The student parliament (StuPa) at Berlin’s Humboldt University has issued a statement to commemorate the German invasion of the Soviet Union 80 years ago and the fight against militarism and fascism. Following a motion tabled by the International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE), the StuPa passed the following resolution on Tuesday evening:

The Student Parliament commemorates the tens of millions of victims of the German attack on the Soviet Union, which began 80 years ago today. The war was waged as a war of extermination from the beginning and is the greatest crime in human history. Some 27 million people in the Soviet Union lost their lives, and at least 6 million Jewish people were industrially murdered in the Holocaust.

Precisely because the mass murder in the General Plan East was also elaborated and National Socialism [Nazism] in general was supported and scientifically underpinned by this university, we have a special responsibility to preserve this commemoration and to oppose the trivialisation of these crimes.

We reject any falsification of history that attempts to deny these facts, to relativise National Socialism or to blame the consequences of this war of aggression on the Soviet Union, and we condemn all current efforts to prepare the way for a new fascism and militarism and new wars.

Nie wieder Faschismus! Nie wieder Krieg! (Never again fascism! Never again war!)

At Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität—today’s Humboldt University (HU)—academics around the agronomist Konrad Meyer had played a significant role in the plans for the extermination of the Slavic population under National Socialism. From 1940, Meyer himself was primarily responsible for the development of the General Plan East in the planning department of the Reich Commissioner for the Consolidation of German Nationality (RKF).

“With this resolution, the student parliament is sending an important message,” said Sven Wurm, IYSSE spokesperson at HU. “Today, at this university, Professor Jörg Baberowski claims it was not the Nazi aggressors, but the victim—the Soviet Union—that was responsible for the methods of the war of extermination and the starvation policy. The professor claims the Bolsheviks had already waged a war of extermination in 1918 and that Hitler was ‘not cruel.’ These historical lies serve to prepare new crimes of German imperialism. We will not allow this.”

As part of this year’s student parliament election campaign, the IYSSE hosted an online meeting on Monday to explain the importance of fighting historical falsifications and linking the struggle against war and fascism with a socialist perspective.

Support our election campaign and build the IYSSE at HU! Vote for us today by postal vote (list 14) or take part in the ballot on June 29! You can find the list of polling stations as soon as they are fixed at www.iysse.de.