In WWII the Greek island of Crete was taken over by German forces through a massive paratrooper operation. After the Battle of Crete the Wehrmacht erected a monument to honor the German paratroopers in the City of Chania. After the war the monument honoring the occupator remained there, because the Cretans decided it is proof of their resistance. This monument was showing a diving eagle, the symbol of the German paratroopers still today! The Cretans called the monument the "German bird" or the "bad bird". Even the bus station in this neighborhood bears the name "Germaniko Pouli" (German bird). Here a link to how the monument looked like before 2000: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallschirmj%C3%A4ger_memorial#/media/File:Chania_(04).jpg And what it looks like now: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:Chania_Germaniko_Pouli.jpg Interestingly the German bird was never recognized as a monument by any state authority in Greece or Germany. However, the German Paratrooper Association was maintaining it as an honor to their tradition. In 2000 the eagle disappeared from the bust. In 2002 a civil society association was formed for the preservation of the monument with the name Association of Friends for the Preservation of a Paratrooper War Memorial in Crete. Its website, harmonically uniting the colors of the German flag, calls for the preservation/restoration and relocation of the monument: "In honorary remembrance of all involved parties. The paratrooper monument in a new location in Maleme. The most beautiful monument in the Mediterranean." (sic) In June 2019 the association concluded a fundraising campaign on kickstarter, raising 39.600€ to buy land in Maleme, close to the German War Cemetery, in order to relocate the monument to a new site. There is the following controversy: Chania is also home to the German War Cemetery, where over four thousand Germans are buried. The German War Grave Commission is responsible for it and there an annual commemoration ceremony takes place. The German bird is not part of the commemoration or the cemetery, but this German association wants to move the bird closer to the war cemetery. It is obvious that parts of German civil society still follow a hero-cult for troops that committed unspoken atrocities to civilians. More than 20 massacres took place in Crete. These groups honor those that committed the atrocities and want to impose this in the land of the victims. The discussion around the monument has triggered reactions amongst civil society in Greece and the Union of the destroyed and massacred communities. This discussion takes place during a time where Greece asks for German reparations for atrocities of WWII, against the background of the economic crisis and during a time where the populist right wing of Germany finds a new strong voice through the AFD-party. This presentation/paper would discuss a pragmatic case of imposition of memory onto the victim in a transnational manner, in today's European reality.
