorked the duty-free spirit... and emptied the bottles on top of us. "So that you will burn better." Ah well... In the end, they applied plastic explosives everywhere. I had been in the military and saw at once that it looked like the real thing. And the detonators were definitely genuine: brass sheathing. When I looked at the clock it was ten to three.

May I ask a fallacious question?

Whether we didn't fight even then, right?

Is that the question you are asking yourself?

It has been asked before many times. I have always admitted that we let ourselves drive like lambs to the slaughter. But who has never felt a gun at his neck ought to judge very carefully.

What I really wanted to ask is whether it is true that in the face of death one seed a fast-motion playback of one's life.

That is a myth. I saw nothing at all anymore, only the hands of the clock. Now you have ten minutes more to live, now nine, when suddenly, five minutes before time, excited radio voices could be heard from the cockpit. Mahmud came running and asked me how long it would take a Boeing 707 from Frankfurt to Mogadishu. I started to do the numbers. Adrenaline works miracles. Imagine, I hadn't slept even a minute for several days. So I figured out: we are close to the equator, Frankfurt lies 50 degrees north of us, roughly 3000 miles, a bit of slope distance as well: roughly seven or eight hours. That was good because it was exactly the time they had told Mahmud via the radio. Then he cried joyfully: "They'll exchange! They'll exchange!" What a relief.

[...]

Then, when it was dark, the plane was raided. Your second birth.

One can put it like that.

The mission of the antiterror unit GSG 9 was triumphal.

Yes, brilliant.

Was it worth the risk? Just to not having to release eleven imprisoned terrorists?

I never gave it a thought.

You never gave it a thought? The state could have given in and set you free without such a risk.

That is a touchy point. Let me put it like that: Should somebody ask me whether I thought while we were in that situation that the state ought not to budge and I'd reply with yes, I'd lie. We have beseeched the chancellor to exchange, we begged over the radio. Life is important. Who wants to victimize himself. But had I been in front of a TV set I, too, would have said that the state must not budge.

[...]

So you understand [Chancellor Helmut Schmidt]?

His moral dilemma, yes. Guilt and liability are hard to escape. At that time I have simply begged for my life, as Mr. Schleyer did.

The chancellor considered himself to be in a sort of war against terrorism and put himself, together with his crisis squad, almost all of them former Wehrmacht members, in a sort of combat situation.

But it was a war the terrorists waged against the state. That a politician taps into his experience as a soldier I can, as a soldier, understand.

What do you think if hostages are taken in Iraq or Afghanistan. To pay or not to pay?

What is the state supposed to do? To budge? How big is the danger to produce copycat crimes and thus even more victims in the long run? Exactly that is the question to which nobody has an answer. I am not presumptious enough to consider my opinion important just because of my experience as a victim.

[...]

I could have died through an officer's bullet. Did this thought occur to you?

The government had even taken into account that some of us hostages would die ... It is bordering on a miracle that no hostage and no GSG 9-officer died.

It must have been an incredible ruckus.

The banging away seemed endless and if the GSG 9-boys hadn't hollered all the time we hadn't even known that there were Germans attacking. "Where are you pigs?" "Here, you pigs!"

They hollered that?

Believe it or not. And it felt good to hear it.

[...]

Did you ever talk about that to the GSG-9-commander, Ulrich Wegener, the hero of Mogadishu?

I met him recently for the first time since 30 years. It was very helpful because he was able to explain some details previously unknown to me. For example that at the latters they got at Mogadishu rungs were missing.

Not a personal word?

Only technical stuff. Nothing deep.

What do you consider deep?

Something like questions of innocence and guilt, like those we just discussed. That is deep. In the sense of profound.

You close yourself off, in a psychological sense?

I don't have any secrets.

[...]

And still, many think you are a hero.

I don't. Heroes look out for danger. I was exposed to it. And even that by mere chance. On October 13, the day we took off from Mallorca, I was on standby when the first officer fell sick and I stood in for him.

Good God, how does one ever say "thank you" for anything like that?

He never said "thank you". I am still waiting for my bottle of bubbly. But seriously, I don't even know the colleague's name. I have never tried to find it out.

Are you sometimes amazed at yourself?

A little bit. And at this point I remember a peculiar thing. When I was with Mahmud in the cockpit, I heard scratching noises and suddenly turned around and saw an empty seat in front of the emergency exit. I thought I go and sit down there. Later I learned that the GSG 9 was watching us with night sights and hoped that I would move away from Mahmud. I don't believe in telepathy but that is truly amazing, isn't it?

Do you believe in luck? In fate? Or is everything mere chance.

We were damned lucky.

There had been children on board.

Yes, it could all have been much more sad than it was anyway.

Have you ever met Jürgen Schumann's widow?

No, never. There isn't anything about her in the media. She must be very bitter.

Mr. Vietor, you are retired. What are you doing now?

My partner and I do a lot of travelling with the camper.

You are divorced?

Yes, and believe me, that really hurt me. I was vitually depressive. It had nothing to do with the hijacking.

Sure.

Sure. I am fine now. I just regret that I can not live in Canada.

Nice and far away.

In Vancouver, wonderful city. But the Canadians don't want a pensioner.

So far Jürgen Vietor's account. What happened to the other participants in the drama?

Jürgen Vietor and flight attendant Gabriele Dillmann 1977

Jürgen Vietor and Gabriele von Lutzau 2007

The "Landshut" served the Deutsche Lufthansa until 1985 and then went on an odyssey serving many owners around the globe. Until January 2008 she flew for TAF Linhas Aereas under the registration number PT-MTB in Brasil. Since January 2008, after 38 years and about 30.000 trips, she is now placed as a monument of herself in a remote spot of Fortaleza airport. The name "Landshut" is still in use by the Lufthansa. Currently, an Airbus A330 is thus named.

The Bavarian town of Landshut named a street after Jürgen Schumann and the Lufthansa the building of their flight training school in Bremen. Different from his colleague Vietor, Schumann can not hand back the Bundesverdienstkreuz that had been awarded to him posthumously.

Monika Schumann is still, so it can be safely assumed, serving her life sentence. Waltrude Schleyer's ended when she died on March 21, 2008 at the age of 92, 31 years after the RAF had murdered her husband.

From October 1964 until June 1965, Leutnant Jürgen Schumann received training at Luke AFB under Colonel James Jabarra. Memorial page here (in German).

Christian Klar, apart from Birgit Hogefeld the last RAF member still in prison, will be released by "the heirs of Freisler, Inc." early in 2009. He already enjoys unsupervised furloughs and a job is waiting for him.

Former Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, the man whose strength, authority and brains saw Germany safely through the most difficult time since WWII, was, at the age of 89, recently publicly reproved because his smoking habit was setting a bad example for society, to show that we have got our priorities right.

The Federal Republic of Germany, who was adamant in 1977 never to talk to terrorists again, pledged at a donor conference on December 19, 2007 twenty million Euro for the Palestinians, payable until 2010.

Cross-posted at Roncesvalles.

"Schaut auf diese Stadt"

At the end of WWII, a defeated Germany was divided amongst the victorious United States, the Soviet Union, Great Britain, and France. Like the rest of the country, the capital Berlin, sitting right in the middle of the Soviet-controlled Eastern half, was also divided into four parts.

By 1948, it became apparent that the Western Powers' and the Soviet Union's plans to rebuild Germany coulsn't be reconciled. Early in 1948, tensions between the former Allies climaxed. On April 9, 1948, Stalin ordered all American Military personnel maintaining communications equipment out of the Eastern Zone (Soviet controlled Berlin), trains were halted on June 1and June10 and on June 21, a US Military Supply Train was stopped and its passage to Berlin böocked. On the 22nd, the Soviets placed armed guards aboard, attached a Soviet engine and hauled it back to the West. In a final move on June 24, 1948, all land and water access to West Berlin was cut off. There were to be no more supplies from the West.

Diplomacy failed, ground invasions were planned, and World War III was looming. US Military Commander Lucius Clay had developed a plan by which an armed convoy through Soviet Controlled Germany would break the blockade.

British Commander Sir Brian Robertson offered an alternative: air supply. Supplying the occupation forces of 2,2679 was not the problem, but more than 2 million berlin citizens was another matter. The only aircraft the Americans had available for the task were 5 year old Douglas C-47 Skytrains, which would only hold 3.5 tons each. It was decided that it was worth a try. Earlier in April, US Forces airlifted in supplies to replace the ones being delayed by the Soviets. This was what became known as the "Little Lift". At that time, Berlin had two airports, Tempelhof, which was Berlin's main airport and located in the American Sector, and Gatow, in the British Sector. Supplies could be airlifted in by C-47 and there was nothing the Soviet Union could do about because, in 1945 it had been agreed, in writing, that there would be three 20-mile wide air corridors providing access to the city. These were unarguable. The Spirit of Freedom website, which is dedicated to the Berlin Airlift tells:

When the blockade began, the Soviets rejoiced, because they believed the Western powers had only one option, to leave Berlin. But they underestimated the West airlift supplies. Gen. Clay called upon General Curtis E. LeMay, commander of USAFE and asked him if he could haul supplies to Berlin. LeMay responded, "We can haul anything". Two days later Gen. LeMay called upon Brig. Gen. Joseph Smith, Commander of the Wiesbaden Military Post, and appointed him Task Force Commander of an airlift operation estimated to last a few weeks. The only US aircraft initially available were 102 C-47's and 2 C-54 Skymasters. On June 26, the first C-47's landed at Tempelhof Airfield, foreshadowing the great operation that was to come. Smith dubbed the mission "Operation Vittles", because he said "We're haulin' grub." The British called their part "Operation Plane Fare".

It was determined that the city's daily food ration would be 646 tons of flour and wheat; 125 tons of cereal; 64 tons of fat; 109 tons of meat and fish; 180 tons of dehydrated potatoes; 180 tons of sugar; 11 tons of coffee; 19 tons of powdered milk; 5 tons of whole milk for children; 3 tons of fresh yeast for baking; 144 tons of dehydrated vegetables; 38 tons of salt; and 10 tons of cheese. In total, 1,534 tons were needed daily to keep the over 2 million people alive. That's not including other necessities, like coal and fuel. In fact, the largest quantity of anything required was coal. It wasn't needed to heat homes as much as it was necessary for industry. In addition, there was limited electricity, because the city's power plant was located in the Soviet sector, so that was cut off, too. It was determined that in total supplies, 3,475 tons would be needed daily. A C-47 can haul 3.5 tons. In order to supply the people of Berliners, C-47's would have to make 1000 flights each day. Impossible.

Initially, Gen. Clay determined that, with the limited number of airplanes available to him, he could haul about 300 tons of supplies a day, the British effort, was estimated to be capable of 750 tons a day. This leaves a 2,425-ton deficit daily. Realizing that this kind of tonnage could not be achieved using C-47's, Gen. Clay and Gen. LeMay made requests for more C-54's, for they could carry over three times more cargo than C-47's. On June 27, an additional 52 Skymasters were ordered to Berlin.

On June 28, President Truman made a statement that abandoning Berlin was out of the question. He then ordered US B-29 Superfortresses to be stationed at British airfields to show the Soviets that the Western powers were not taking this lightly. We would not abandon these people!

By July 1, C-54's were slowly taking over airlift flights, and they were operating 24 hours a day. Rhein-Main Air Base in Frankfort was made exclusive C-54 base, and Wiesbaden was a mix of C-54's and C-47's. To accommodate these two different aircraft, General smith established a block system, giving the bigger, faster C-54's priority. They were also given radio codes to identify each type and the direction it was going. C-47's going East to Berlin were called "Easy", returning C-47's traveling West, were called "Willie". C-54's had the names 'Big Easy' and "Big Willie". Aircraft were also given a spacing of three minutes apart.

The size of the operation had to be increased in order to sufficiently supply this city and keep these people going. It needed to be commanded by someone who had expertise in air transport. That man came in the form of Maj. General William H. Tunner. He was revered as "The transportation expert to end all transportation experts" by LeMay. Tunner had previously established the Ferrying Command in WWII, and successfully organized and commanded the "Hump" operation into China near the end of the war. His reputation was not falsely earned. Tunner hated to see airplanes parked on the ramp not being utilized. This was a waste to him. He longed for efficiency and was about to set the standard for all that followed

Tunner assumed command of airlift operations on July 28, 1948. The airlift had been operating for just over a month. One of the first major changes he made came as a result of "Black Friday". On Friday, August 13, Tunner flew into Berlin to grant an award to Lt. Paul O. Lykins, and airlift pilot who had made the most flights into Berlin up until that time. Weather that day was awful, and conditions in Berlin were impossible. Clouds had lowered to the tops of buildings and heavy rain had disrupted radar. One C-54 had crashed and burned at the end of the runway a second landed behind him and blew its tires trying to stop to avoid hitting the burning C-54. A third ground looped on the auxiliary runway. Pure havoc was reigning supreme. Aircraft were beginning to stack up over Tempelhof and a huge number of airplanes were circling stacked from 3000 to 12000 feet in no visibility conditions. These conditions spur red Tunner to make a fateful decision. He called the tower. "Tunner here, send everyone back to their base and let me know when it's safe to come down". To avoid this stacking problem, a new policy was created. Any aircraft that missed its approach was to continue back to its station via the outgoing center corridor. This created a continuous loop of planes to and from Berlin. If a pilot missed his approach, he would immediately become a departure and head back to his base. The loaded aircraft would get a fresh crew and be sent back as a regular flight. In addition, all aircraft were required to fly by instrument rules to maintain the same speed, interval and altitude. This almost eliminated accidents and became the key to the success of the operation.

Another essential decision was to standardize aircraft, parts, and procedures. It was decided to base these around the C-54. One of the reasons was that it took just as long to unload a 3-1/2 ton C-47 as it did to unload a 10-ton C-54. One of the reasons for this was the slanted floor made truck loading difficult, whereas the C-54 was level and a truck could back up to it and cargo could be unloaded fast. In addition, no pilot was to be away from his aircraft. General Tunner had seen many aircraft sitting idle, loaded and waiting for their crews to return from inside the terminal. He thought this to be a great waste of resources, therefore the order was sent that no pilot should be away from his aircraft from the time it landed until the time it took off from Berlin. Weather and up to date information was brought out to the aircraft while they were being unloaded, so the crews didn't need to go inside the terminal. In addition, several trucks were outfitted as mobile snack bars and staffed by some of the prettiest Berlin girls. This enabled the crews to get coffee, a snack or other goods without having to leave the airplane. This reduced the average turn around time from landing to departing to about 25 minutes.

On September 9, 1948, Mayor Ernst Reuter, who, as an ex-Communist, knew about what he was talking, made his legendary speech in front of what had remained from the Reichstag:

Ihr Völker der Welt, ihr Völker in Amerika, in England, in Frankreich, in Italien! Schaut auf diese Stadt und erkennt, daß ihr diese Stadt und dieses Volk nicht preisgeben dürft und nicht preisgeben könnt! Es gibt nur eine Möglichkeit für uns alle: gemeinsam so lange zusammenzustehen, bis dieser Kampf gewonnen, bis dieser Kampf endlich durch den Sieg über die Feinde, durch den Sieg über die Macht der Finsternis besiegelt ist.

People of the world, people of America, of England, of France, of Italy! Look at this city and see that you can not, that you must not, abandon this city and this people! There is only one possibility for us all: to stand together until this battle is won, until this battle is finally over by defeating the enemy, by defeating the power of darkness.

On May 12, 1949, the Soviets finally gave in and the blockade was over.

It was decided to continue supplying Berlin by air in addition to the land routes in order to build up a sufficient supply of goods. The Airlift officially ended on Sept. 30, 1949, fifteen months after its meager beginnings in June of '48. In total, the US delivered 1,783,572.7 tons, while 541,936.9 tons were delivered by the British totaling 2.3 Million tons from 277, 569 total flights to Berlin. C-47's and C-54's alone traveled over 92 million miles in order to do so. These were astounding figures, considering that in the beginning it seemed impossible to even try. Nevertheless, even the greatest operation is not without risk. A total of 101 fatalities were recorded as a result of the operation, including 31 Americans, mostly due to crashes.

At 00:00 hours today, Tempelhof airport was closed. There may have been sufficient businesslike reasons for the decision, although more than 60% of the citizens of Berlin, including many Tempelhof residents, opposed it. What WILL remain, though, is that, thus, one more memorial of the Second German Dictatorship was safely removed from the collective memory, today, October 31, 2008, at 00:00 hours, 60 years, a month and 21 days after Ernst Reuter beseeched the people of the Free World not to let Berlin down.

First posted at Roncesvalles on Friday. It seems that the video of the airlift doesn't post here, so go there to see it. It's worthwhile.

Happy Reunification Day Germany!

A commemorative plaque at today's Werdau high school says:

In memoriam of the 19 young people who were sentenced by the GDR-judiciary on October 3, 1951 to altogether 130 years of Zuchthaus*.

In self-made flyers they stood up for Germany's unity and protested against Stalinist terror.
*i.e. an aggravated prison sentence.

The Werdauer Oberschülerprozess, the case of the high school students from Werdau, was a court trial of 19 young people, most of them students at the Alexander-von-Humboldt-Oberschule in Werdau, a small town in West Saxony, in 1951. They were accused of "boycott-baiting of democratic institutions and organisations", Boykotthetze gegen demokratische Einrichtungen und Organisationen.

The first two arrests were made in the night of Friday, May 18, 1951. Many chairs remained empty in Werdau high school on Monday.

Almost half a year, the boys and girls waited for their trial, isolated from each other and without any communication with their parents. Some of them were supposed to pass their final secondary-school examinations to go to university during that time. Instead, they were subjected to one of the most memorable political trials in the former GDR.

Not long ago, Sovjet military tribunals had made short work of comparable cases. Roughly 1,200 high school students are said to have been trialled in Berlin, Mittweida, Güstrow, Jüterbog, Schwerin, Weimar, Wittenberge and other places.

In Altenburg, two students and two teachers were sentenced to death and executed. They had interfered with a radio transmission of President Wilhelm Pieck's speech to celebrate Stalin's birthday. In Werder, Brandenburg, 20 young people were trialled. 9 death sentences were imposed, including two against women, eight were executed. Some of the other convicts ended up in Sovjet camps.

On October 3, 1951 the 19 students were sentenced to long-term Zuchthaus imprisonment by the Landgericht Zwickau. Only "politically reliable" people were allowed to attend. The students' parents and family were excluded, newspaper reports were not allowed. When the (West Berlin) radio station covered the trial, Werdau was cut off the electricity network. Parents who tried to see their children were beaten out of the court building.

The names of the convicts were:

Name	Age	Sentence
Joachim Gäbler	18 Years	15 Years
Karl-Heinz Eckardt	16 Years	14 Years
Gerhard Schneider	19 Years	13 Years
Sigrid Roth	17 Years	12 Years
Theobald Körner	18 Years	10 Years
Heinz Rasch	19 Years	10 Years
Achim Beyer	19 Years	8 Years
Günter Fritzsche	17 Years	7 Years
Gerhard Büttner	17 Years	6 Years
Hermann Krauß	18 Years	6 Years
Gottfried Karg	19 Years	5 Years
Siegfried Müller	19 Years	5 Years
Walter Daßler	31 Years	5 Years
Manfred Stets	24 Years	3 Years
Günther Kahler	19 Years	3 Years
Gudrun Pleier	18 Years	2 Years
Edgar Göldner	17 Years	2 Years
Wolfram Schürer	18 Years	2 Years
Anneliese Stets	16 Years	2.5 Years

There had never been a fair chance of defense, however, the young people remained unfaltering. 18-year-old Joachim Gäbler closed his plea, saying: "I am proud to have fought for freedom."

They served up to five and a half years of their sentences, were sharing cells with murderers and sex offenders and were deployed to clean the excrement buckets. However, they were comparatively lucky. Without the XX. party convention of the Sovjet Communists and Chruschtschow's reckoning with Stalinism in 1956, they wouldn't have been released so relatively soon.

Fifteen of the students left the GDR after the last one of their fellow convicts was released so as not to compromise him. In West Germany they were recognised as political prisoners.

Was justice done after re-unification?

Read the entire article at Roncesvalles.