Press release of the alliance “Völkermord verjährt nicht!” from 13.06.2016:
The alliance “Völkermord verjährt nicht!” welcomes the criticism of the President of the German Bundestag Prof. Norbert Lammert on the lack of an official recognition of the German genocide against the Ovaherero and Nama 1904-08 by the German Bundestag expressed on 12.6.2016 in the ZDF program “Berlin direkt”.
With his reference to regret and embarrassment, the Bundestag president addresses, albeit in highly restrained language, serious failures of official German policy. The longstanding refusal of successive federal governments to recognize the genocide in Namibia remains an indictment of the Federal Republic of Germany and in no way fits its self-image as the “world champion of remembrance” and the associated exemplary critical approach to its own history. It is shameful that German politicians have to accept this omission from Turkish President Erdoğan in the same breath as his racist and abusive insults of members of the Bundestag. Here, the German government, as well as successive majorities in the Bundestag, have been shockingly caught flat-footed by decades of refusal to deal honestly with Germany’s colonial past.