MOST Germans would prefer to forget the Holocaust and are tired of hearing about Nazi crimes during the Third Reich, according to a poll released just before the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, writes Justin Sparks.

Some 62% of the 3,000 people questioned by researchers from the University of Bielefeld agreed they were “sick of all the harping on about German crimes against the Jews”.

Most said they wished to consign their country’s Nazi past to the history books. Well over half also thought there were too many foreigners living in Germany.

The poll horrified Lord Janner, a spokesman for British survivors of Auschwitz. “It’s appalling,” he said. “It raises fears that the current generation are not ready to pass on the history and lessons learnt from those events to their children.”

Political analysts believe the findings reflect a growing feeling among younger Germans that they have atoned sufficiently for their grandparents’ crimes and now have the right to bury the past. Their attitude has been fuelled in part by books and documentaries showing the destruction caused by Allied second world war bombing raids.

“This trend began with revisionist historians telling Germans they were really the victims of the war rather than its perpetrators,” said Abraham Cooper, dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center.

The poll also highlights anti-Israeli feeling in Germany. More than two-thirds said they believed that Israel was waging “a war of extermination” against the Palestinians.

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