How
the German authorities stifle tokens of respect
for Rudolf Hess (even now)January 12, 1999 | | Das
freie Forum
Informationsdienst, Gesellschaft
für freie Publizistik e.V., Heft No. 1/1999.
WEGEN befürchteter Demonstrationen
zum 11. Todestag von Rudolf Heß
verhängten Behörden in
Baden-Württemberg erstmalig gegen insgesamt
116 Personen vorbeugend eine Meldepflicht: Die
Betroffenen mußten sich von Freitag bis
Sonntag abend (15.-17. 8. 98) täglich zwei-
bis dreimal bei der Polizei melden. Bei
Nichtbefolgung wurde ein Bußgeld und die
Möglichkeit späterer Verhaftung
angedroht. Landespolizeipräsident Erwin
Hetger erklärte: »Ich hätte am
liebsten alle Aktivisten in Vorbeugegewahrsam
genommen.« (Stuttg.Nachr 15. 8. 98)Bundesweit wurden an dem Wochenende
mindestens 435 Menschen vorläufig
festgenommen, so in Thüringen rund 190, um
Braunschweig 150, in Baden-Württemberg 29
(Welt 18. 8. 98) Wie das mit den Grundrechten der
Demonstrations- und Versammlungsfreiheit zu
vereinbaren ist, wird wohl gar nicht mehr
bedacht. Daß vorbeugend Kurden beim Fall
Ocalan festgenommen wurden, wurde nicht
berichtet. Dementsprechend hoch war dann auch
der entstandene Personen- und
Sachschaden.
[TRANSLATION:
Fearing
demonstrations on the eleventh anniversary of
the death of Rudolf Hess, authorities in
Baden-Württemberg, Germany, issued
police-reporting orders for the first time
against altogether 116 persons. These persons
were required to report twice or thrice daily
from Friday to Sunday evening (August 15-17,
1998) to their local police. In the event of
non-compliance they were threatened with fines
and later arrest. Provincial police chief
Erwin Hetger explained, "I would have
preferred in fact to take all the activists into
custody." (Stuttgart Nachrichten, August 15,
1998). Nationwide that weekend
at least 435 persons were temporarily taken into
custsody, including 190 in Thuriginia, 150 in
Brunswick, twenty-nine in Baden-Württemberg
(Die Welt, August 18, 1998). It is not at first
clear how this can be reconciled with the
constitutional rights of free assembly and
demonstration. There have been no reports of
Kurds being taken into preventive custody in the
Ocalan affair. Damage to people and property was
correspondingly severe.] | IN
MAY 1941 Rudolf Hess, Hitler's deputy,
parachuted into Scotland in a crazy solo mission
to end the bloodshed of World War II. He brought
for the King George VI of England a peace
offer on terms which, he alleged, Adolf
Hitler had authorised him to make, and which
would have been completely painless for the
British Empire. Churchill intercepted him, and
locked him away as a "prisoner of the Secret
Service" until 1945. Unimpressed by his motives,
the victorious Allies put him on trial at
Nuremberg for"crimes against the peace" and
sentenced him to life imprisonment. Hess
outlived every single one of his judges and
prosecutors, and after 47 years in jail, the
last twenty-one of them in solitary confinement,
he died mysteriously (of strangulation) in the
American-guarded Spandau jail, in the British
Zone of Berlin, in August 1987.  Intelligent
young Germans today regard him as something of a
martyr; but their government denies them the
right to show their respect for his attempts to
end war's cruel madness. Das kann nicht gut
gehen, as the Germans say. No good will come
of that.
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