The Persecution of John Demjanjuk
"John Demjanjuk Guilty of Nazi Death Camp Murders," ran the headline on the BBC. The lede began:
"A German court has found John Demjanjuk guilty of helping to murder more than 28,000 Jews at a Nazi death camp in Poland."
Not until paragraph 17 does one find this jolting fact: "No evidence was produced that he committed a specific crime."
That is correct. No evidence was produced, no witness came forward to testify he ever saw Demjanjuk injure anyone. And the critical evidence that put Demjanjuk at Sobibor came—from the KGB.
First was a KGB summary of an alleged interview with one Ignat Danilchenko, who claimed he was a guard at Sobibor and knew Demjanjuk. Second was the Soviet-supplied ID card from the Trawniki camp that trained guards.
There are major problems with both pieces of "evidence."
First, Danilchenko has been dead for a quarter of a century, no one in the West ever interviewed him, and Moscow stonewalled defense requests for access to the full Danilchenko file. His very existence raises a question.
How could a Red Army soldier who turned collaborator and Nazi camp guard survive Operation Keelhaul, which sent all Soviet POWs back to Joseph Stalin, where they were either murdered or sent to the Gulag?
As for the ID card from Trawniki, just last month there was unearthed at the National Archives in College Park, Md., a 1985 report from the Cleveland office of the FBI, which, after studying the card, concluded it was "quite likely" a KGB forgery.
"Justice is ill-served in the prosecution of an American citizen on evidence which is not only normally inadmissible in a court of law, but based on evidence and allegations quite likely fabricated by the KGB."
This FBI report, never made public, was done just as Demjanjuk was being deported to Israel to stand trial as "Ivan the Terrible," the murderer of Treblinka. In a sensational trial covered by the world's press, Demjanjuk was convicted and sentenced to hang.
But after five years on death row, new evidence turned up when the Soviet Union collapsed and Russia opened up. That evidence wholly validated the claims of Demjanjuk's defenders.
Not only had Demjanjuk never even been at Treblinka, the Soviet files contained a photograph of the real "Ivan"—a larger and older man.
To its eternal credit, the Israeli Supreme Court reversed the conviction, rejected a request to retry Demjanjuk as a camp guard elsewhere in Poland, freed him and sent him home to America.
Exposed as a laughing stock, and denounced for fraud by Ohio district and appellate courts, the Office of Special Investigations began crafting a new case, John Demjanjuk of Sobibor, to deport and try again the old man whose defense attorneys had made fools of them.
Thus the Sobibor story and Demjanjuk's supposed complicity in the murder of 28,000 Jews—though, as the BBC notes, no one testified at the trial that they ever saw John Demjanjuk injure anyone.
Consider the life this tormented American has lived.
Born in Ukraine in 1920, as a boy he endured the Holodomor—the famine imposed on his people in 1932 and 1933 by Stalin and his hated henchman Lazar Kaganovich, which resulted in the starvation and death of somewhere between 5 million and 9 million Ukrainians.
It has been called by historians the "forgotten Holocaust."
Conscripted into the Red Army, Demjanjuk was captured in the German blitzkrieg. Unlike American and British POWs, whom Germans regarded as racial equals, Ukrainians were untermensch who could be used for medical experiments.
Not only did Demjanjuk survive, he managed to evade the Allied order, under Keelhaul, for all Red Army POWs to be repatriated to Stalin, which was the Soviet dictator's demand before he would return the U.S. and British POWs his troops liberated in the march to Berlin.
In the war's aftermath, Demjanjuk married his wife Vera, who had been conscripted in the Ukraine and brought forcibly west to work in the German economy.
Thence he moved to Cleveland, became an autoworker, raised a family and practiced his Christian faith. But he made a mistake.
He sent his wife to Ukraine to tell his aged mother that he had survived the war and was living in the great United States of America.
Word got around the village. The KGB came calling. Swiftly, the payments his mother had been receiving for her war hero son were halted, and suddenly, there turned up an ID card that said John Demjanjuk had been trained at Trawniki to be a Nazi camp guard.
The KGB began feeding OSI from its "files," as OSI began a manic persecution of Demjanjuk that has lasted 30 years.
Stalin died in bed in 1953. Kaganovich died with his family around him in Moscow in 1991. And John Demjanjuk, 91, after spending five years on death row for a crime he did not commit in a place he never was, is stateless and homeless in a Germany where veterans of the SS walk free.
That is justice—in our world.
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When PJB first took up this cause decades ago, he sacrificed his good name and reputation willingly, for a stranger he believed was wronged. It would lead to the unfair purge by William F. Buckley. As noted, Israel was more fair than the Bavarians.
The decades long pursuit of this man is simply beyond belief. How tragic that despite zero evidence and the Israeli court decision, the Germans were still eager to prosecute him once more and the US willingly shipped him over there to endure yet another indignity.
Mr. Nicoletti highlights an important point about PJB - and an important point about honor. It is increasingly rare to see it displayed in our society, but it merits tribute when it is.
A very brave column.
"When PJB first took up this cause decades ago, he sacrificed his good name and reputation willingly, for a stranger he believed was wronged"
The generally decent Congressmen Traficant was also targeted and eventually railroaded over his defense of Mr. Demjanjuk.
This is the Dreyfus trial of our time.
During the Israeli trial there were plenty of fraudulent witnesses on the verge of senility who swore that they never forgot a face, and our gutter press slurped up and printed every scurrilous calumny. But even their marginal justice system couldn't railroad an innocent goy.
Alan Dershowitze call your office.
Bravo, Mr. Buchanan. Thank you for speaking the truth.
There remains one impartial Judge Whom every man will face sooner or later, and those who have tormented this poor man will not escape His judgment.
Pat stood up for this man & helped save him from being hanged for a crime he didn't commit. Pat's reward? To be called a "Nazi-lover". And how many so-called conservatives stood by and let Buchanan be smeared or say nothing while this poor 91 year-old man is railroaded for shabby political reasons?
That's the world and that's the US conservative movement circa 2011.
BTW, WW II ended 66 years ago, its time to let go.
I hope the officials in the German government responsible for pushing this case are completely satisified that they have finally got their sacrificial goat for past German sins in the form of a 91 year old, wheelchair bound Ukrainean man.
Hopefully, this means that they will never ever touch these 66-year old matters ever again.
Post-2020, I want all 20th century genocides and massacres to be forgotten and ignored. Enough of this truth and reconciliation garbage. By then, the men responsible for all of the worst killings would have been dead longer than they have been alive.
Past sins of ancestors are like a poison vomited out of the body. The crude and insensitive ones are not those who refuse to eat the vomit, but those who must perpetually gorge on this huge pile of red vomit, vomit it out again, and eat it again.
The difference between Demjanjuk and Dreyfus was Dreyfus was guilty.
Spain also wanted to put him on trial. It seems that every country in the world has a group of hardcore leftists that wish to prosecute the man in order to attempt to satisfy those who can never be satisfied.
Mr. Sanjay states: "Post-2020, I want all 20th century genocides and massacres to be forgotten and ignored."
From what I can tell, his wish has already been granted - except for a few 90 year olds accused of Nazi War-crimes or those labeled as "fascists".
One wonders how many henchmen of Mao, the Gulag & the KGB, or the "Kiling fields" are still walking around free - with no attempt to bring them to justice.
Actually, we should admit it's a different story, rcocean.
Mao's henchmen included some fairly competent people who could at least hold Mao's republic together after he died. It was not a matter of justice, so much as keeping a smooth transition in China after Mao's radical experiments. Deng Xiaoping even forgave the people who paralyzed his son.
The KGB too has had members who kept the Russian establishment together in Russia's worst years after Soviet collapse. You could say it is akin to how America placed Saddam Hussein's former party members in control in Iraq - only they knew how to handle some of the insurgents.
I don't know much about Cambodia, though.
Those who directed the killing fields of Cambodia do not seem to enjoy much protection. After all, Cambodia is ruled by the faction of Hun Sen, a onetime Khmer Rouge cadre who defected to the invading Vietnamese army that overthrew Pol Pot and put him in power. Since the end of the Cold War, Hun Sen has rebuilt relations with China while still maintaining his ties with Hanoi. Consequently, the original nutty Khmer Rouge around Pol Pot have been completely marginalized and many of their cadres have been put on trial for war crimes inside Cambodia.
http://www.eccc.gov.kh/en
From what I can tell, his wish has already been granted – except for a few 90 year olds accused of Nazi War-crimes or those labeled as “fascists”.
Are you kidding? The establishments are still prosecuting people who did not serve on either side in World War II for expressing contrarian points of view about the facts on that war. Some of the opinions are stupid, but why the strong emotions? The collective memory not only lives on but also poisons and stumps all political discourse: accuse an opponent of Naziism and he'll be out of your way for all practical intents and purposes. Just now, someone on this forum denied Dreyfus was innocent. Where I live, that assertion would bring you so much closer to conviction for "inciting racial hatred." Were it not for the collective memory of World War II, that would not likely be the case.
The innocence of Dreyfus was used as a blunt tool to crush the influence of the Catholic Church in French politics. The newspaper La Croix was rendered toothless.
I second Mr. Nicoletti's point.
In Dreyfus' case, a massive media campaign was organized on his behalf by the French Left. "Left" in this context does not mean socialist so much as anti-clerical and laicist (i.e. Freemason) and thus encompassed much of the big bourgeoisie. The anti-Dreyfusards found themselves facing enormous countervailing forces.
Mr. Demjanjuk had no such luck.
Gentlemen, I think you are worrying about who said, not what was said.
Were an anti-clerical man to observe that the weather is cloudy, you can not discount that observation because he is anti-clerical. In this case, it's a matter of whether or not the evidence against Dreyfus was forged, which is for any trained observer to decide for himself.
Even if it was anti-clerical propaganda, the truth can be a very good source of propaganda (apart from other sources). Some of the accusations against Axis Powers during WWII were even true - isn't that why it was milked so much?
Besides, are we to discount what Pat said about Demjanjuk, because he is a Catholic and has sympathies towards Ukrainian Catholics? There's all possible angles to accuse anyone of bias.
My point was not to pronounce upon the truth of the Dreyfus affair, but to note that the common image of the Dreyfusard/anti-Dreyfusard conflict as that of a few brave lonely voices facing an anti-Semitic tidal wave is false. In reality, the Dreyfus case became an important opportunity for the laicist big bourgeoisie to deal a severe blow to their monarchist rivals.
Consequently, any analogy between the Dreyfus and Demjanjuk cases is tenuous because the latter did not see such powerful forces rush to his defense.
We have long known that some pigs are more equal than others.
18) The sectarian charge against PJB is fallacious. He supported the Quaker Nixon against JFK. Demjanjuk is from the Orthodox heartland of Kiev/ Kyiv. Archbishop Antony of the UOUSA, is the only prelate to support Demjanjuk in public. The Catholic region is Lvov/Lviv in western Ukraine.
Superb and *essential* article by PJB.
The Demjanjuk witch-hunt has been going on for what seems to be an eternity. I remember very well the hell his family went through while living in Seven Hills (and they still live this hell). Every “logical” and critical-thinking person knows this is a complete farce. However, the younger generation - - - in essence, unaware of the history of this witch-hunt until this recent episode - - - is proclaiming “justice” and ready to hang him. They are absolutely clueless.
Daniel Maxwell - - - you are 100% correct. Former Congressman James Traficant was one of the very few that went to bat for Demjanjuk, and of course, he was bulldozed for his politically incorrect position. Actually, the details surrounding his support for Demjanjuk are quite interesting.
A conviction without evidence?!? “Well, beam me up Scotty!”
Yes, SB. The Democrats already hated Traficant for being an old line, 19th century style Democrat, but after he went to bat for his constituent Demjanjuk they really went after him. Although his district is across the state from where I live in Ohio, he is a rare example of a politician I'd be more than happy to vote for.
Who can forget that during his original trial in Israel, the remark was made "who cares if he's Ivan the Terrible or just another Terrible Ivan". Full credit to Israel for acknowledging the fundamental flaw in that statement and overturning the guilty verdict. The German court goes about its business by applying different judicial priciples, it would appear.
If there is a Demjanjuk witch hunt, then there should be a form of justice where Nazi sympathizers are outed. For every Demjanjuk innocent, there are thousands of Germans who either looked the other way or were complicit in the death camps.
I visited Dachau where 1500 Catholic priests were humilitated, tortured and murdered in the name of German national sociialism. One was even ordained there. One has to worry about Pat Buchannan.
When Pattons Third Army liberated the death camps, the Americans were so overwhelmed, they gave the SS guards no quarter, i.e., no 2011 German justice.
I sincerely hope Demjanjuk is innocent. I also hope that Pat Buchannan writes about the honor and virtue of liberating the Nazi death camps.
West Germany saw two seemingly contradictory policies imposed upon it by the US following its defeat:
1. An intensive anti-national propaganda campaign in the name of de-Nazification.
2. The recuperation by the US government, for its own use, of the security, intelligence and business networks that had served the Third Reich. Many of these assets had a great deal of civilian blood on their hands.
These seemingly contradictory policies could be simultaneously pursued because they shared the same overriding objective: the re-fashioning of Germany as the primary continental partner in a US-dominated Europe.
Its sad that even on this website, people are silly enough to imply Pat Buchanan is a Nazi for defending an innocent 90 year man. Of course, thats one reason why Demjanjuk was railroaded and almost executed.
Interesting how the left sets up these dynamics. To many people, Buchanan can't defend an innocent without first rehashing some obvious criticism of Hitler, who died 66 years ago. Otherwise, he's a Neo-Nazi and a Hitler lover.
And they seem to have to set up the same dynamic with the Confederacy. Any praise of say, Robert E Lee, must be now be counterbalanced by a disclaimer that one hates the Old south or a statement that "of course Lee was slaveholder but..." Otherwise, you open yourself up to the charge of being a "Neo-Confederate".
Defending that Confederate flag? Hmmm.. why would anyone do that unless one is a ....
rcocean,
Remember that the myth of WW2 as a basically virtuous war (with a few "excesses" here and there) is an essential foundation to all the propaganda justifying contemporary US warmongering. As a result, the mainstream Right is as deeply invested in slandering anyone who might challenge that foundation as the Left is.
Likewise, the image of the US Civil War as one of virtuous purification of a unredeemed slaveholding South serves a similar function, albiet to a lesser degree.
PJB has defended Franco who rescued the Sephardic Orthodox Jews and the rights of the Sudeten Germans, but never the pagan Third Reich.
Whenever this sort of thing has come before, there are always cries of '..but we put men back into positions of authority who had been involved in the regime". To this I ask, what were we supposed to do, shoot every man in Germany? You would have been hard pressed to find an adult male who didnt in some way at least passively support the regime (ie serve in the Flak corps or the Army). We also have to remember the US government almost immediately had an about face on German armament due to the Cold War. We needed men with combat experience to command their armies. The worst beasts were mostly either dead, in exile, or in permanent retirement.
This really goes to illustrate just how completely off-the-rocker are questions related to Israel or Jews in the Western world. According to everything I've heard, positions on the nature and politics of the State of Israel are much more varied and the debate much deeper and more thoughtful than anything one hears in the U.S. Meanwhile, in Europe, one almost gets the impression that Gentiles let the Holocaust get to their heads more than do Jews. Sensible people know that bloodlust and hysteria produce false convictions. Both the U.S. and Europe, in pursuing this and other matters, reveal not only their bloodthirst (especially America) and hysteria (especially Europe) but also their sheer insanity.
Remember that the myth of WW2 as a basically virtuous war (with a few “excesses” here and there) is an essential foundation to all the propaganda justifying contemporary US warmongering. As a result, the mainstream Right is as deeply invested in slandering anyone who might challenge that foundation as the Left is.
Well, of course. The most vile long-lasting effect of WWII has been the conversion of just about the entire mainstream right wing to "Christian Democrats." Since the grand coalition of Socialists, Communists and Christian Democrats won the war and have not suffered any serious military or political defeat in Europe (apart from defeat the hands of one another since that time), nearly everyone who holds power in the European political establishment is intellectually descended from these SCC crazies. As such, they will not stop at insisting on the justice of prosecuting the war (a defensible position) but they will silence anyone who dares criticize the way in which it was prosecuted or the "new opportunities" they created.
This is why we will never see Eastern European Communists brought to justice. They have too much dirt on the Christian Democrats and the Socialists--who alone have the power to hold them accountable--for these latter to risk anything. All three parties, for all their aesthetic and rhetorical differences, protect one another when it comes to WWII and tout one and the same historiography of the war, because if competing ones appeared, eventually the dirt would be unearthed and their days numbered.
Fortunately, all the Christian Democrats seem to have left the Church in droves these past sixty years. It is only a matter of time before the parties disappear and give way to different sorts. Just as Dr. Wilson advocates getting rid of the Republican Party as the first step and essential prerequisite to conservative victory, removal of the center-right must precede the eventual wreckage of the left.
I'm wondering. What is going on? Am I the only one to think that maybe some Americans are not sure who was right in WWll? Just thank public education fot that. And Daniel Maxwell, I love Germans. I am a German by descent. I just don't believe in the vunderkinden. In fact, I believe in defeating national socialism.
Daniel Maxwell, a man who passively opposed the Nazis was the current Pope, and his predecessor, blessed John Paul ll. Also, the worst beasts were tried at Nurnberg, many executed.
I'm also wondering if many of our readers are from kook libertarian websites. Libertarian I'm OK you're OK. Just don't tell me I have to fight for this unjust government. They want to drive to work every day without the thought of virtuous American warriors, better than they.
The German Nazis' rise to power was made possible by financing by German, French, British AND AMERICAN business interests (along with some indirect political assistance from Stalin). Furthermore, German re-armament under Hitler was also, to a very large extent, financed by French, British and American loans.
Alex, I'm not sure what you're protesting but it looks like shadowboxing. If I'm wrong I beg your pardon, but there's no one here to be outraged against. Dr. Fleming & co. have done a pretty good job of upgrading the place and cleansing it of the old Nazi trolls. One does not have to approve of Hitler to retroactively oppose American involvement in WWII. (Buchanan does; I do not share this position.) One does not have to cheer for the Nazis in history to point out that one of the major factions fighting against them was just as murderous as and even more cynical than the Nazis. (The intricacies of justifying the one choice versus the other are too long to discuss here; the point is that the mass murderers who sequestered Russia for 74 years and Eastern Europe for 45 years have never been held even cursorily accountable.) Finally, one must not confuse loyalty to one's country with loyalty to the regime. Of course a German officer served in the German army. But what, are we all obligated to vote Christian Democrat/Socialist or Democrat/Republican because these were the political systems in place? Is a Russian supposed to vote Communist because it was Stalin who got the Nazis out of the USSR?
Is a German who worked on any task at any level of government during World War II a war criminal??
As for libertarians, I have no use for them. But "virtuous American warriors"? Which ones? The American military is not what it was in World War II and notwithstanding the positive memories of many soldiers about certain quite admirable leaders on the field, in general I would not think the U.S. army was exactly a lovely Christian paradise even then. But today? In my 26 years, I can honestly say that I have never met a young cadet whom I would allow in the same room as my daughter, let alone date her.
NGMP,
My two boys served as officers, one marine, one army combat in Iraq. The men and women of this generation volunteer to serve.
Whether you agree or disageree with our government invovlment in war, these young people who volunteer are a cut above. When a young trooper walks down from the entrance in an airoport, people spontaineously applaud. I've witnessed this.
You should read, "From Hell and Back," by Audie Murphy. 26 year olds were not much different in WWll. Today, they volunteer. Then they were drafted.
You should always watch out for your daughter. It's a father's duty. Have you read the Old Testament?
"Alex", all I am saying is that we had to make a deal with the devil to move on. Youll also note that Josef Ratzinger, while opposing the NS regime like many south Germans did, still served in the HJ-Flak Corps.
And no, I am not from some 'kook libertarian website'. I've been posting here for years and am a subscriber to this magazine. While its true I might side with Buchanan on the war, it is not out of some anti-war pacifism so common among libertarians.
And by the way, I attended private Catholic schools, although thanks for the implication I am a buffoon because I dont agree with you.
In this world, a world turned upon its head, unjust and cruel, we must be our own justice. I feel pity for all those souls sacrificed for the sake of clearing an unjustly-tainted people.
@36: of course I would always watch out for my daughter (I am not yet a father). I have read the entire Bible, every book in the Old and New Testaments and yes, that includes the deuterocanonical books.
I understand that as a father you must be inclined to rush to the defense of your children, as of course is your right. They may well be excellent fellows and had I ever met them my opinion of soldiers might be softened a little. Alas, I have never met them and the ones I have met were definitely NOT "a cut above the rest" in terms of morals or even manners. I won't tell you how to raise your children, but during my brief stints my first year of university in ROTC and flirting with the Republican Party I saw all I needed to see to know I would never approve of my sons joining an organism so composed.
It is indeed noble to volunteer in defense of one's country. It is tragic that popular folklore has kept up the perception that one is doing so by joining the U.S. military, which has not engaged in anything like true defense of the U.S. for decades. I do not have contempt for young soldiers I do not know (though as I said most of the ones I do know I do have a bit of contempt for, for reasons not related to their presence in the military) but I do not applaud them; I pity them.
Have you read the New Testament? The glory of men is not to be sought.
Finally, yes, we do draft, albeit economically. Young working-class boys and (more horrifyingly) girls are enticed into lifelong government dependance with promises of decent wages and free health insurance. The middle- and upper-classes avoid the military these days. For many, that is telling of their decadent character (especially the bloodthirsty nuts who were of combat age during the Iraq war) but it is also telling of the military's inability to act, despite its legendary status to the contrary, as wholesome levain in American society.
Just to anticipate: I wouldn't let my daughter date a leftist weenie, either. I say this because I think you've misunderstood us. Read some older postings and threads on this site and get a better idea of our mental capacity and the true nature of our beliefs.
I think we should also consider the real lesson of this story.
Much like the people put under the military-grade flamethrower at Waco, Demjanjuk has been used as a prop or a tool for a government demonstration, for an attempt to make an example.
With Waco, Clinton got to demonstrate the superior firepower, training, and equipment of United States' internal security system, and to assure Americans that they can send federal troops any time to their territory to save them from some mass outbreak of violence.
With Demjanjuk, the German government got to show how serious it was with handling past war crimes and establishes its credentials as a firm and assertive government.
Both were PR campaigns that required a few lives to be sacrificed.
And the lesson is that governments consider loss of a few lives fit for a PR campaign. Is that not the reason that Rumsfeld and co. made sure that foreign detainees were tortured? Torture was not a cost of war. For them, it was a plus - meant to show how serious the Bush administration was.
Chronicles readers know something of East European history and its writers praise those who fought the Hitlerites and Stalinists. If one was a Latvian, Hungarian or Ukrainian, the choice between the Austrian and the Georgian was a meager one. New readers should read the material of Dr. Fleming and Dr.Trifkovic on the Chetniks.
@29 (Richard Nicoletti, 15 May 2011): PJB has defended Franco who rescued the Sephardic Orthodox Jews and the rights of the Sudeten Germans, but never the pagan Third Reich.
Excellent point. While I do not agree with PJB on several points, he is right on this one. Gmo. Francisco Franco was a hero. He saved Spain. Yes, he got his hands dirty in the process; the Communists left him little choice. Under his iron rule his country was spared the nightmare of democracy, rising from the literal rubble to become one of the best places on Earth to live.
For his trouble he has been demonized, and every trace of him disposed of by the nauseating crew that took over after he died -- a crew that has ruined Spain. And all the time the king whom Franco protected and placed upon the throne has watched, and done nothing.
No good deed goes unpunished. ¡Arriba España!
The question that our Memory Hole media has trained us not to raise:
"Why was Erich Honecker not pursued with equal vigor by the East (and West)Germans?"
Honecker was a lifelong Anti-Nazi, to his credit, who slipped out of the country before he could be prosecuted for the Berlin wall shootings. His second "wife" and grandchildren made it to Chile. They were not dopey enough to go to Cuba or North Korea.
One other reason we do not see that many prosecutions of Left-wing war criminals: the academies are in the firm hands of leftists, many of whom gave moral support to these criminals through their praise not only of Communism but also even of Bolshevism. They cannot afford to do an about-face on the accepted versions of twentieth-century history.
Ceausescu played a role in the anti-Nazi resistance during WWII. Does that exonerate him as well?
Ceausescu was too stupid to escape.and made the GDR look like a success.
@45
Since when do the universities bring charges against "war criminals"? Governmental prosecution is firmly in the hands of left-wing bureaucrats.
I remember briefly after the fall of the wall, some on the German right thought they had a real chance of seeing Honecker and Mielke tried and executed, Honecker for the killings at the Berlin Wall and Mielke for the murder of 2 policemen in the early 30s.
But then the trials came, both 'were in poor health', an excuse that doesnt work with 90+ year old ex-National Socialists, and were freed.
Much of the GDR nomenklatura, accustomed to vassalage, quickly rallied to their new Imperial master in Washington when the Wall fell. Angela Merkel would be Exhibit A of this tendency.