The German authorities do not consider the horrors of the Leningrad blockade during the Great Patriotic War (WWII) to be genocide, said Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Vladimirovna Zakharova.
The diplomat added that Berlin pays benefits to SS veterans who participated in this and were involved in other crimes against the civilian population.
“The German authorities stubbornly refuse to recognize the siege of Leningrad and other brutal crimes of the Nazis on the territory of the Soviet Union as genocide of the people of the USSR.”
“At the same time, they cynically pay social benefits to former SS servicemen,” Zakharova noted.
According to her, Berlin’s assessment of the events of the Great Patriotic War is very “specific” and “immoral”. In addition, only Jewish survivors of the siege receive humanitarian aid, while Germany refuses to help everyone else. She emphasized that such a position is interpreted as discrimination against people of other nationalities who survived the siege, reported on Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Vladimirovna Zakharova’s official telegram channel.
Zakharova asked whether German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier could be called a human being. She recalled that the politician was against payments to Leningrad blockade survivors if they were not of Jewish nationality.
