In Memoriam: Reinhold Elstner

[Zyklop]

In the evening hours of the 25th April 1995, the 75 year old WW2 veteran Reinhold Elstner steps on the stairs of the Feldherrenhalle in Munich, douses himself with gasoline and ignites himself. All attempts to save his live are in vain.
His suicide note:

"50 years of endless defamation and demonisation of a whole people are enough. 50 years of outrageous insult to German soldiers are enough. One can only guess what now, in the "jubilee year", is supposed to befall our people as a Niagara-flood of lies.

With my 75 years I can´t do much, but still enough to make my death in flames a fire signal for reflection.

And if only one German happens to reflect and find the way to truth, my sacrifice wasn´t in vain".

[Zyklop]

"[Contrary to the] vast and vulgar flood of lies in music, books, film, television and endless polemical speeches portraying Germans everywhere as sadists, murderers and scum, it is simply not historically correct to claim that this is how a whole generation of Germans behaved in the most desperately fought war of all time.

Reinhold Elstner's generation was an honorable, dedicated people who believed in simple but time-tested values: hard work, honesty, chivalry, loyalty, truthfulness and sacrifice. There was a time when these were the accepted values of most Americans, Englishmen, Frenchmen and Germans alike. That was the clean, sane world that once belonged to us to bequeath to our future generations."

Dr. Ingrid Rimland

[Siegmund]

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