Letter: Anti-Hitler Communists who fail 'good German' test

From Dr Uwe Siemon-Netto

Sir: You have unjustly criticised Franz Ludwig von Stauffenberg for protesting against the inclusion of Communists in a new exhibition in Berlin devoted to the resistance against Hitler ('Remembering the good Germans'; leading article, 20 July). There are three reasons for not counting the Communists among the 'good Germans'.

1. The Communists played a crucial part in the destruction of the Weimar Republic; thus, they had a direct hand in Hitler's rise to power.

2. They adhered to a political movement whose leader, Stalin, actively facilitated Hitler's aggression against the democratic world (the Hitler-Stalin pact).

3. When they assumed power in the Soviet-occupied part of Germany, they replaced one vile regime with another.

Please, let us make the proper distinctions. It is a scandalous idea to celebrate murderous totalitarians of Walter Ulbricht's ilk along with decent men such as Stauffenberg or Carl Goerdeler, and the many Social Democrats who sacrificed their lives - not in the pursuit of an inhuman ideology, but by following their consciences.

Yours faithfully,

UWE SIEMON-NETTO

Berlin

20 July