- From the archive, 18 August 1987: Spandau gives up its last inmate
Originally published in the Guardian on 18 August 1987Rudolf Hess, the last surviving member of the Nazi leadership, spared at Nuremberg but sentenced to life imprisonment, died yesterday in the Spandau military prison in Berlin a pathetic and senile figure – ironically at the very moment that hopes were mounting that Mr Gorbachev might be the Russian leader to give way and allow his release.The Russians, who sought the death penalty for Hess at Nuremberg, were always blamed for blocking attempts made to secure his release on humanitarian grounds.The Soviet news media yesterday reported his death without comment. A brief dispatch from Tass was read out over the air. A statement released by the British diplomatic spokesman in Berlin, Mr Anderson Purdon, said simply that Hess had died in Spandau. The cause of death was not given.Mr Purdon confirmed that Spandau, where Hess had been the sole inmate since 1966, will now be torn down. The victorious second world war Allies agreed to tear down the ageing brick structure to keep it from becoming a rallying place for Nazi sympathisers.To West Germany's small neo-Nazi movement, as well as to older Germans who still harboured fond memories of Nazi rule, Rudolf Hess remained a hero despite the passage of time and his absence from the public eye during his 40 years' imprisonment at Spandau, the last 21 of which he spent as its sole inmate.At vast expense, estimated at over £700,000 a year and paid for by Bonn, Hess was kept under the strict observance of the former wartime Allies who took it in monthly turns to guard the prison, and who also made sure that he had no contact with the outside world, except for family visits. Nor was he allowed to dwell on the past.All allusions to the Nazi period in his reading matter and on his smal もともとガーディアンで8月18日1987Rudolfヘス、ナチス指導者の最後の生き残りメンバー、ニュルンベルクで免れる上で公開が無期懲役の判決を、昨日シュパンダウ軍の刑務所にベルリンで哀れと老人の。死んだ - その瞬間皮肉なことでは、希望は、氏がゴルバチョフ氏はロシアの指導者に道を譲るため、彼のrelease.Theロシア、ヘスのニュルンベルクで死刑を求めたことかもしれないが、常に試行を行った人道grounds.Theソ連のニュースで彼のリリースを確保するためにブロックの原因とされたマウントされたメディアが昨日コメントなし彼の死を報告した
- Sarah Palin and Margaret Thatcher: a perfect match | Martin Kettle
Rightwing living legends are thin on the ground, and their shared gender makes the Palin-Thatcher meeting a marketing dreamHow many living politicians retain such iconic status that younger generations of politicos crave the chance to be photographed in their company, hoping that a little of the magic dust will somehow rub off on the visitor? Nelson Mandela, of course, irresistible to politicians of every colour and creed. Barack Obama, probably, though here the iconic status is perhaps losing a little of its sheen, if not irretrievably. The pope and the Dalai Lama are in their own categories for political pilgrims of particular persuasions. On the left, a pose with Fidel Castro may still cut it for some. In some places, Mikhail Gorbachev retains a sort of allure.The late Ted Kennedy certainly had it too, especially for Irish visitors – I remember visiting Father Edward Daly, of Bloody Sunday fame, in his home in the Bogside many years ago and seeing that he kept photos of himself with Paul VI and with Senator Ted on his desk.But on the right? With Ronald Reagan dead, there's only one living legend – and that's Margaret Thatcher.If it's true that Sarah Palin is trying to arrange an audience with Mrs T, then it is not exactly hard to see why. Rightwing female icons don't grow on trees, so a Palin-Thatcher meeting has a sort of marketing inevitability – although the ignorance of the one and the infirmity of the other mean that two public figures with a shakier grip on what is going on the world would be hard to find.It's a reminder, too, that while Thatcher is world-famous, she is no longer politically a global brand. Americans have always revered her far more than Europeans or Africans, for example – or Irish, or Scots. And many Americans (like Russians of a certain era) 生活の伝説を右派は地面に薄いであり、その共有性別は、マーケティングのdreamHowたくさんの生き物の政治家は政治家の若い世代は、そのほとんどを期待してチャンスを自分たちの会社で撮影されるに懇願するような象徴的な状態を保持するペイリン - サッチャー会議になります魔法の塵が何らかの形で訪問者にこすりでしょうか？ネルソンマンデラは、もちろん、すべての色と信条の政治家に魅力的な
- Kyrgyzstan: Mob rule in Osh | Editorial
More than 100 people have been killed and ethnic Uzbek enclaves are burning but coherent international reaction is missingWhat is taking place in the cities of Osh and Jalal-Abad in southern Kyrgyzstan is an old-fashioned central Asian pogrom, a brutal act of ethnic cleansing. Uzbeks, who constitute about one-third of the population in southern Kyrgyzstan, are being burned out of their homes by mobs of Kyrgyz armed with automatic rifles, iron bars and machetes, while the local police stand by and do nothing. Not only Uzbeks, but ethnic Russians and Tartars also find themselves in the eye of the storm.The provisional government of Roza Otunbayeva has lost control and is only now starting to mobilise its armed forces to stop the civil violence. More than 100 people have been killed in the last five days, but the final death toll will be probably much higher. Ethnic Uzbek enclaves are burning, and more than 70,000 people have fled for their lives across the Uzbek border. What is missing is any coherent international reaction.Those who persist in seeing Moscow's hidden hand behind every outbreak of unrest in the former Soviet space are being disabused of their illusions. The Kyrgyz mobs burning Uzbek homes are, for one thing, on the wrong side. If anything, they are supporters of the former so-called pro-democracy leader Kurmanbek Bakiyev, the man whom Moscow was accused of helping to oust. If the mob violence is anything, it serves as a prime excuse for Russian intervention, as clear a reason as the Georgian attack on South Ossetia was. Soviet troops were sent by Mikhail Gorbachev to quell ethnic unrest in Osh in 1990, so there is even a precedent. But Russia refused to intervene, despite an appeal by the provisional president of Kyrgyzstan. Nor was there any evidence that 100人以上の人が殺されてきた民族ウズベク飛び地の焼き付けが首尾一貫した国際的な反応ですmissingWhatです南部キルギスタンのオシとジャラルアバドの都市で行われている昔ながらの中央アジア虐殺、民族浄化の残忍な行為です
- Polish air crash: Curse of Katyn | Editorial
The symbolism of the spot where the plane crashed, killing the Polish president Lech Kaczynski and the country's entire military leadership, is inescapable. In 1940, in the forests of Katyn, Stalin's secret police executed more than 20,000 Polish officers, wiping out a nation's elite. For decades, Soviet leaders blamed the massacre on the Germans, and even today, 20 years after Mikhail Gorbachev's admission and a week after Vladimir Putin became the first Russian leader to attend the commemoration, some Russians still believe the massacre is a Polish conspiracy.But sometimes symbols impede understanding. The causes of Saturday's crash are likely to be multiple – thick fog, a mechanical problem, a 26-year-old plane which the Polish government should have replaced, the pilot who ignored warnings not to attempt the landing, or indeed the president's insistence on landing. Katyn has become a cursed spot for Poles, but this tragedy has nothing to do with the past.Lech Kaczynski was a polarising figure inside and outside his country. He became president a year after Poland joined the European Union, but preferred dealing with George Bush's America. He lobbied Washington to deploy parts of its missile defence shield in Poland, arguing that this would enhance his country's security against Russia. He encouraged Georgia's and Ukraine's attempts to join Nato. This course of action has happily been jettisoned by Barack Obama, and the ensuing drive to reset relations with Russia has not only produced a new agreement on strategic nuclear missiles but has calmed relations throughout eastern Europe. Frozen conflicts still exist, as do gas pipeline politics and conflicting visions of European security. But the nationalist light of the last decade, which so poisoned regional relations, 飛行機が墜落した地点の象徴は、ポーランド大統領レフカチンスキを殺害し、国全体の軍事指導、避けている
|
