Greece: No say on immigration issues for Nazi-revisionist Ioannis Kotoulas
We - the undersigned - are deeply concerned with the recent appointment of Dr I Kotoulas as government adviser on Immigration & Nationality issues.
Ioannis
Kotoulas - a historian, teacher and Nazi revisionist - has been newly
appointed as the chief adviser on immigration and nationality issues to
the Minister of Internal Affairs, Mr Charalambos Athanasiou.
Kotoulas,
has penned several books and articles which seek to restore the image
of Nazism in the public imagination. In his ‘The Ascent of the 3rd
Reich’ he claims that: “In
order to enable the better understanding of a complicated phenomenon
such as National Socialism... the approach has to be underpinned by
sobriety”.
By ‘sobriety’, Kotoulas mainly refers to building a positive image
about Nazism. In his work, the writer has chosen, as he explains, to use
the term ‘National Socialism’ rather than use the term ‘Nazism’, and
similarly, he is using the term NSDAP to refer to the Nazi party. Even
at the level of visual imagery, the book is full of propaganda
photographs highlighting the positive aspects of the Nazis. For the most
part, Kotoulas lists positive or, at best, neutral opinions about
Nazis, and avoids talking about the war crimes that had been committed
by the Axis Powers. In cases where a reference to such crimes is made,
as for example in his book War Crimes of the Axis Powers, Kotoulas is
careful to point out that war crimes were committed by both conflicting
parties, even in cases where the party had been an invaded country
acting in self-defence such as Greece. Throughout his book he tries to
undermine the importance of WWII and the people’s struggle against
fascism by presenting it as ‘another war’. Kotoulas even goes as far as
to claim that the concentration camps were standard practice among both
the Axis Powers and the Allied Powers, and referring to the genocide of
the Greece’s Jewish communities as ‘relocation’! In that book he states
that: “On
the 15th of March the first 2,400 people were relocated to the
Auschwitz concentration camps. Eighteen more missions followed... A
large part of the Jewish people who were relocated to the concentration
camps passed away.” It is worth noting here that about 90% of the Greek Jewish community was exterminated as a result of this ‘relocation’.
Firstly,
it is astounding that the Prime Minister failed to ensure that the
appointment of advisers to his coalition government was subject to the
most thorough scrutiny that would have eliminated the risk of his tenure
being associated with such personalities. This leaves us to conclude
that, at best, he has been grossly negligent in executing his duties to
Greek society, or, at worst, entirely indifferent to concerns about the
government’s overtures to these fascist remnants. At present, however,
the Prime Minister cannot feign ignorance about Kotoulas’s widely
publicized and highly controversial views. Although Kotoulas’s
appointment has been questioned by SYRIZA, PASOK and the Democratic Left
the Prime Minister has yet to respond. This is not an isolated incident
but the symbolic escalation of a tolerant, if not positive stance of
the Coalition Government with regards to the Far-Right and its pro-Nazi
part.
In
the light of the above, we call upon the Coalition Government to remove
Kotoulas from post, and to ensure that all appointments to such
positions are scrutinised thoroughly so that such unforgivable
concessions to latter-day Nazi apologists are not repeated. These people
have no place in a government that wants to call itself democratic.
The undersigned
Other related links (unfortunately all of them in greek):
http://sarantakos.wordpress.com/2013/03/14/kotoulas/
http://left.gr/news/se-poia-hora-tis-eyropis-anaskeyastes-toy-nazismoy-ginontai-symvoyloi-gia-zitimata-ithageneias
http://www.rednotebook.gr/details.php?id=8979
http://www.ramnousia.com/2013/03/kotoulas-unchained.html
http://left.gr/news/v-katrivanoy-epivevlimeni-i-apomakrynsi-toy-symvoyloy-toy-ypoyrgoy-poy-theorei-nazismo-megali
Other related petitions:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/375/381/293/initiative-for-democracy-in-greece/?cid=fb_na#