BERLIN — German lawmakers classified Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin’s “Holodomor” — in which millions of Ukrainians died of forced starvation in the early 1930s — as a genocide.
Lawmakers in the German parliament Wednesday approved with a large majority the joint resolution by the three parties in the coalition government — the Social Democrats, liberal Free Democrats and Greens — with the center-right CDU/CSU opposition group, calling the Holodomor a “crime against humanity.”
In the debate, all parliamentary groups condemned the Holodomor, but the far-right Alternative for Germany and the socialist Left abstained from voting.
According to the resolution, the Soviet leadership’s quest to control farmers merged with the suppression of the Ukrainian way of life, language and culture.
“Thus, from today’s perspective, a historical-political classification as genocide is obvious. The German Bundestag shares such a classification,” the text concludes.
The Bundestag also decided to further support the remembrance of Holodomor victims and international awareness of the famine, while establishing a clear link to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s ongoing war on Ukraine.
“More than ever, in these days of Russia’s war of aggression on Ukraine, which is contrary to international law and at the same time an attack on our European order of peace and values, we stand up for the fact that there must be no more room for great power ambition and oppression in Europe,” the text reads.
