Holodomor: Germany's parliament recognises Ukraine's 1930s famine as 'genocide'

euronews.com:

Only days after the 90th anniversary of Ukraine's "Holodomor", the 1930s famine which is estimated to have killed over 3 million Ukrainians under the repressive rule of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, Germany's parliament has approved a resolution recognising the famine as "genocide".

Between 1932 and 1933, some 3.5 million Ukrainians died in a man-made famine known as the Holodomor, meaning "extermination by starvation" in Ukrainian. Some historians claim Stalin purposely orchestrated the famine to eliminate the Ukrainian independence movement. Others say Holodomor was the result of the Soviet Union's botched policies to collectivise agricultural land.  

According to the resolution brought to the Bundestag, the lower house, by the three parties in Chancellor Olaf Scholz's governing coalition and the main opposition bloc, "the mass deaths from hunger were not a result of failed harvests; the political leadership of the Soviet Union under Josef Stalin was responsible for them." 

The resolution also states that all things Ukrainian were "deeply suspect" to Stalin and notes that "the whole of Ukraine was affected by hunger and repression, not just its grain-producing areas."

While many academics are divided over whether the famine should be classified as genocide -- the deliberate annihilation of a people, be they an ethnic, national, racial or religious group -- the resolution passed by the German parliament says that "from today's perspective, a historical and political classification as genocide is obvious."

"This horror had its cause in the Kremlin -- there, the dictator took the cruel decision to push through collectivisation by force and cause hunger," Green party lawmaker Robin Wagener told parliament on Wednesday. "And the