First they forget the horrors of Communism, then will they forget Nazism?

In Berlin, the authorities tore down the Checkpoint Charlie Monument to the 1,065 East German attempted defectors who were killed while trying to flee to West Berlin while the Berlin Wall stood. Checkpoint Charlie was the lone crossing point for Western diplomats and military attaches to enter walled-off East Berlin. Last year, the Checkpoint Charlie Museum leased land from a German Bank that owned property at the former Checkpoint Charlie site and erected a 140-foot stretch of Berlin Wall and the 1,065 crosses (with the names of the dead) that symbolized the East Germans killed seeking freedom.

More information on the politics from Davids Medienkritik:

The monument itself was created last year on the private initiative of the Checkpoint Charlie Museum and its director, Ms. Alexandra Hildebrandt, who leased the land from the bank.

Not surprisingly, the monument quickly became a thorn in the eye of the city government of Berlin, a political coalition consisting of Gerhard Schroeder's Social-Democrats and the PDS, the Communist successor of the SED party (Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands) that ruled East Germany with an iron dictatorial fist. Members of both parties in the city senate, particularly Senators Thomas Flierl (PDS) and Ingeborg Junge-Reyer (SPD), repeatedly criticized the monument, stating that the somber crosses were turning the city into a sort of Disneyland.

[the land owner] Bankaktiengesellschaft (BAG) also heard the grumbling coming from the city government and felt obliged to terminate its lease with the Checkpoint Charlie Museum. When it did so and Ms. Hildebrandt defiantly refused to remove the monument, the bank sued to have the monument torn down and won. When, as a last resort, Ms. Hildebrandt offered to buy the land to save the monument, the bank asked for 36 million Euros, a price that, according to Henry Nickel of Republicans Abroad, is far above the actual market value and nothing more than a smokescreen created to frustrate efforts of monument proponents. The city fully backs the court order and demolition was initially scheduled to be carried out in the early morning hours of July 4th Berlin time. After widespread protest from groups representing American veterans and victims of Communism, the date was cynically moved back a day.

But the protests, commentary and even an offer to buy the land from the bank for an exorbitant price all went for nought. As the US celebrated July 4, the Berlin police razed the Checkpoint Charlie Memorial. Germany has done its history a disservice and slapped the face of the allies who protected West Berlin and West Germany throughout the Cold War.

Reprehensible.