Germany disturbed by Russian plans to build replica of Reichstag near Moscow
The German authorities have considered strange Russian plans to recreate a scaled-down version of the Reichstag building for war games in a Moscow suburb.
While speacking at the State Duma, Defense Minister Sergei Shoygu announced that there would be a reduced scale model of the Reichstag built in a park in the town of Kubinka near Moscow. According to the Minister, the layout is designed to help train members of the Yunarmia (the Youth Army).
"Germany would not have to build something like that for the education of German youth, especially in such a way," said German Foreign Ministry spokesman Martin Schaefer.
German experts also saw it as a sign of "the growing alienation between Russia and Germany."
Meanwhile, the Russian Defense Ministry called the criticism from the German side an "attack".
"Apparently, someone in Germany forgot that it was from the Reichstag that Hitler and his builders of the Third Reich began their fiery, bloody path into the world,” said Ministry spokesman Major-General Igor Konashenkov.
He added that tens of thousands of Soviet soldiers died during the storming of the Reichstag in 1945, and that their heroism in the fight against Nazism "should be known and kept in mind by present and future generations in both Russia and in Germany."