The Culture Ministry stepped in to have a Nazi flag poster for an Athens archaeology conference replaced, Culture Minister Lina Mendoni told a parliamentary committee on Monday.
The original poster showed the flag of the Wehrmacht, Nazi Germany’s armed forces, flying above the Acropolis. It promoted the conference “Archaeology and Occupation, Greece 1941–1944”.
Due to open on Thursday 15 October, the three-day event forms part of the commemorations for the anniversary of the city’s liberation.
Mendoni said the organisers made a mistake with the Nazi flag poster. “If you want my personal view, they were wrong to choose it,” she said.
The image drew strong reactions in the days before the hearing. In particular, the National Council for the Claim of Germany’s Debts to Greece called it an act of “hubris”.
It also urged the ministry to “respect the history of this land” and to withdraw its backing for the event.
Archaeology and Occupation conference
Mendoni said the conference did not set out to cover anything up. Instead, she said, it aims to present a period that “was and remains dark”.
According to the minister, the Nazi flag poster used a historical image from the archive of the Deutsches Historisches Museum in Berlin. Nobody created it for the event, she said.
However, in her view, the organisers meant the image to carry the opposite message.
The German Archaeological Institute at Athens is organising the conference. Its partners are the Italian Archaeological School of Athens and the National Hellenic Research Foundation.
A historian’s talk title
Zoe Konstantopoulou, leader of the Course of Freedom party, raised the Nazi flag poster at the committee. She also questioned a talk by historian Valentin Schneider.
His talk carries the English title “I wish I had been there when the flag was raised on the Acropolis”.
Mendoni replied that “it is a title that provokes”. Even so, she asked critics to wait for the talk, since he may have chosen the wording to spark debate.
On German war reparations, Mendoni said “whatever the Greek government must claim, it claims”. She pointed to recent remarks by President Konstantinos Tasoulas.
The Nazi flag poster touched a painful memory in Athens. In May 1941, Manolis Glezos and Apostolos Santas tore down the swastika from the Acropolis.
Later, on 12 October 1944, occupation forces lowered the flag and withdrew from Athens.
(Source: Kathimerini)
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