According to this report in the Independent, the authorities in Berlin are contemplating re-erecting a statue of a former tyrant, a mass-murderer who is a disgrace to history. No, not the one with the toothbrush moustache, but the one with the beard, the killer who gave himself the name Lenin. Apparently – and disgustingly – “Berlin’s Communist past has become more fashionable.”
I saw the statue in question before it was taken down. To be frank, it was impressive in a boot stamping on the face of humanity forever sort of way. The Independent’s correspondent sees the original removal of the statue “as a symbol of the West’s willful destruction of East Germany’s identity”. Apparently we are meant to think that this was a bad thing.
But why stop there? After all, in 1945 the West took part in the “willful destruction” of the Third Reich’s identity, something that, logically, ought to still pain the Independent. There are, I’m sure, still a few old Hitler statues lying around somewhere in Germany.
Should they be put up again too?