“The Ukrainian leadership needs to be criticized. But this should not be the only word spoken to Ukraine”

Every anniversary of the end of World War Two is an occasion for celebrations, nostalgia, singing wartime hits, and drinking the “front-line hundred grams” in the post-Soviet space (first of all, in Ukraine, Russia, and Belarus), but these days extremely rarely become an occasion for rethinking. From this angle, the “defeated” Germany is much luckier, for the process of denazification was launched immediately after WWII and, by all accounts, is still going on. Conversely, in Ukraine and in the abovementioned Russia and Belarus (by contrast with, say, Poland) the painful process of debunking the old myths (and decommunization in general) has not yet begun. Moreover, mutating under the influence of the “new-time” rules of the game, the old bacilli sometimes assume still uglier shapes (such as “St. George’s suit”).

In an interview with The Day, German journalist Gerhard GNAUCK, special correspondent to the newspaper Die Welt in Poland and Ukraine, reflects on the experience of denazification in Germany, the still-unsuppressed totalitarianism in Ukraine and its present-day symptoms.

As is known, denazification in Germany had several aspects, including economic, social, and cultural. Which of them do you think was the crucial one? Of course, Nazism was not fully eradicated, but, looking at the “winner state” and the “loser state,” one can see an obvious difference in the way the past was dealt with. So what do you think was crucial in denazifying Germany? And what is still to be eradicated?

“Denazification in the original meaning of the word was an idea of the winners, i.e., the American, British, Soviet, and French occupation authorities in Germany. A complete collapse of the Hitlerite regime made it possible. The winners set up a pattern in 1946 to vet hundreds of thousands of Germans, dividing them into the following categories: chief culprits (criminals), secondary culprits, accomplices, and the innocent. There were court sentences, including capital punishment, and attempts to exclude the culprits from political life.

“But the main thing is, of course, how the German people are looking at themselves. Very much was done here, especially by philosophers and Christian figures. The regime’s crimes sent a powerful shockwave throughout the country – but not immediately. Yet the system of justice reacted almost immediately. For example, a Hamburg prosecution office opened thousands of cases in a few decades into the crimes of the German military, SS, and Gestapo. They tried, among other things, to find out what happened to the Dynamo Kyiv soccer players killed by the Germans. The German trials of Auschwitz butchers were held as late as the 1960s and gave a new impetus to reflections and penitence. And in the 1990s, politicians, especially those of the Green Party, began to raise the question of paying symbolic compensation to former slave laborers.

“The main thing is a moral shock and reconsideration of the past. Otherwise, all the rest will not work.

“What is still to be eradicated? It is difficult to find today a sphere of life which was not affected by this reconsideration of history. Some Ukrainian media said recently that Germany is now almost the same as in 1940. But it is a clearly polemical statement caused by the boycott of Euro-2012.”

Can the German experience of denazification be of use for Ukraine, Russia, and Belarus, which have not even begun to seriously reconsider their past?

“If you mean a similar ‘decommunization,’ you should know that the world looks differently, like it or not, at the Nazi and communist regimes. But there is an example closer to your question: Germany did work after 1989 in an attempt to get rid of the GDR legacy. And it is very important that Germany very soon established the State Security Institute-cum-Archive. As you know, its founding father was Pastor Joachim Gauck, the current President of Germany. This institute was a role model for similar institutes in the Czech Republic and Romania, the institutes of national memory in Poland, Ukraine and other countries. All these institutes and organizations, such as Memorial, set up a joint platform, Platform of European Memory and Conscience, in Prague last year. I wonder if Ukraine’s Institute of National Memory takes part in this.”

Gerhard, you can speak, on the one hand, about the experience of denazification in Germany and, on the other, about the experience of Poland in overcoming the consequences of communism (the fact that the country has secured the declassification of Katyn documents also proves that a certain stage of decommunization has been passed). What do you think could be the basis for de-Stalinization (in a broad sense – overcoming totalitarianism)? For Ukraine? For Russia?

“The question is perhaps not to me… As an outside observer, all I can say is that every country has its own specifics. In Russia, a serious problem is its imperial tradition and the fact that, like it or not, it was the ‘center.’ Ukraine is spotlighting, for example, the Holodomor issue. What can form the basis? I think, in any case, what should be brought into focus is the suffering of concrete people, irrespective of their ethnicity and other features. Attention should be drawn to the common sources, to the beginning of de-Stalinization, to Sakharov and Solzhenitsyn. Coming back to the first part of your question, morality was the main impulse for both Germany and Poland, no matter how different they were.”

The question of still-unsuppressed totalitarianism has a direct bearing on what is going on in Ukraine now. But there is also another problem: we have concluded more than once that Europe often casts a too “flat” glance on our country. As far as we know, you are looking at the current situation in Ukraine somewhat more differently than most of your European colleagues…

“If you mean the and Lutsenko debates and the boycott of Euro-2012, Germany has really shown a very strong reaction, which has also triggered a discussion in Poland. Both societies are very sensitive to the questions of human rights, democracy, and justice. As a citizen, I consider this debate necessary and useful. The problem is whether journalists and politicians have something to offer Ukraine in addition to boycotts. What will the European Union be saying to and offering Ukraine after Euro-2012? The current leadership of Ukraine really needs a strong critical signal. But this should not be the only word spoken to Ukraine.”