Thoughts on war: Erich Nies on the German “Heldengedenktag“ [“Heroes’ Memorial Day”] in the year 1943 (Published on 07/07/2025)
In 1934, at the intervention of “Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge” [the German “War Graves Commission”], the German “Volkstrauertag“ [“National Memorial Day”], which until then had served to commemorate the German soldiers who had fallen in the First World War, was renamed to “Heldengedenktag” [“Heroes’ Memorial Day”], on which the German fallen were now to be honored as “heroes”. Subsequently, all significant steps in the German preparations for war up to and including 1939 were carried out on a date in the immediate vicinity of “Heldengedenktag”.
The German Social Democrat Erich Nies, born in 1890, deceased on 22/01/1952, was a member of the second state parliament of Württemberg-Baden (1950 to 1952). In his book “Politisches Tagebuch 1935-1945” [“Political Diary 1935-1945”] (1947), he commented on the “Heldengedenktag” on 21/03/1943 with the following entry (translation from German language):
“… Today is Heroes’ Memorial Day. The youth lie in the mass graves, no day of remembrance will wake them up again. But the guilty call on people to remember the dead. What a mockery! They, who are to blame for the fact that mass grave after mass grave is being created, are appearing before the world and hypocritically staging a Heroes’ Memorial Day!”
(Head picture: Grave crosses at the German military cemetery
in Ysselsteyn/Netherlands, May 2023)
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