70 Years of Unrelenting Smear Campaigns and Demonization of an Entire People are Enough – R.I.P. Reinhold Elstner | Justice for Germans

70 Years of Unrelenting Smear Campaigns and Demonization of an Entire People are Enough – R.I.P. Reinhold Elstner | Justice for Germans





On April 25th, 1995 Reinhold Elstner, a 75 year-old veteran of the Second World War, walked up to the steps of Munich’s historical Feldherrnhalle, doused himself in gasoline and set himself on fire to protest against what he called “the ongoing official slander and demonization of the German People and German soldiers 50 years after the end of World War II”.



In his parting letter he wrote:



“Fifty years of unrelenting smear campaigns and demonization of an entire people are enough.



Fifty years of incessant insults hurled at German war veterans are enough.



With my 75 years of age, all I can do is to set a final sign of contemplation with my death in flames. And if only one German comes to consciousness and finds his way to the truth, then my sacrifice will not have been in vain.”