Six days before the International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the Russian Foreign Ministry published a statement on Sunday sharply criticizing Germany following its support of Israel in the case filed against it by South Africa at the International Court of Justice at the Hague, accusing Israel of “genocide.”
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The Russian ministry’s spokesperson Maria Zakharova released a lengthy statement distorting historical facts related to the memory of the Holocaust. In the statement, Zakharova emphasized the claim that after 80 years, Germany chooses to support Nazism, and pointed out that the Holocaust isn’t related to Jews but was a genocide against peoples and ethnic minorities in Europe.
The Russian Foreign Ministry also accused Germany of blindly supporting Israel in the face of "neo-Nazi practices" taking place in Ukraine.
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German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, International Court of Justice at the Hague, Russian President Vladimir Putin
(Photo: Sputnik/Gavriil Grigorov/Pool via REUTERS, via X, Sean Gallup/Getty Images)
According to the ministry's statement, Germany's decision to oppose South Africa's lawsuit, accusing Israel of genocide against the Gazan population, didn’t surprise Russia. Moscow alleges that Berlin is acting according to "tenets defined by Washington," and according to actions the U.S. is trying to promote as part of its support of Israel.
"This move was predicated on the unfettered support Berlin has always lent to Israel while dismissing any possible consequences. By acting this way, German political elites seem to have caused Israel more harm than good,” the statement read.
"In the corresponding Government statement, Berlin used language that reads, ‘given Germany’s history and the crime against humanity of the Shoah’ – thereby positioning itself as an expert in committing mass atrocities and exterminating people.
“It seems that Germany has once again forgotten that under UN General Assembly Resolution A/RES/60/7 and several other international instruments, the Holocaust is defined as the persecution and mass extermination of people representing various ethnic and social groups by the Nazis,” the statement added.
Russia also claimed Berling "persistently refused to pay compensation to people of non-Jewish background who lived in Leningrad during the siege. It believes that Russians, Belarusians, Ukrainians, Finno-Ugric people, Armenians, Georgians, Moldovans and many others are not entitled to receive money from the German Government. We spoke out publicly many times to awaken the international opinion to this new kind of racial segregation.”
According to Russia, Germany took this step to undermine Russian efforts to prevent the resurgence of Nazism. "Germany regularly abstained when the UN General Assembly voted on the resolution, sponsored by Russia, on combating the glorification of Nazism, neo-Nazism and other practices that contribute to fueling contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance,” the statement read.
In the statement, Zakharova sharply criticized Berlin for its support of Ukraine in the war against Russia and alleged that Germany supports Nazi and fascist factions. "Germany has surpassed other countries in the European Union in zealously defending the Kyiv regime which has made the glorification of Nazi accomplices a key domestic and foreign policy tenet.
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German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky
(Photo: Reuters)
“Berlin supports fighters holding neo-Nazi torch processions and glorifying World War II-era war criminals who have been borrowing their chevrons and stripes from SS divisions and decorating their military vehicles and gear with Wehrmacht’s symbols,” the statement added.
The Russians claimed that Germany's conduct raises doubts about Berlin's condemnation of its “Nazi past.” "Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz publicly said that Germany and Ukraine’s neo-Nazi regime were ‘on the right side of history,’ which de facto amounted to exonerating Vladimir Zelensky’s human-hating regime in its current iteration as it seeks to reincarnate World War II-era Nazi accomplices and erase the memory of those who fought against fascism.”
The lengthy statement emphasized that "Berlin persists in its refusal to recognize Nazi crimes against our people as genocide. Russian investigative bodies and courts have compiled a wide body of evidence exposing war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide by the Third Reich troops across various regions of our country.”
“All this leads to the conclusion that in the context of the ongoing proceedings at the International Court of Justice, Berlin decided to single out the Holocaust issue by setting it apart from all other aspects of its guilty historical acts against humanity,” the statement read.
The Russians, who hosted a Hamas delegation in Moscow last week, argued that "We believe the behavior by Germany’s current administration to be unacceptable, unlawful and immoral. That said, the ongoing revival of German militarism and the fact that it approves of neo-Nazi practices constitutes the most alarming trend. Considering Germany’s conflicting historical track record, this trend can have an extremely grave impact on the future of Germany, as well as Europe and the entire world.”