[areo16]

Originally Posted by Aktungbby

YUP! especially when the President of the United States come to town- this one got swept under the carpet of history as he laid a wreath in 1985 at the graves of Waffen SS soldiers. His remarks upon the occasion in response to criticism: "These [SS troops] were the villains, as we know, that conducted the persecutions and all. But there are 2,000 graves there, and most of those, the average age is about 18. I think that there's nothing wrong with visiting that cemetery where those young men are victims of Nazism also, even though they were fighting in the German uniform, drafted into service to carry out the hateful wishes of the Nazis. They were victims, just as surely as the victims in the concentration camps" After 1943, the Waffen SS in fact did draft members due to the immense losses of elite troops in Russia and Normandy. Reagan's gesture: Still regarded as a controversial act to this day. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitburg http://www.aberjonapress.com/catalog/wss/excerpt.html

I don't see anything particularly wrong with this. They were victims too. Many of them.