Timothy Snyder on Germany's Historical Responsibility towards Ukraine + Discussion

yeah okay cigarettes at allenham and dushashana of napolitano we yeah okay I'm going to speak English I'm going to speak English because this is a subject on which I want to make sure I speak very precisely it's uh there was a famous interview speaking of Hannah Arendt where Hannah Arendt was asked about sublight when she said you know it's live Dima - vodka and in a certain way I've had that feeling these last six months I've never spoken so much English in my life as in the last six months because so many of the themes of Hana Arendt and so many of the things that I think I've learned about history from Russians from Ukrainians from poles and others so many of these lessons so many of these themes are now relevant to my homeland to the United States of America so when we asked why historical responsibility or wide German historical responsibility I want to begin from that point of view I want to begin from a universal point of view I'm not coming to you as an American saying we've understood our past and therefore everything is going well in our country right on the contrary I think it's very important for all of us whether things are going well or things are going badly whether Americans or Germans or Russians to be humble about our various weaknesses in dealing with our past and above all to be realistic to be sensitive to be concerned about how our failures to deal with our own national past can have surprisingly great and immediate and painful consequences for the present end and for the future so when we ask as the Ambassador did quite rightly why should we be discussing historical responsibility just now why when Russia has invaded and occupied part of you crane why when brexit negotiations have just begun why when a whole series of elections between populist s-- and others is being carried out across europe why when the constitutional system of the United States of America is under threat from within why in this moment should we talk about historical responsibility my answer is that it is precisely for those reasons that one must talk about historical responsibility there are many causes of the problems within the European Union and there are many causes of the crisis of democracy and the rule of law in the United States but one of them is precisely the inability to deal with certain aspects of history so as I say I'm not coming to you from the position that Americans have figured this out on the contrary let me begin talking about Germany by talking about the United States why do we have the government that we have now in some significant measure it is because we Americans have failed to take historical responsibility for certain important parts of our own history how can we have a president United States in 2017 who is irresponsible on racial issues how can we have an attorney general in 2017 who is a white supremacist because we have failed to deal with important questions of our own past not just the history of the Second World War it might not come clear from this distance how radically the current presidential administration is revising the American attitude towards the Second World War but when our foreign policy is labeled America first we are referring to an isolationist and very often white supremacist movement which was meant to keep America from entering the war against fascism when we commemorate the Holocaust without mentioning the Holocaust involved Jews when a presidential spokesman says that Hitler only killed his own people right we are in a very different men and moral world than we were just a few months ago but it's not just that we also have a presidential administration where the president wonders aloud why we fought the civil war right why it was after all that there had to be a conflict in America about slavery now I'm not just mentioning this because as as Maki Beck alluded to I take every opportunity now to involve myself in the domestic politics of my own country but rather because this question are the slavery precisely this question of what a colony is like of what an empire is like leads us directly to the blind spot what I take to be the blind spot in German historical memory as you will all know the American frontier Empire was built largely by slave labor as we don't always remember it was precisely that model of frontier colonialism of a frontier empire built by slave labor that was admired by Adolf Hitler when Adolf Hitler spoke about the United States it was generally before the war at least with admiration and it was a question for Hitler who will the racial inferiors be who will the slaves be in the German Eastern Empire and the answer that he gave both in mine comp and in the second book and in practice in the invasion of 1941 the answer was the Ukrainians the Ukrainians the Ukrainians were to be at the center of a project of colonization and enslavement the Ukrainians were to be treated as Africana or as mega the word was very often used as those of you who read German documents from the war will know by analogy with the United States the idea was to create a slavery driven externa Tory colonial regime in Eastern Europe where the center was going to be Ukraine now you have been told many times what results from this so let me just briefly summarize the point of the Second World War from Hitler's point of view the the purpose of the Second World War from Hitler's point of view was the conquest of Ukraine it is therefore senseless to commemorate to remember any part of the Second World War without beginning from Ukraine any commemoration of the Second World War that involves the Nazi purposes the ideological economic and political purposes of the Nazi regime must begin precisely from Ukraine now this is not only a matter of theory this is a matter of practice German policies the policies that we remember all of them focused precisely on Ukraine the hungar plan with its notion that tens of millions seek millionen people were going to starve in the winter of 1941 getall plan most with its idea that millions more people would be forcibly transported or killed in the five ten or fifteen years to follow but also the final solution hitler's idea of the elimination of jews all of these policies hung together in theory and practice with the idea of an invasion of soviet union the major goal of which would be the conquest of ukraine the result of this ideology the result of this you know I thought Germans were taller than this I'm stooping all the time that it's not my bad posture it's the microphone I want you to hear me um the the result of all of this the result of this of this ideology and of this war was that some three and a half million inhabitants of Soviet Ukraine three and a half million inhabitants of Soviet Ukraine civilians were victims of German killing policies between 1941 and 1945 in addition to that three and a half million about three million Ukrainians inhabitants of Soviet Ukraine died as soldiers in the Red Army or died indirectly as a sequence of the war now these numbers are numbers for inhabitants of Soviet Ukraine alone it's of course the numbers are greater when one includes the entire Soviet Union but it's worth being specific here about the difference between Ukraine and the rest of the Soviet Union the firt for two reasons the first is Ukraine was the major war aim Ukraine was the center of Hitler's ideological colonialism but beyond that in practice in practice all of Soviet Ukraine was occupied for most of the war which is why for Ukrainians today war is something that happens here as opposed to elsewhere Hitler never planned to conquer any more than 10% of Soviet Russia and in practice German armies never occupied more than 5% of Soviet Russia and that for a relatively brief period of time now Russian suffered in the Second World War in a way that is unthinkable to West Europeans in a way that is unthinkable even for Germans but nevertheless when we think about the Soviet Union the place of the Soviet Ukraine is very special even by comparison to Soviet Russia in absolute numbers more inhabitants of Soviet Ukraine died in the Second World War than inhabitants of Soviet Russia in absolute terms and these are the calculations of Russian historians in absolute terms which means in relative terms in proportion of terms Ukraine was far far far more at risk than Soviet Russia during the war in other words it is very important as Molly Louise back precisely and correctly formulated it to think of the Germans the Nicktoons klieg against the Soviet Union but at the center of that funicular screen precisely is Soviet Ukraine so if we want to talk about German responsibility for Russia very good but that discussion must begin with Ukraine Ukraine is on the way to Russia and the greatest in the greatest malicious intention and the greatest destructive practice of the German war was precisely in Ukraine if one is going to be serious about German responsibility for the East the word Ukraine must be in the first sentence now this also goes for the longest and the most earnest and I think the most important discussion having to do with German responsibilities in the east and that is German responsibility for the mass murder of the Jews of Europe that is another discussion which makes no sense without mention of Ukraine as I was walking to this Parliament building I passed on the street the famous picture of any blonde lily pond before the monument to the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising vide blonde kneeling famously before the monument to the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising this is an important turning point in the history of German self recognition of German responsibility but I ask you to think back not to villa pond in Warsaw 1970 but think of yogin stroke in Warsaw in 1943 yogin stroke the German police commander who put down the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising who issued the orders for his men to go with flamethrowers from basement to basement to murder the Jews of Warsaw who were still alive when jurgen stroke was asked why did you do this why did you kill the Jews who were still alive in the Warsaw Ghetto his answer was do you climb a shack on camera milk and honey thunder hyena even in 1943 yogin stroke was thinking as he's killing Jews in Warsaw of Ukraine he's thinking of the German colonial war in Ukraine the Holocaust is integrally in organically connected to the victims klieg to the war in 1941 and is organically and integrally connected to the attempt to conquer Ukraine this is true in three ways the first is Ukraine is the cause of the war had Hitler not had the colonial idea to fight a war in Eastern Europe to control Ukraine had there been that in that plan there could not have been a holocaust because it is that plan that brings German power into Eastern Europe where the Jews live secondly the actual war in Ukraine brings the VAM Act brings the SS brings the German police to the places where Jews could be killed which is the third point the methods it became clear to Germans in 1941 that something like a Holocaust could be perpetrated because of massacres in places like kamianets-podilskyi or more notoriously Bobby odd on the edge of Kiev it was there that for the first time not only in the history of the war but for the first time in the history of humanity tens of thousands of people were killed by bullets in a continuous large-scale massacre it was events like this on the territory of Ukraine precisely had made it clear that something like a Holocaust could happen what does this mean it means that for every German who takes seriously the idea of responsibility for the Holocaust must also take seriously the history of the German occupation of Ukraine or to put it a different way taking seriously the history of the German occupation of Ukraine is one way to take seriously the history of the Holocaust now how do we evaluate how do we evaluate the question of German responsibility what about the Ukrainians themselves shouldn't Ukrainians themselves be carrying out discussions about what happened on in occupied Ukraine during the Second World War isn't Ukrainian nationalism also a theme that should be discussed of course it is I made my entire career writing about Ukrainian nationalism that's why I can be introduced as a professor at Yale University because I wrote about Ukrainian nationalism because I wrote about Ukrainian nationalists and the ethnic cleansing of poles in 1943 because I published the first article in a Western language about the role of the Ukrainian police in the Holocaust and how that led to the ethnic cleansing the poles in 1943 the Ukrainian Ukrainian national is a real historical tendency and it ought to be studied judiciously as some members the audience here have done better and more recently than I but if we are speaking not in Kiev but in Berlin if we were speaking of German historical responsibility we have to recognize that Ukrainian nationalism is one consequence of the German war in Eastern Europe Ukrainian nationalism was a relatively minor force in interwar Poland it was paid by the German up there as I'm sure many of you will know Ukrainian nationalists in Polish prison were released precisely because Germany invaded Poland in 1939 when Germany in the Soviet Union jointly invaded Poland in 1939 destroying the Polish state this also destroyed all the legal political parties including the legal Ukrainian parties which up until that point were much more important than Ukrainian nationalists so as I say if we are in Kiev then we must discuss the role of Ukrainian nationalists in the Holocaust and in collaboration when I was in Kiev in September - to commemorate the 75th anniversary of Bobby Yad that is the point that precisely I made but if we are in Germany it's very important that Ukrainian nationalism be seen as part of German responsibility it's not something that can block German responsibility it's not an excuse to avoid German responsibility Ukrainian nationalism was part of German occupation policy and when you occupy a country you have to take responsibility for the tactics and the policies of occupation that you choose and so Ukrainian nationalism must not be a reason for Germans not to think of their responsibility it is in fact one more reason to think of German responsibility however I've probably spoken long enough on that theme it's very important than we speak about Ukraine we're not only speaking about nationalists yes or no national so a relatively small part of Ukrainian history they're relatively small part of the Ukrainian present when we think about the German occupation of Ukraine we have to remember some very simple banal points that often escaped our attention like for example there was no particular correlation between nationality and collaboration Russians collaborated Crimean Tatars collaborated yellow Russians collaborated everyone collaborated there is no as far as we can tell correlation between ethnicity and collaboration with the partial exception of the volksdeutsche of course but in general there's no correlation between ethnicity and collaboration something else to remember the majority probably the vast majority of people collaborated with the German occupation were not politically motivated they were collaborating with an occupation that was there and an occupation that is a German historical responsibility something that has never said because it's inconvenient for precisely no one precisely everyone is that more Ukrainian communists collaborated with the Germans than did Ukrainian nationalists this doesn't make sense and so no one ever said it says it but it is precisely the case vastly more you members of the Communist Party collaborated with the German occupation than did Ukrainian nationalists um and for that matter very many of the people who collaborated with the German occupation had collaborated with Soviet policies in the 1930s this is these points although they're very basic and they're completely obvious if you think about them are typical of Ukrainian history they're typical the fact that Ukraine was ruled first as part of the Soviet Union and then under an incredibly bloody and devastating German occupation when we think about the way that occupation ended we often overlook certain basic points like this far far more Ukrainians died fighting against the ver macht than fighting on the side the Vermont incomparably more Ukrainians died fighting against the ver lot than on the side of the ver lot which is not something that one can say about every country that's can that our than a lie it's not something that one can say for example about France which is why there's no official French history of the Second World War and why there will never be an official French history of the Second World War even under Macomb there are some things that Macomb cannot do and one of them will be this he will not write the official history of the Second World War in France because more French soldiers fought on the access side on the Allied side now more Ukrainians okay you didn't think that was as funny as I did all right um more more Ukrainians fought on the Allied side then died on the Allied side then French more Ukrainians fought and died on the Allied side then British more Ukrainians thought and died on the Allied side than Americans more Ukrainian spot and died on the Allied side then French British and Americans put together put together why do we not see this or why do Germans not always see this because we forget that Ukrainians were fighting in the Red Army we confuse the Red Army with a Russian army which it most definitely was not the Red Army with the army of the Soviet Union in which Ukrainians because of the geography of the war were substantially over-represented so when we think about the way the occupation ended we also have to remember what where Ukrainians were most of the time that Ukrainians suffered in the German occupation again roughly three and a half million ukrainian civilians mostly children and women killed and again roughly 3 million ukrainians who died in uniform of the red army fighting against the Vermont ok so where does this leave Germany and why is this more complicated than it might otherwise seem to be as a historian I know the history of Ukraine is is unfamiliar and it can seem complicated but this is not the only problem part of the problem as I suggested when I mentioned my own country at the beginning has to do with habits of mind habits of mind related to colonization habits of mind relate two wars of aggression habits of mind related to the attempt to enslave and other people the attempt to enslave and other people cannot be innocent even for the generations to come the attempt to enslave and other people and neighboring people will leave its mark if not directly confronted and to make matters worse we are of course not in environment in Europe today where these discussions can be always take place dispassionately we're at a very precise moment where German attempts to discuss German responsibilities are always already always simultaneously parts of a discussion carried out from elsewhere about responsibility so when we ask why are all these basic points not remembered why is it not always remembered that Ukraine was the major with the center of Hitler's ideology why is it not always remembered that Ukraine was the center of German war planning why is it not always remembered that Ukrainians were intended slaves of Germany why is it not always remembered that Ukrainians were understood racially by Nazi ideology why is it not always remembered that if we want to understand the Holocaust we have to start with Ukraine why is it not always remembered that about six and a half inhabitants of Sylvia crane million died as a result of German occupation there are lots of reasons but one of them is the temptation the ten temptations left over by colonization the tendency to overlook a people which was not regarded as a people all of the language about Ukraine as a failed state or Ukrainians not as a real nation or Ukrainians / culture in the Deutsche's paka that's not innocent that is not innocent that is an inheritance of an attempt to colonize the people not regarded as a people judgments about Ukraine where Ukraine is held to other standards not that it's a beautiful wonderful place in every respect it's not but the application of terms like they're not being Ukrainian nation or they're not being ukrainian state if those things are setting german without a direct confrontation with the German attempt to enslave Ukrainians those words are not innocent those words have to be reflected historically in Germany and there's a particular problem with all of this which I'm going to mention less and try to mention briefly which is that the temptation for Germans to avoid wrists noticed you were all up there high the temptation for I'm sorry I haven't looked at you that's very rude the temptation for Germans to avoid responsibility which is always a great temptation is encouraged by precisely Russian foreign policy right it is Russian foreign policy to divide the history of the Soviet Union into two parts there's the good part which is the Russian part and there's the bad part which is the Ukrainian part so I mean I can I can sum this up for you faster than the official memo the Russian Foreign Policy does it liberation Russian collaboration Ukrainian right that is the line that they follow very consistently and in this country to great effect because Russian foreign policy regards the German sense of responsibility as a resource precisely as a resource to be to be manipulated and the great temptation here is that Germany which has done so much and which in many ways is so exemplary in its treatment of the past will fail in this centrally important area of Ukraine in part because of the temptation that Russia offers it is so easy to confuse Soviet Union with Ruslan it happens all the time but it is not innocent right Russian diplomats do it but no Germans should do it no German should confuse Soviet Union with whose slant that simply should not ever happen the way that Russia handles its memory policy is to export irresponsibility it's to tempt other countries into the same attitude towards Ukraine that it has itself and this is particularly evident in this concept of Ukrainian nationalists which again is not it's a realist local phenomenon but it's vastly vastly inflated in his in the discourse between Russians and Germans Ukrainian nationalists Ukrainian nationalism was the reason given or one of the reasons given for the Great Famine of 1932-1933 Ukrainian nationalism was one of the reasons given for the terror in 1937 in 1938 Ukrainian nationalism was one of the reasons given this by Stalin right give for that massive deportations of inhabitants of Soviet Ukraine after the Second World War and Ukrainian nationalism was the reason given for the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2014 there is a common genealogy here and a temptation precisely for Germans because if the war was all about nationalism then why would Germans oppose it if the Ukrainian government was nationalists then why should Germany do anything to stop Russia the danger here is that you enter into a kind of Molotov Ribbentrop pact of the mind where germans agree with russians that the evils that came from berlin and from moscow to ukraine are going to be blamed on ukrainians it's so easy it's so comfortable it's so tempting to say haven't we Germans apologize enough aren't we the model for everyone else it's such a tempting trap to fall into but I can say that I can say this from experience experience as an American if you get the history of colonization and slavery wrong it can come back and your history of you with Ukraine is precisely the history of colonization and end of colonization and slavery and if the remnants of German nationalism which are still with you notice I'm not a diplomat right I can say what I want if the remnants of German nationalism which are still with you on the left and on the right meet up with the dominance of Russian nationalism efficient Russian nationals if you find common ground there if the common ground that you find is it's all the fault of Ukraine why should we apologize why should you remember this is a danger for Germany as a democracy precisely now it's up to ukrainian and this is work that i do much more often it's up for ukrainians to try to take responsibility for ukrainian collaboration or ukrainian participation in german occupation it's also up to ukrainians to figure out the ukrainian role in Stalin's policies of terror rather than claiming that those were simply russian policies because they weren't they were Soviet policies in which Ukrainians also played a role that is historical work for Ukrainians to do when I was in Ukraine last in September talking about Babi Yar when I was standing not in front of you know a nice group of well you're not all Germans when I was saying it when I was standing in front of millions of Ukrainian television viewers trying to talk about these things in Ukrainian the point that I tried to make was you don't remember Bobby Yad for the Jews you remember Bobby odd for yourselves you remember the Holocaust in Ukraine because it is part of building up a responsible civil society and hopefully in the future of functioning democracy in Ukraine that holds for them but it also holds for me and it holds for you it holds for all of us the point in here I think I'm not going what the ambassador said the point of remembering German responsibility for the six and a half million deaths caused by the German war against the Soviet Union those deaths in Ukraine is not to help Ukraine Ukrainians are aware of these crimes Ukrainians live the children grandchildren and great-grandchildren of that generation they live with the legacy of these crimes already the point is not to help Ukraine the point is to help Germany Germany as a democracy particularly at this historical moment as we face brexit as we face election after election with populist as we face a declining and decreasing ly democratic united states of america precisely at this moment Germany cannot afford to get major issues of its history wrong precisely at this moment term the German sense of responsibility has been has to be completed perhaps up until now this was just a matter Jeremy getting history right was just a matter for Germans perhaps at the time of the historic astride in the 1980s history of the history of the Holocaust was only a matter for Germans it has to be done for Germans but the consequences are international getting the history of Ukraine wrong in 2013 and 2014 had European consequences getting the history of Ukraine wrong now when Germany is the leading democracy in the West will have international consequences that's where I leave you thank you very much [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] - they are in da matta ladies and gentlemen you have noticed what the composition of the panel appear has changed I'd like to thank Timothy Timothy Snyder for this perfect presentation my name is visi yoga and the moderator and I have a problem because actually all the theses that were presented ly to be taken up now and that we have to build a discussion on all of this however we saw that instead of doing this we rather try to do what the intention of history and understanding history is we'd like to understand understanding history how does this impact on our German Ukrainian relationships my name is Vince Kavita I am with a German Council on Foreign Relations where we also do research on Ukraine in the history of Ukraine I focus on internal and external politics of Ukraine however I also worked on this very topic that we talked about tonight and just recently within the GTA P together with the Renaissance foundation Nessie's familiar faces in this room tonight we had a Ukrainian German expert dialog group which got established and in this group we'd like to well focus on these foreign policies and discuss it with a core group of trusted experts hold in 10:50 baits in not our knowledge and then see how foreign policy against the historic background needs to be discussed ladies and gentlemen as a historian with a focus on Eastern Europe another profession of mine I'd like to start with a critical remarks and I think I said it early on such emotion and we are very grateful to the Parliamentary Group music big wiener and such a debate are always part of politics and very often it's not really about the truth with you to history and when it comes to this very complex topic Ukraine which usually has a lot of mosaic pieces we will not find an agreement especially not there who owned the ancient Kiev but I think it's very important that we have at consensus a general consensus and I'd like to remember that this consensus must not necessarily have to do with history Ukrainians don't really need their history when it comes to their future with Europe but we know that in 1991 the overwhelming majority of the Ukrainians voted for the independence and this was in the light of freedom guided by the European Union and this is probably also all the rest of course can be hotly debated of course we also talk about moral issues but most important really is that Ukraine already at the time was part of a Europe where is this inalienable right to have a future which can be saved in the sovereign ways completely independent of which integration model you're part of and also today the Ukrainians must be in a position to decide themselves for themselves what the security and their own prosperity can look like and can be secured this is something I wanted to point out and Timothy Snyder mentioned something else in a very impressive way because he has not only talked about the crimes committed by the german wehrmacht esse cetera set for in ukraine but and fastened foremost he has not only talked about the relevance of Ukraine for Hitler's war in the East but he also talked about the genealogy of the irresponsibility and presented several aspects of this and therefore there is something else that brings me back to what I said initially if the European unification could be part of the answer of what was just presented quite impressively by Timothy Snyder and if Germany was able to benefit from this almost from the first hour also thanks to massive support from the outside and this support from the outside is not comparable to the support Ukraine yesterday then it must be quite logical that the country which not only since my done in 2014 but since the early 2000 years committed itself ever motor European values because there are all these processes which we observed in 2014 led in Ukraine to something that has already a history but there for us still remaining a black box so ladies and gentlemen tonight in our panel discussion we'd like to try and find out whether this debate on the very complex situations can make a contribution to see Ukraine as an independent state and also make a contribution to us finding a language together without Ukrainian partners so we Germans together with these partners and to then cope with this see to understand the difficult situation collaboration occupation area and to see whether together with the Ukraine and if they're neighbors we can talk about white spots without today where we have this wall of information become victims of this information policy again of Imperial or an imperial groups in can we also develop enough trust and confidence for Ukraine to make sure that when it comes to a bond era or the legal system reform we still have enough trust and confidence to make sure that Ukraine knows that we will not water down our expectation standards and support and since we are slightly lagging behind time I thought I quickly introduce the panel members to my left I guess well known to all of you Maggie Louisa thanks thank you so much Louise because she is really the main initiator of this event she is the spokeswoman of an alliance 90 the greens and the European Parliament member of different committees and for many many years an important voice in the German Eastern European not only German Ukrainian by German Eastern European dialogue thank you so much money Louise for giving us the opportunity to discuss all this tonight to my right to my right I'd like to welcome capture Petrov scious and I guess I don't have to introduce her to you but I want to do this also she grew up in 1973 a bowl there and then grew up in Kiev and then she studied with yulie lot mum the great semiotic expert she's a journalist literature expert and above all with her books maybe esta feel like ASA but by the way I got the ingebord bashment Prize in 2013 she really enriched European litter as a ukrainian author i'm very happy that we have katya petrov skya here she experienced the imperial situation still she is a computer lives in ukraine and in germany and really has the multi-national a bilateral view and I'm also very happy that I have to my right Yoko crow Haskell in 1970 he was born in Amman ofan kisk but for quite some time he has now been living in Louise he is from Eastern Galicia next to the lady from Kiev which is good so what we also have a regional balance that we strike here he is a German scientist publisher and translator and also an expert and psychology so if you have a mental problem you could be treated by him he's also a very important voice in this dialogue which in these difficult times also brings us a lot from Ukraine to Germany to really better understand what Timothy Snyder just talked about ladies and gentlemen I thought that we start maybe with money Louisa back then with Katya part of skya and that you each give a short and I emphasize a short input that we continue to have a debate in the panel and then hopefully also have time for you in the audience so miss Peck so why it was this initiative phone well in our political environment among the Friends of Ukraine we were always surrounded by the feeling that there is a very limited empathy regarding this movement in Ukraine the citizens movement that is and that there are is even less of a conviction that this is a movement of freedom a freedom move and which we have to support to 100% and you know what I was really surprised to see that in the few debates which we had here in the German Bundestag there was hardly vehement resistance when these voices spoke out which Timothy just referred to ie that Ukraine Ukrainians and Maidan were a main spot for the right forces Banderas and the anti-semitic forces and this is what we heard in Germany how can this be that here in German name here in Germany where we supposedly Koch to 100% with our own history now point fingers turn to my done and say towards the Ukrainians oh we cannot really trust and believe in this piece maybe the collaborators those who were once collaborators planning something in the background again and therefore it was quite logical and here I draw parallel to Israel it was quite logical that in this term and debate there is a certain reassurance that took ground as we can now say with Israel well look around what they are doing with the Palestinians that we now also say with you to the Ukrainians look around what's going on in my done with the supporters of Honduras so that we kind of ease and take away our own historical responsibility if we feel it at all that was my first point and second it seems that there is in Germany a widespread feeling and longing for a great connection and closeness with Russia aware of the fact that the political and the economics of your Union disappeared and that Russia is not a synonymous for this geographical and economic structure but rather that there are now many numerous sovereign states one of them Ukraine and then on May 8th when we celebrate the day our freedom from fascism this must not only be celebrated in Moscow but that capitals like Kiev Minsk Syke must actually be part of this because Timothy Snyder said this how great was the suffering of the victims of this so-called and also have to say is so-called this huge wall for the fatherland and therefore this impetus to have this debate here in Germany talking about the historical responsibility for Ukraine a very urgent one so that they can rely on us staying close to them and we also say that we use the strong political role of Germany to make sure that the other ones also close ranks with you and remain by your side so this was the driving force for this debate and now you Timothy you confused me a little bit because you said well I mean you don't really have to have this debate because of Ukraine but you have to have this for your own sake you have to have it because of the thinking within your own country and actually this is a very aspect to well not only say that we are the ones who have to resume responsibility but to also develop a feeling for us in Germany we with our Constitution with our democratic so we also depend on us fully understanding our own history and only if we master doing this will we have a good relationship with today's Russia's will we be able to push back imperial claims which come from the Kremlin regarding Ukraine and will then be able to learn that it is unacceptable that the separation of Europe which was once decided upon Crimea is to be taken as something normal something that we have to accept simply because Europe would end the ends and borders of the European Union and unfortunately unfortunately I have a hearing problem so therefore I didn't hear this coming from the audience and that Ukraine is really part of the cultural family of Europe Europe is larger of what is comprised by the European Union so this was three motives for this initiative and maybe an another remarks there was really a reluctance within the German Bundestag to find agreement across all political lines because I really wished for all of us in the Bundestag to say and we assume our historical responsibility within the past five years in the German Bundestag we had two important debates on the prosecutions of the Armenians supposedly a very important topic for us I believe that it's also high time to focus on this part of history history of Ukraine which is even closer to us in terms of geography when it comes to this debate thank you so much money Riza for the statement thank you so much also for the comment that was shouted out but maybe you can keep this for later so that we can then get back to you and maybe we have now first Katia head of Gaia and well I have a question for you cut down during the high times of the Russian Ukrainian war at the end of 2014 you said that the war in Ukraine in the German debate and by the way this is a war that was not that far away from us especially when we compared it with hot spots we have right now I think about the refugee crisis also taking place on other continents but that this war didn't really play a real role in Germany at least not in the long run if not there was maybe the Normandy format being filled with life again and you thought that Western Europe seemed to have forgotten the lessons drawn from Second World War maybe you can come back to this also with you too you're following thesis ie that we have a problem here in Germany which means that we don't have images of this war in Ukraine because this of course also has to do with cultural aspects and then we'll do to what you said in the past is this still valid today we this was a lot of questions and I also feel kind of Numb after Timothy Snyder's presentation this was so strong maybe even overwhelming so it's really difficult for me to take the floor it has taken away the whole dimension and of course this also has to do with the model war and of course we can now talk about the modern war but how that if they're only ten thousand dead so all they is part of the dimension and part of the pictures and images actually the article I wrote at the time is the article that I reread today and I was quite impressed how strict I was in my language and to what extent I reacted at the time we still have to do with the one you crave on a daily basis we can read about this in different portals people in baeza being brought to Donbass so military units that is and that were further people arrested Crimea and it seems that there is really this there is really this special situation the state of emergency which now turn through a state of normalcy and of course this also has to do with our media the media cannot spread these news all the time and especially not with all these images and we know that the war in Ukraine kind of got forgotten by the media when suddenly the refugee crisis emerged and then we forgot about the images from Ukraine and now I speak about pictures there was this one picture of this boy this young boy was drowned and thousands of people then reacted and took action because of this picture and by the way what was a question well actually you just answer this question because we have the problem that these images all these pictures are missing when it comes to this other dimension or this part of the worn Ukraine maybe we can go on and say that we do not only miss these pictures of Ukraine on the wall but of Ukraine in general yeah but maybe this has to do with the fact that we have hardly any positive image of Ukraine at all we know about the Russian soul and the Russian culture and also what we talked about today Russia Russia took the history of the Russian Empire and also of the Soviet Union and well rewrites it and it's primarily about winning winning and be the victorious power and then we don't really know what is the place of Ukraine and when you describe the history of Empires you also need to understand to what extent everything that we call Russian is really Russian this worked as something inclusive in the past and also for me it was a very interesting moment around about three and a half years ago when I was no longer able to say I'm Russian of course I had a Ukrainian passport and I said I can speak Russian but to keep a long story short I always said that I was a Russian simply for people to understand which languages I speak and I can no longer do this today I can no longer do this at all and I think for a lot of people now in the times of the crisis this is a reality we no longer know which terms and notions we should use also when it comes to describing ourselves we don't even know when we started to define ourselves as Ukrainians and when I say we then I mean the citizens and the inhabitants from Kiev who went the past happy to go to Moscow and see this is a lot of complicated stories and if we already talked about Kiev and Russia and all of this and I have to tell you that the third daughter of meals of the wise was in Hungary and her name was Anastacio and there is a sculpture of Anastacio in a monetary monastery at the Balaton lake and there is a Ukrainian Duchess which is beautiful but this is very complicated and of course all this has to do with history it will take us many more years to separate all this and to define it correctly thank you so much Katya we probably come back to this later because this also has to do with our topic the German occupation policy Germany's occupation policy push through something quite radically ie to define people and say you are a Ukrainian you are a Jew and only a Jew and this of course has then the consequences you just described and a European dimension of the debate means that Europe is also important because you just touched upon something very important we are all more than that maybe we have in us several internal identities which we must also be able to live now I'd like to turn to you kopaka school and a question you have a slightly provocative thesis why to spend time with Ukrainian culture and you found that cultures from nations which have not achieved the status of the Imperial have not yet reached it and will not reach it soon I mean of course in the case of Poland this is tricky to say that such cultures from small states as Andrea's Kabbalah once called it kind of protects it from collapsing can you maybe explain to us what this means against the backdrop of the German Ukrainian debate and what must happen to make sure that this doesn't happen and also tell us what must happen in Germany in Europe and the Ukraine for this not to happen well thank you so much I'm very happy that I can sit next to Katya Petrova she's my office so to say I translated her book into the Ukrainian language and this is a very nice constellation to now be up here so thank you so much for this invitation into introduction and I asked myself whether it's possible syncopal that we might also talk about the Iranian responsibilities towards Germany question mark is this possible of course it is possible because we have this mutual obligations we have obligations and responsibilities for each other as European peoples and societies and human beings and to come back to Timothy Snyder's term of universal we have not only the obligation to understand us as representatives of states and nations but we also have to see ourselves and our responsibilities as human beings and therefore I thought that we also have to talk about the Ukrainian responsibility towards Germany but then we also need to see whether we can debate it against the backdrop that there is a historical responsibility of Ukraine towards Germany and then I started to ponder about this and I thought probably not and I will tell you why I told myself that when we talk about historical responsibility then we refer to something that was internalized as part of the system of guilt guilt emerges when you commit a crime so we have this triad crime guilt responsibility based on this understanding we cannot really speak of Ukraine's historical responsibility towards Germany because we have not committed any crime against Germany I mean of course we always always something to each other and what we owe each other and this of course has to be debate it really must be debated also however it's not only about guilt and crimes but about what we owe each other and this is for me a much nicer part of this responsibility in it's mutual responsibility which we must assume that when we now talk about this historical responsibility then we almost exclusively and almost automatically refer to crime and crimes and guilt and in this sense Ukraine has no historical responsibility and why is this so because we are as as good people because we don't do any wrong to anyone else of course not probably we haven't done anything to the Germans have done no serious crimes but only because we were not able to if we have been able to do so we would since we were not able we also have to see the historical reasons for this because we like the power and we let the potential and according to my mind and this then really brings us right through the heart of the topic today we actually pretend that European nations European peoples and societies are all equal and enjoy equal rights which we do we enjoy equal rights but whether we are really equal needs to be discussed I think there is this inequality and these inequalities which we see in different states also have to do with the fact that we have imperialism right in the heart of Europe and all across Europe there was this dividing line between the former hedge ammonia powers the large states the large nations prosperous stations or empires and those who are not part of this group but it's not that easy because it's not true that there were some countries and states and societies forming the hegemony or groups but the others who were not part of this group were suppressed very often suppressed by the empires and this is why we have this long-lasting problem of internal European post Kony ilysm and this is something that we talk about rarely and only seldomly we really think and talk about it and therefore we cannot pretend that Ukraine is now in the same situation when it comes to its democratic strength or its state robustness and when we talk about culture and the ready element of culture then this happened as part of a free competition of free societies and cultures which enjoyed all opportunities which were the same hmm whether this is bad I don't know it's simply reality however we should not overlook what I just explained and this then shows me that there is a different type of historical obligation and I talked about this obligation of the former European hegemony old powers towards those who were suppressed exploited and hindered from becoming what the other ones the big one became and of course we the small stays wanted to become a big one however we got hindered by you the big ones and this of course then leads to historical responsibilities which cannot be ignored and simply be pushed aside so I won't comment on this any further but I'd like to say that this historical responsibility consists of different layers and has different dimensions we do not only have to talk about guilt and responsibility I guess we simply do this tonight first and because it is the most obvious type of responsibility and second because a you Germans are well known in the world for committing to guilt you are really a role model when it comes to the internalization of this behavior however this ability to confess to your guilt whether this then leads automatically into this historical responsibility is something that needs to be debated but if we turn away from this immediate crimes but stick with the historical responsibility then I say it consists of different elements and dates back to different eras first for instance the era of denazification of Germany where Germany never ever had been able to make it out of its own strength but where a lot of other nations politicians donors made a contribution to really help Germany to overcome this very devastating National Socialist theorem and master the transition and therefore I also see this historical responsibility where Germany also needs to have a certain understanding ie for those who didn't get so much a function and support see those countries who didn't benefit from a Marshall Plan and who need more time and very often it's also easily forgotten that this approach where we very often see Germany as the best in class is not to be taken for granted and didn't happen overnight no it grew slowly sometimes however in view of the processes and now I talk about the post Maidan processes and Ukraine make me feel this impatience this longing to deliver to see results or otherwise we withdraw our trust and confidence and we will take back our support we already supported you greatly and gave you tremendous health and if you now don't become the first in class and develop as we did in the past then we will quickly withdraw our support and then you can see what you will do by yourself this is not the right approach and of course I'm also trained in a psychotherapy however I don't want to put all of Germany onto my therapy couch there are two aspects of this question that goes back to Timothy Snyder and that will also talked about by Melissa Beck but also about a clear view that the Soviet propaganda created this image this dichotomy in fact this manic egg dichotomy here the evil Third Reich with Hitler and on the other side the good Soviet Union I mean of course it's understandable the Putin regime today the same system being maintained by it for its own goals is something that we can understand we must not be surprised that it happens but the question is why large parts and different parts of German society are still very much willing to support this regime and to copy this regime the system even this is difficult to understand and of course there are numerous answers to this question some can be found in this inequality right in the heart of Europe that we have up until today and also have to do with the tendency of former hats and more neural Nations which are almost like a reflex to always believe the big powers to count on the big ones instead of focusing on the smaller ones and maybe this also has to do with the fact that it was more glorious to be on the big battlefields with numerous soldiers then shooting to death Jews in the British and maybe this also has to do with the fact that large part of the German population after the war got help from there and that the Soviet the salah' nest this whole model is the only credible alternative to National Socialism and German fashioned ISM seem to be robust but of course let also to build on their shoulders but maybe it also has to do with quite current reasons Ukraine when we hear this terms as Germans Ukraine then we are most of the time concerned we don't want to have it here we want to have it outside we don't want to accept it and embrace it and this is not because we don't know what we get with these highly suspicious collaborators but there is another reason when we talk about national socialism here in Germany and when someone is said to be national socialist and we think of a German Nazi what we always do to each other is having productions tonight there was already a lot of talk about Ukrainian nationalism and of course you don't have to like it you don't have to justify it but you have to come to terms with it and this must be done by ourselves Ukrainian nationalism however was an emancipatory one not they had ammonia one however this doesn't make it a nicer one and this does not mean that the Ukrainian nationalists committed less crimes only because they are representatives and supporters of an emancipatory Ukrainian nationalism this does not mean that they weren't involved in killing Jews it does not mean that they had not collaborated but and this is what I'd also like to say here in the presence of Katya whose relatives lie in bobbya in Babi Yar we have Ukrainian nationalists shot to death by Germans would you say that these people are now nicer ones is this a conclusion we draw automatically maybe maybe not I just want to say that the Ukrainian nationalisms are not automatically Nazis I think we have to stop to see Ukrainian nationalists as German Nazis and collaborators and for me it's not even that part of Ukrainian nationalism also stood up against the VMO and they hit the regime and died in this cause got killed for this by the Nazis and also now lie in Bamiyan but it's very important to me that we finally and of course I know that this is impossible that we should finally stop to project images on prejudice which we also like on each other and that we rather try to differentiate more to then and this is really a matured responsibility we all have that if we finally take the European project seriously even though it is not sexy and it's definitely not erotic and it's not always fun to the contrary very often it is also very annoying and time consuming and requires a great effort that we do have an interest for each other and this is what we owe each other and this is our appreciation can't see in junk yoga Pawhuska doesn't thank you I mean that was much more than seven minutes but you were allowed to speak longer because she talked about the German standard of memory and you also spoke about double ideas I mean what does it mean a ukrainian nationalist what about a ukrainian wearing a Bandera shirt or a Ukrainian Jew wearing such a shirt in order to tell the people I don't want to be freed by Bandera but by Putin so when someone speaks about Bandera we don't know what he has heard but I would like to come back to the comments Timothy Snyder could you maybe comment on what has been said here better than their couch like I will be brief because I think we have talked quite a lot and the audience would also get a chance to take the floor it's an honor for me to be here with Katya Petrovsky and here corpo Haskell I think we should not only talk about obligation we should also talk about needs or the wish to do something since mayor Koch has mentioned obligations it's important to also listen I maybe cannot answer the question whether Ukraine is on the European or the American side but in Germany we did not sorry in the United States we haven't listened to Ukraine in last two or three years and neither did Germany we have projections that the upcoming the future can be interesting and can be important what we are experiencing in the United States today we would not have to experience had others listened we didn't listen so we paid a price that's all I want to say I think we've heard quite a lot so I would like to suggest that we give the audience a chance to take the floor and actually I cannot guarantee that we will be capable of answering all questions there will be one round of questions because we are running over time already now so please your questions and please be brief or a comment is allowed to but please be brief and introduce yourself and please let us also know who you are addressing and switch the mic um yeah at the via ferrata comedy technique yeah I know Govinda is short-sighted okay are ya ish a factor concerning Ukrainian nationalism Yoko said it's an emancipatory nationalism and we should understand but when in February 2014 there was an international agreement made and Germany participated and this was made with the opposition and the Yanukovych government and one day later people invaded government buildings and the most important parties started to persecute people in the streets and even kill them in view of this we should discuss what could have happened in Germany or other European states or when in May 2014 in Odessa in the trade unionist HQ 200 persons women children old people were killed by right-wing white right-wing extremist what would have happened had this happened in a West European city and the survivors of the massacres are still in Ukrainian prisons today I have brought Alec moussaka he's a survivor his brother was almost killed I mean these are assassins these are murderers what would have happened had it happened in West Europe and I mean some of these assassins are members of parliament in the City Council of Odessa for example do we have to be indulgent do we have to understand those killers well I'd like to suggest we collect a number of questions before we have the round of answers now this question was for Yoko for Haskell first of all but the others cannot answer to mr. prohaszka said well introduce yourself please Deanna's he but a historian and member of the Green Party mr. Mosca said that crime and guilt leaders to the idea of responsibility however I think there is responsibility also without crime and guilt in Ukraine and in Germany because the first peace treaty made between the German Reich and Ukraine meant the recognition of Ukrainian state LaHood's so we could also connect to this russek's please I have a question to the two historians in the round mr. yoga mr. Schneider could you tell us a bit more about the importance of the past for the present I mean what does history mean for politics today mr. Jager when you opened this round you said we can easily talk about history talk on and on we may even discuss it or quarrel but you see Ukraine moving into the direction of an independence nation and maybe democracy so the question is what do we have to deal with when dealing with history my thesis is referring to the German perception or the German mood or the lack of empathy for Ukraine which cannot be explained unless we deal with history my questions for professor Snyder I want to ask about your point thesis that Ukrainian nationalism to the large part or the large extent fostered but by or a byproduct of the German up there and sort of like fascist thinking so then my question is to what extent then is the volcanium massacre by the UPA of Polish citizens uh cannot be interpreted as somewhat a German responsibility as well and then the next part would be how could Germany play a role in the historical debate between Poland and Ukraine that is so recently poisoned polish Ukrainian politics thank you very much I think that is a question to mr. Schneider but also maybe to Marie Louise back yes okay Yann another good yeah the last question is the first round yes and descriptive or the next thank you yoga indiscreet key I am philosopher and the executive director of the Soros or Renaissance foundation in Ukraine I would like to continue this topic of the responsibility of course the responsibility not because we were guilty but because we have not reached the cannot implemented high values I would like to ask you maybe the all of all all panelists in Ukraine we are experiencing responsibility for European values we feel ourselves as we are on frontiers in fact we are championing we are we defend some may be ideal values European values well as of freedom and dependency human rights from conservative authoritative totalitarian Russia so because we feel responsibility for values and we would like to just deliver this feeling to you and because of that mr. Schneider professor Snyder mentioned responsibilities of Germany for Democratic levels in Europe we feel responsible positive responsibility for European values as well because of our debt perhaps Germany and other European countries could understand us and could could support us in this feeling of responsibility for high values thank you thank you so much each being of iron that to Nimish can't like there is one most bigger who wants to take the floor andrean fellas my name I'm from gross gold Highness Dolph a borrowing balloon in addition to what your cause said and I will ask him whether he agrees to my additional remark complementing his statement now if I may come myself as part of the West I'd like to say that people talked about the shame of Yalta in 1989 and even people who didn't know what it was about looked ashamed and then the eastern expansion started and then people began to see what the East was like and then people started adopting their traditional way of seeing the East the ease as an under developed region and I wonder why don't we talk about this East German paradigm shift I mean if you don't consider the civilizational special path of the West you don't understand what's going on 300 years of wealth created however at the expense of resources used by many people this is what we are celebrating we are praising ourselves and we consider all others underdeveloped but it was the exception of the Nazi time or communism we need to see that there is a lot of destruction in this approach and yet we praise ourselves and that's actually a debate I would like to have here too so that we understand what our weaknesses are we should be much more modest thank you for this impulse I would like to add wrap now in order to listen to the answers the first question was about 21st 22nd February 2014 my done and the agreement made with the so called my math circle which was a question for you year call but a second question was also for you this was about the truth and historical events the second may and trade doing an HQ in Edessa were what this question was about but of course everybody else can contribute but yeah go first I will answer both questions the first one and the last one concerning the first question you overheard something I spoke about difference the difference between European nationalisms however you insinuate that I asked for understanding or I wanted to adopt a mild attitude that's not what I want to do I don't want to say that an emancipatory nationalism in its oddly and very violent excesses is more is nicer or is something we could easier sympathize with this is not my point I wanted to say we should stop projecting our inner images and contents on others that's what I wanted to say with respect to emancipatory nationalism and actually there's never a clear picture in the end it can be beautiful and have wonderful sides but it can also be ugly and criminal now concerning the events you mentioned I would have loved to get an answer to the question I would have loved to see what happened after the negotiations in Kiev and of course I want to know what happened in Odessa I'm very interested in learning more about it I wanted investigated that's an other interest we should share we need an honest and a truthful investigation of the events no matter what the result of course this cannot be done immediately it doesn't happen overnight as the example of Malaysia airline 817 joes we could also go and say it it's apparent it's obvious there is no doubt whatsoever who shot the aircraft so that it crashed however it has taken months and years until they produce results in the investigations unless you and felder your question let me answer it as follows it might be interesting to take you create out of the other context and to be quite clear about what we want to do and how we want to see Ukraine we don't want to see it as one element of the big Central and Eastern European set now such a procedure might make sense I to just go and say we look at Ukraine first of all but of course we nevertheless have to see the broader context because without the context we don't understand the same thank you anyway else miss Baek I'm looking at masa we were in we went to you to add si right after the events we talked to lots of people there was a camp in the city with pro-russian activists they had camped in the city for a long time without any problem and then there were demonstrations and protests marches in the city and then it became clear but two trains what our clash pro-russian and pro-ukrainian supporters the police did not intervene they just watched a shot was fired a young Ukrainian man died his wife was pregnant a tragedy and then people said okay let's go to the trade union headquarters and then the group went there and until today we don't know what happened and sorry I I listen to you so it's my turn now it wasn't women and children who worked in the trade union HQ it was militants and active members of the groups and trade unions who were there it was very difficult to find out who did what and of course we recommended to invite international observers and actually I wonder do you want to listen or not we recommended that international observers be invited to Odessa in order to find out what haven't because otherwise this event would always be a problem in the city and a barrier against the process of growing together gather and Odessa is a difficult city still today you also have mafia structures or mafia like structures who benefited from the situation of the city and they are still part of the political sphere of the city and that's all I want to say about Odessa a second remark we've been travelling with musicians from the city of brim from Odessa police and we also organize citizens trips to Odessa and we experienced what you call described ie the lack of knowledge and the cultural hubris and the fact that people are surprised to realize that you have great artists great musicians in Odessa that slot of slap rich that is from Odessa that oil truck was taught in Odessa and this is a key aspect I II the European glance or the West European glance of Germany's Germany towards Ukraine and the fact that people have difficulties in understanding that there is a Ukrainian high culture and that a desert for example is European city and the country is a European country there is a danger in it I'd say we are we that Germany and Russia are former hegemonic powers no matter in which form within the austrian-hungarian empire or whatever but we are still meeting on the same level ie we share a feeling ie we could get along we could solve the problems which means that politicians travel from Berlin to Moscow in order to negotiate about Ukraine and I just fly over Ukraine and that's what you do if you like the feeling that there is a trap and that's the trap of hegemonic categories Ukraine and that's what you feel time and again is also a disturbing factor in the good understanding between Berlin and Moscow or along this particular axis and here again our responsibility needs to be mentioned because that's a scandal we insist on the European values the rule of law democracy freedom and human rights we claim these are European values but there where people fight for these rights we prefer to fly over right into the country which has an autocratic government and where authoritarianism and that's a danger for our societies which are meant to be and to remain open ones if we truly cherish Europe thank you I think we have to postpone the question about 21st 22nd February but I would like to say that you need to be careful with what you say if you claim people were killed you have to go this names I'm talking about 21st February and actually I'd like to ask you to listen I'm not talking about Odessa you should not simply go and mix things I'm talking about what Putin calls a coup and which was triggered or started by the t4 group within the party in the region because Yanukovych had lost power and confidence before not only in Kiev but in Ukraine as a whole and look at the parliamentary debate of Saturday 22nd February you won't see fearful MPs are representing the regions and I just like to ask you to also take this particular aspect on board it's important what vehicle Pawhuska said we should not discuss about too many narratives with respect to the events in Ukraine we need the facts well there is one more question and we need to be focused and efficient and quick mrs. Seibert asked a question and I would like to ask Timothy Snyder to answer I mean doesn't the German responsibility not start at an earlier stage the contract of bristly cost with little was made before the Versailles Treaty maybe you can briefly comment on this question and then mr. fix this question will be answered if you don't mind I'm going to try to answer all the questions at the same time because and I'm going to try to answer them in a way that's faster than they were asked it the question of the Utah in 1943 is going to be obscure to many people the oopah was the ukrainian paramilitary organization largely formed from Soviet partisans organized by Ukrainian nationalists who had been trained by the German police so it is par excellence an example of the multinational or if you prefer colonial character of Ukrainian history in the twentieth century and it's a very good example this incident of Ukrainian nationalists killing polar civilians it's a very good example of the dance or the the dialogue between history and end memory so if your question is a historical one a causal one is Germany partly responsible the answer is of course yes there's no way that Ukrainian nationalists could have been killing poles in tens of thousands without the German invasion likewise it's also Soviet responsibility there is no way that you nationalists would have been killing poles in the tens of thousands in 1943 without the Soviet invasion of eastern Poland in 1939 this is a long story I wrote an entire book about it so causally there's no way to understand it without the Germans in the Soviet but morally it's also for Ukrainians to consider because it's always the case that there's some larger outside force there's always a larger outside force but that doesn't mean that in your own national discussions you can excuse yourselves it has to be considered by every nation and that brings me to the issue of why of why history is interesting or why history is is important because whether you're an it whether you're Ukraine or whether you're Germany or whether you're America or whether you're Russia we will always be tempted by memory will always be tempted by the first person will always be tempted by subjectivity will always be tempted to leave out the perspectives of others and to have history a proper history you have to have the languages the perspective the experiences of others beside yourself as many as possible so history is practiced for being European history is practice for having European cities history is practice for the European Union itself because in order to have European integration you have to have the reflex of command to look at things from the other side's point of view as an equal which leads me to the question about world history and colonialism which I actually find extremely interesting one reason to study Ukrainian history and this is something that your cocoa haskó hinted at is that ukraine is actually the key to understanding the link between european history and world history because it is in ukraine precisely where the main current of European history that is to say colonialism imperialism returns to Europe returns to work and so when we when we're studying Germany in 1941 among other things we're studying the last gasp of European colonialism and when we're studying the European Union the European integrations project the European integration project is not about how you all learned from the Second World War that war is a bad thing that is completely false the European you didn't all learn that I mean I trust me you didn't learn that what Europeans learn from was colonial wars that you lost the first one was the German war in the East after that followed French and Dutch and British two beats and the substitute for the hierarchical relationship that was imperialism is the rule of law a Galit Aryan relationship that is the European Union and what makes the opinion so precious is that it creates the space that empires once created this is precisely the kind of space that Hitler aspired to without the conquest and without the inbuilt racial and other hierarchies but the price of all of that is that you have to have history the price of all of that is understanding each other as historical point of views and as I started I mean one of the problems even for the wisest of us I mean for the most powerful of us is that our political structures can turn out to be surprisingly fragile if we overlook important historical points and I'm convinced that for Germans just as for Americans getting slow very wrong is coming back to haunt us for Germans getting Ukraine wrong can come back and haunt you it's a major it's a major example of a general issue which is that you can't have Europe without reciprocity you can't have Europe without the habit of listening to the other side and history history is practice for that thank you [Applause] thank you mission no no kata and Mohammed Abad Missy but one short remark and I will now quickly take over what you said whether Germany responsibility starts with peace of pleasure from the first world war well then you're absolutely right because the occupation policy of the Mediterranean states in the First World War was completely different to the second world was so the middle-sized States try to say that there was this approach also the Ukraine as a state however the fatal is that in 1939 and 41 Ukraine saw that if now the German comes after the era of Stalin then it will be a bit like in 1980 and this was the fatal error and if we now continue with this paradigm we are also responsible for this so this as a side remark and then the third question mr. fix and I think this is for mr. Schneider and myself I tried to streamline this at the very beginning to make sure that some basic principles we need for the date are not overlooked however for me policy of history is nothing negative for me it's very important than what we do today can be put into perspective and I fully agree with you it's very important to know what type of relations we have a project like Ukraine why does it matter for us and I guess at the end of the day we also need empathy and I believe allow me to give an example it's possible that when we think about our history take a certain distance from the past - then internalized it once again see this intermediate Europe this is something that everybody now talks about again the zone of influences in the DTaP we recently at the debate where Peter eaters have said all this is really bitter what's happening in Ukraine and he doesn't really appreciate Putin and the election either but maybe he says we need to recognize that this is a reality Russia wants this zone of influence and it's bigger but we need to accept it and from a historic prospective I would now say hmm and of course this historian said that you can must remain sovereign but cannot take a decision they don't have a choice and then I would say free of any history politics and maybe princes my degrees influencing zones from the time between the wars caused all the trouble for me was interesting that a German peace force earth from the time between the two wars so did research on the second world war has not learned anything because Stalin was the culmination of all the zones of influence and we need all this to understand why we do what we do right now and then there's also a rational self assurance there are factual arguments which is that we make sure that this never ever happens again political dimension to this point with which I completely agree if you as a German say there is such a thing as efficient a Hopa or there such a thing as a zone of influence you have to think not just about what you're doing to Ukraine you have to think about what you're doing to yourself because it's it's in Europe's Imperial history that zones of influence could function and so the moment when you say we have the power or you imply we Germany have the power to decide that's such and such a state is not a normal state but rather a state that falls into a gray zone at that moment you were declaring yourself to be Imperial think of the first sentence of Carl Schmitz or latisha Te'o logy they're super honest is there there I now sought namazu stand mocking console AHS eleganza but a good sleep but the idea is if you are the one who can say that this is an exceptional state that means that you've accepted Schmidt's idea of what sovereignty is sovereignty is no longer something according to the European Union which is equal and shared and reciprocal sovereignty is a matter of who has the power to say that someone else is sovereign so if you Germans say Ukraine is in a gray zone Ukraine is in a zone of influence there's a suspicion or OPA what you were doing is saying we Germany are not a European State we are authoritarian we are imperial we disagree with the Europe who have helped make and that's bad enough but you're also encouraging Russia to do the same it's not in Russia's interests for there to be a division a vulva it's not in the interest of the Russian Federation for Russia to be an authoritarian Empire if you Germany say Ukraine is in a Russian zone of influence you are using German power moral power that precious resource German moral power to help Russia become an authoritarian Empire so we'd use it so anyway I think I've made my point I'll stop thank you very much I adopted I adopted the translation of over because there was a very interesting book in 1929 about efficient oil OPA anti-torture tokens from Giza her visit and anti-democratic affording her there Heidi thereby there is D for you can anti-democratic pioneer miss Peck you also have the floor yes one more observation I'd like to share with you and I made this observation primarily last year this great and ease if at all the Hitler style impact is mentioned by the way because the Hitler Stalin pact is so well like a big no-no and I really spend a lot of time thinking understanding why this seems to be so inappropriate and actually this must be the case I mean if you just flashed out because this hand Ramone you're thinking is at the end of the day a trap for us I mean isn't that this led to all the problems and I don't really have a robust explanation for all this sometimes however I think that the fact that the German guilt and our historical responsibility is so huge that for a long time it was thought that every single consideration of other crimes and responsibilities linked to it could lead to diminish our responsibility and therefore we didn't do it in the first place but I'm firmly convinced that because of the future of Europe and also because of Ukraine which is so crucial we need to dare to approach and talk about the Hitler style impact so with with the molotov-ribbentrop pact in this question of responsibility it's very interesting to read the justification that the Russian highest court gave for convicting for confirming the conviction of a Russian citizen who forwarded a Facebook post which mentioned the molotov-ribbentrop pact so according to Russian law it is illegal for a Russian citizen to describe Russian history in a way which a Russian Court will find inappropriate basically so a Russian citizen posted on an article which mentioned the molotov-ribbentrop pact he was convicted of a crime and this crime was was confirmed his guilt was confirmed by the Russian High Court and the logic given is the interesting part the logic given is that this was not a German crime right so the German High Court says that it's standard is the international standard of Nuremberg and since Soviet crimes or Soviet aggression was not quite at Nuremberg it is therefore not a crime right in other words we've reached the absurd position where Russian law says it's literally all the responsibility has to be on the German side it is illegal to suggest that somebody besides Germany participated at the beginning of the Second World War right and so not only is Russia not taking responsibility for being the German Ally that began the second world war and of course any discussion of collaboration with Germany has to begin with the question who was the German Ally that helped Germany begin the Second World War and the answer is the Soviet Union not only is that not discussed it's illegal to mention it on the grounds that only German crimes are crimes that should give German something to think about thank you so much I better listen yet slow actually we now have to come to a close but I have one more question of mr. Visclosky and I think we can then comment on this quite briefly because mr. Broflovski said or asked we in Ukraine we made the experience on a daily basis that we need to defend European values and whether it's not now after Europe or to us to do this again and whether maybe something could spill over from Ukraine to us and I think this is maybe a good opportunity to conclude the round and I thought that maybe I start with Katya Petrov skya maybe just very briefly before we come to a close I see a gentleman up there and I'm not really sure whether we should listen to this and not the moderator but well well well there is a guy that we cannot ignore up there okay but then this means that we can not discuss this last mr. musica stop the nervously on Tata - Madrid caucus Whitney be impartial okay then your question will be the last question please your question well maybe you can briefly introduce yourself yes I am oleg musica I am from Ukraine I come from Odessa and I was with the events on May 2nd so question mr. musica we don't have time left so my first question the first question is for Timothy Snyder and this is my question there are American politicians McCain John Biden etc what have they done in Kiev on Maidan in 2013 when the democratically elected president would outfit and the second one is not a question but a comment to my fellow citizens from my home country no one forbids Ukraine to celebrate 9th of May the day of victory the Ukrainian government makes everything possible to allow people not to celebrate that say their rebaptised streets in Odessa the city of heroes streets now have names of Banderas etc and this conversation this discussion would not take place if in 2014 we had a referendum a referendum on the federal role the character of Ukraine until the new election of the new president we only had half a year he had only the support around about 5% of the population we could have outfit him in a normal way and then today we had no longer to be here and talk about Crimea and Odessa and miswak I'd like to show you something after the discussion I'd like to show you a video which shows that also women and children and old people were in this building but this is impossible and therefore now wait for questions excuse me I would now kindly ask you because we're not in an election campaign for the return of mr. Yanukovych no and I'd like to thank you because of course your aspects are very important then this is why I gave you the flow and this is my now I am very shortly the question of my Ceptor ciske and gave you the opportunity to say something and now we have one opportunity to answer who would like to do this or should we just leave it like this mr. Schneider so mr. Schneider probably has a good comment to make the Carrasco Berman is Diocese of the desirability so the politicians there were politicians on Maidan and they were all present and Vanya Mulund was there however we were not there we were not there where actually our presence was needed and I am of the opinion what the Russian artillery did in Donbass this is even more important questions and the battalion Vostok what did they do in the Donal Stefan and the Russian soldiers on Crimea why does the azmuth go to Odessa making phone calls we know all the answers of course to all these questions not yet but they are very important very important for me however is with you to all these questions also the issue of responsibility because we don't know yet what was happening on our side we had to see that something very important was going on in Ukraine however we fail to do so Ukraine was alone isolated on Maidan they had rights but we weren't there I have a suggestion the reason or rather the thought that the Americans spot Maidan is not true the Ukrainians were on Maidan because they saw this necessity from a political perspective so it was not the Americans who wanted this the Americans didn't want that no they were against it they were highly conservative at the time and when we now write about the history of Maidan whenever we want to discuss the events then we have to think about Ukraine's and not blame the Americans well unfortunately everybody we now have to come through close we have seen tonight and I think this is really the best result of this event especially in the past 15 minutes or 20 minutes we have seen what falls into this basket Ukraine Germany Europe and I'd like to thank you so much for all the contributions I mean this is only a beginning this debate needs to be continued simply because it is in our mutual interest and because it's wonderful it's so wonderful that together we can have debates with Ukraine in Europe and that we have a new excellent neighbor and this is why we're not like to conclude and please enjoy the rest of this evening ah no I have to say something else I was so enthusiastic and of course this has to do with time pressure but I'd like to ask mr. Sun had seen to make a few final comments well the challenge of this evening to sum it up is huge I mean usually as 10 minutes for the summer Rae's also to have a certain buffer but I'd like to share a few thoughts I'm part of the generation of Germans when it comes to historical policy keep a certain distance and who only recognized once we became politicians to what extent history is going on see what we discussed whether we should save Greece or not it also brought us to Vimal and also when it comes through the question to what extent Germany is a successful example of successful history policy is important I think it's important to turn to our eyes to a central Europe what I call it and see that history policy is of tremendous power in talking about history Ukraine Russia and the whole complex of topics we have discussed tonight I always feel a certain concern ie that the propaganda forces of the Kremlin are able to take pieces of history use it with its own strengths and that our counter constructions are not strong enough rather we have to be willing to lead debate to then deconstruct understand take different perspectives to be morally superior superior to the construction of the legitimization of certain political actions and this is why I believe that debate tonight was a very important one however I also think that the initial thesis of mr. Schneider also needs to be debated in detail because one thing is very important it's very important of course to teach the Germans that colonial nationalist genocide of general East and the war theory in the East primarily focused on the eastern areas which are today Ukraine but also took place in other areas where we had Ukrainian people that this is important for our understanding of today's history however we also have to see that the Nazis at the time didn't picture today's Ukraine with its current structure and didn't really have a clear understanding of Ukraine Belarus but that it was a bigger project and therefore I think that we should not replace this debate by a debate where we focus only on Ukraine but that we really have a highly inclusive debate where we try to find a joint perspective on this droid history because otherwise there is the risk that we decouple and detached parts of the debate we talked about the polish Ukrainian problems of the history of course we also need to understand how we have to interpret the Lithuanian Ukrainian history the Austrian Ukrainian history and whether the Jew killed in Galicia was a Jew or Austrian or Ukrainian of water didn't he care when he got shot for dead I think what we can learn tonight is that when we master to have these debates in a way that the thesis and maybe also controversial debates allow us to get a better understanding when it comes to closeness between different elements and of course this also brings us to Yalta and the Bamm to talk about the Hitler Stalin pact and that we then also enjoy the lucky stroke for the Western Germans that we can talk about it because some weren't allowed to do so shows us that we have not yet understood that since 1989 there was a huge transformation taking place on our continent which has not yet come to a close if we really want to complete this project and I think this jointness and common aspect is important and I think when we now have a final round of applause we have to thank all once again money is a Bundestag because in the Bundestag she is the one who really pushed forward these debates in the Bundestag and he really made a huge effort many of us probably had not tolerated all this you went to Maidan you saw this and also when it comes to the debate she had to have here she really suffered a lot and in your Gallatin this way I'd like to thank you very much personally mother either either and I think this final round of applause is of course while the panelists but also for money Louisa inter hard work in the past few years

Channel: Euromaidan Press

Views: 15,048

Rating: 4.7080293 out of 5

Keywords: Ukraine, Germany, History, War, Politics, WWII

Id: wDjHw_uXeKU

Length: 133min 52sec (8032 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 22 2017