Open letter of the Kaliningrad branch of Yabloko, 13.05.2020

On May 11-13, 2020, a number of media published news under provocative headlines and texts about the annual action in memory of the victims of the Second World War conducted by our colleague Sergei Dustin. These publications, together with the video, became the reason for the preliminary investigation of Dustin’s actions by the Investigative Committee under Article 354.1 “Rehabilitation of Nazism”.

Meanwhile, the essence of Sergei’s memorial action is that on May 9 he laid flowers first to the mass burial of Soviet soldiers who died in April 1945, and then to the international memorial burial of victims of the Second World War in Baltiysk. The video published in social networks and the above media clearly show his speech that the Second World War brought suffering to all peoples, not only Europe, but the whole world. The Soviet Union suffered terrible, impossible losses. For the German people, this tragedy is no less terrible than for other countries, including the USSR… All these people are victims of the criminal policy of unleashing wars… and the people (war criminals) who are to blame for unleashing the Second World War are worthy of no memory…

Fierce battles were fought here in Baltiysk (Pillau) during the Second World War. It was from here that the civilian population of all East Prussia was evacuated in panic from January 13 to April 25, 1945. And this cemetery only is the place of burial of the remains of more than 13.500 people: soldiers of the German army (mostly young German soldiers of 20 – 24 years of age), residents of East Prussia, 123 passengers of the liner Wilhelm Gustloff, prisoners of war of anti-Hitler coalition, as well as those who were forcibly brought here from all over Europe. These are citizens of 24 nationalities: Austrians, Poles, French, Russians, Czechs, Hungarians, Dutch, Italians, Romanians, Ukrainians, Swiss, Lithuanians, Yugoslavs, Spaniards, Danes, Chileans, Americans and others.

The memorial international burial in Baltiysk is one of the city’s visitor attractions and was consecrated on August 20, 2000. Ernst Joerg von Studnitz, [then] Ambassador of Germany to Russia, representatives of German communities, the administrations of the city of Baltiysk and the Kaliningrad Region, residents of Baltiysk and war veterans took part in the consecration ceremony. Lutheran and Orthodox memorial services took place.

It is also worth noting that the decision to build this memorial to the victims of Second World War in the Baltiysk North Mall area was reached at the negotiations of the German People’s Union and the Baltiysk administration in 1994. This was envisaged by the international bilateral agreement (1992), which laid the foundation for cooperation in the name of peace between Russia and Germany. A similar, the largest in Russia memorial complex in memory of German military personnel who died during the Second World War on the Soviet territory was also opened near Kursk, the city of Military Glory, in 2009.

We think that all those who, 75 years after the end of one of the most tragic pages of world history, especially for our people, again begin to speculate on this topic, spreading discord and hatred, should recall the words of Albert Schweitzer, great humanist and Nobel Prize winner, “SOLDIERS’ GRAVES ARE GREATEST PREACHERS OF PEACE”.

Igor Pleshkov,

Chairman of the Kaliningrad regional branch of the Yabloko party