Other Nations Dealt with Bloody Relics, Confederate Monuments Remain in US

WASHINGTON (Sinclair Broadcast Group) — Following the end of World War II, the Allies occupying Berlin destroyed Nazi monuments and made it illegal to retain, display or install any kind of Nazi propaganda or symbolism—a policy later adopted in Germany’s legal code. Statues, posters, memorials street signs or any other installations were explicitly banned.

The task was daunting. Adolf Hitler commissioned massive structures to rival those of the Roman Empire. In a memoir, Nazi architect Albert Speer explained the purpose of the towering monuments was to “speak to the conscience of future generations.”  little remains of the ruins. In Nuremberg, a massive, barren limestone structure remains intact in Zeppelin Field, the Nazi Party rally grounds.  

In Russia and Eastern Europe, many, though certainly not all, remnants of the Soviet Union have been purged. Cities and streets have been renamed. Statues of Communist Party leaders toppled or removed from public view.

Other relics have been integrated into art installations, like Hungary’s Memento Park or in Moscow’s Fallen Monument Park where tyrants and dissidents occupy the same space in ironic juxtaposition.

Generally, those who lost the war, who were deemed responsible for catastrophic death and oppression, were not allowed to maintain monuments.

In the United States, there are still more than 700 monuments honoring the losing side of the Civil War, including generals who took up arms against the United States. Though many have been removed in recent years, there are scores of grade schools, colleges, cities and counties named after rebel leaders as well as 10 U.S. Army bases.

“The history of this country after the Civil War is that the South lost the battle but they won the war,” said Dr. Wornie Reed, director of the Race and Social Policy Research Center at Virginia Tech.

Nearly half of the monuments erected in the memory of the Confederacy were put up between 1890 and 1910, decades after the Civil War ended but at the moment when black Americans had begun to gain legal, political and economic rights.

“They were not put there, as many people claim, in celebration of something happening in the Civil War,” Reed said. “These symbols had a major purpose. They were put there to accompany what was happening at the time and that was the institution of Jim Crow.”

Equating the monuments to a statue of a black man being lynched, he noted their presence in public spaces is “no minor issue.”

“These monuments are the crowning feature of the southern redemption—restoring their way of life,” Reed said.

The recent years’ debate over removing Confederate monuments and symbols has evoked the notion that the symbols embody a southern heritage or a “lost cause” that was unrelated to preserving slavery as an institution. President Donald Trump has elevated these symbols as part of the proud history the United States and firmly opposed their removal over their alleged cultural value.

The monuments to Civil War battles and figures represent an undeniably part of American history, explained Michael Newcity, a professor of Slavic and Eurasian Studies at Duke University. “But I think we’ve got to be very clear on what aspects of American history they represent and whether or not that’s something we in our society want to honor.”

many instances, the statues represent the victory of the false narrative of the “lost cause,” Newcity argued. “It was an ideology that wanted to paint the Civil War as a contest between two sides fighting over lofty principles of states’ rights, not that the South was primarily concerned with slavery,” he said. “And most of our society bought into that.”

Opponents of removing monuments have argued that it dishonors those who fought in the Civil War or seeks to judge the past by modern standards. Advocates generally argue that these divisive figures should not be glorified in a shared public space.

“Americans instead walk through their own cities among the statuary of their former oppressors,” wrote Paul Cooper, an author and expert in the significance of cultural ruins.

In a tweet Thursday morning, Trump appeared to allude to the renewed efforts to remove relics of the Confederacy. “THOSE THAT DENY THEIR HISTORY ARE DOOMED TO REPEAT IT!”

A day earlier, the president fought back against possible changes to 10 U.S. Army bases named after Confederate leaders. Trump asserted that “my Administration will not even consider the renaming of these Magnificent and Fabled Military Installations.”

Trump critics took to social media to mock his comments. “I prefer generals who won the Civil War,” several Twitter users remarked.

The dust-up over military bases came after Defense Secretary Mark Esper and Secretary of the Army Ryan McCarthy signaled they were “open to a bipartisan discussion on the topic” of renaming the bases, according to reports. Just a week earlier, the U.S. Marine Corps ordered the removal of all Confederate flags and symbols from its installations “to support our core values, ensure unit cohesion and security, and preserve good order and discipline.”

All of the installations that stand to be renamed are in former slave states. They are Fort Rucker in Alabama, Fort Benning and Fort Gordon in Georgia, Camp Beauregard and Fort Polk in Louisiana, Fort Bragg in North Carolina, Fort Hood in Texas and Fort A.P. Hill, Fort Lee and Fort Pickett in Virginia.Only the Army has bases named after Confederate leaders. The Navy had several ships named after Confederate officers. All have been decommissioned.

Congress is taking steps to remove the symbols. On Thursday morning, the Republican-led Senate Armed Services Committee approved an amendment that would require the Pentagon to rename bases and other assets that are named after Confederate military leaders. The measure was introduced by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.

Earlier this week, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., sent a letter to the Joint Committee on the Library calling for the removal of 11 Confederate statues currently standing in the Capitol.

“While I believe it is imperative that we never forget our history lest we repeat it, I also believe that there is no room for celebrating the violent bigotry of the men of the Confederacy in the hallowed halls of the United States Capitol or in places of honor across the country,” Pelosi wrote.At a Thursday press conference, she reemphasized her call and voiced her support for renaming U.S. Army installations.

The debate over Confederate symbols began in earnest after white supremacist Dylann Roof murdered nine African American worshippers at a Charleston, South Carolina church in 2015 in the hopes of igniting a race war.

The movement gained momentum through 2017 when white nationalists and counter-protesters clashed in deadly demonstrations in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Since then, many monuments have been taken down, schools have been renamed and the rebel flag has been banned in several states.

Nationwide protests against racial injustice following the Minneapolis police killing of George Floyd led to the removal of several statues and the toppling of others.

Activists defaced monuments across the South in Virginia, North and South Carolina, Tennessee and Mississippi.In Richmond, Virginia, a statue of Confederate President Jefferson Davis was torn down Wednesday night.

Earlier this month, a statue of Confederate Army Gen. Robert E. Lee was pulled off its pedestal outside a Montgomery, Alabama high school that bears his name. Four people were charged in the incident and the charges were later dropped.

Officials also began removing monuments. Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam said he would take down the iconic statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee along Richmond’s Monument Avenue. It is not clear when the monument will be removed. Opponents argued losing the statue would hurt tourism and stir up violence between the far-left and far-right.

Without warning, the city of Mobile, Alabama removed a statue of Admiral Raphael Semmes, a Confederate commerce raider last week.In Louisville, Kentucky, the city took down a monument to Confederate officer John B. Castleman to have it moved to a graveyard where Castleman is buried.

Protesters in other countries also saw fit to topple some of their longstanding relics of slavery and oppression. In Britain, activists in Bristol City toppled a statue of Edward Colston, a 17th and 18th century slave trader and sank it in the harbor.

In Brussels, Belgium protesters demanded the removal of King Leopold II, who is said to have presided over the genocide of millions of Congolese in the late 19th century. Protesters in Ghent also been defaced a statue of Leopold, dousing it in red paint and covering it with a cloth that read: “I can’t breathe.”

by Leandra Bernstein