Far-left extremists have taken credit for toppling a statue in the German city of Dresden that was dedicated to the civilians who died during the firebombings of the city during the Second World War.
The group “Autonomous Action Group Dresden De-Nazifies” took credit for toppling the “Sea of Tears” memorial to those killed during the firebombing of the city in 1945, which saw what estimates claim as being from 25,000 to between 35,000 to 135,000 civilians and others killed over a period of two nights on February 13th and 14th.
According to the far-left extremists who took credit on the far-left Antifa-linked website Indymedia, the monument, the civilians killed during the bombings “were not victims, they were perpetrators.”
“Actions have consequences, to mourn Dresden’s bomb deaths in collective remembrance is wrong. The victims of German barbarism should be mourned, the victory over it should be celebrated,” the group said.
According to a report from the German tabloid Bild, the memorial had been created in 2010 and artist Małgorzata Chodakowska told the newspaper, ” The girl is a symbol of new life – the crossed arms stand for calm and humility to think. The water basin symbolizes new life and shed tears and is intended to extinguish the burning Dresden.”
Police spokesman Uwe Hoffmann stated that investigators were looking into the note posted by the group and stated that it was likely that the incident was linked to left-wing extremism.
Saxony’s state parliament president Matthias Rößler, a member of the centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU), slammed the destruction of the memorial saying, “Anyone who destroys a monument to the bomb victims of February 13 is not only violently attacking a place of peaceful mourning, but also a symbol of warning and reconciliation.”
Far-left extremism remains a major issue in part of Germany and the Dresden incident comes just months after Antifa extremists used Indymedia to publish a call for the murder of 53 members of the populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, publishing home addresses of politicians.