Rathaus.

"NO NAZIS" is sprayed in a black tag that anchors the already enveloping grey of the Dresden afternoon. The blue abstraction the words tramp upon has the four curving legs of what could be a swastika unmoored in zero gravity, but without the seven letters to force adjacency I can't imagine anyone making that connection, nor that that was the intent, given that the spore is simply part of a larger modern piece. The words themselves are not street art, just a quickly'scrawled reminder, or apology, or threat, depending on who's reading it.

r.

It's a reminder to the casual visitor. The ones that think any mention of Germany is a welcome segue to the cringe-inducing attempts at jokes. The raised straight arm, a brusque "Heil!" Maybe fingers just beneath the nose to feign that silly little mustache. The people unfamiliar with Germany, or history, or good taste enough to not understand that German is not a synonym for Nazi. It actually never was a synonym for Nazi, in the same way American isn't a synonym for Obama supporter or Tea Party conservative. There's a dangerous laziness to paint history in generalities, assume everything was homogenous in societies far more complex than can possibly be captured in surviving writings or photographs. Far too many Germans then, but certainly not all and in some cities less than half, were members of the Nazi political party for anyone's liking and there still exist some today. Not because the country or its citizens haven't learned anything or want to continue the horrendous actions of the past, but because a small fraction of people in life are just festering, abhorrent creatures. The same reason the Westboro Baptist Church exists, or Al Qaeda, or Rush Limbaugh, or that some people's focus immediately after Sandy Hook wasn't on the victims and their families but on how twenty murdered children could potentially affect their lifestyle. Some people exist simply to be pieces of shit. The more people begin to understand that, the more their grotesque aberrant opinions can be ostracized, and the less we'll need reminders of our own distance from them.

a.

It's an apology to those affected and offended, which is to say essentially everyone. But it's a catharsis I've already had at many stops and studies along the way. To read this message, to hear this apology, isn't why I came to Dresden. The guilt of the Nazi party or of any of the mid-Twentieth Century German people isn't what I think of when I think of this rebuilt city. Rather my mind is on one of the rare but disgusting sins of the Allies. The guilt of our American grandfathers... their peers or their commanders. I came to Dresden to reconcile my American heritage with the fact that in February 1945 we firebombed a city into nothingness for no strategic advantage. That we did it out of spite. Killed twenty-three thousand non-combatants and leveled one of the most gorgeous cities in the world just as an elaborate Fuck You.

Leveled is a euphemism. The scrawled possible apology I'm looking at is in the Neustadt, which translates to "new town" despite it now being the older part of the city. The part that was relatively untouched as British and American bombs turned the more storied cultural center into shards. It wasn't on fire. It was fire. While it raged, the firebombing changed the temperature of the town to up to 2,700 degrees Fahrenheit. That's eight times hotter than the closest planet to the sun. From the photos I've seen, there wasn't a lot of blood, because there wasn't much moisture left of any kind. Just the hungry vacuum of incineration. 

The Allies would win the war, as they had to, but not because they destroyed Dresden. They'd left the few industrial complexes near the town untouched. It was the buildings like churches, the Semperoper opera house, the traditional royal mansions, that would need to be jigsawed together again from what remained. They went on to win the last Good War assuming it was the Perfect War, ignorant to lessons from Dresden that they should have learned. Which means they were repeated in Royan and My Lai. And so it was their grandchildren who would return on their behalf to the rebuilt Frauenkirche, to the lawns and fountains at Zwinger, to witness the pathetic danse macabre come to an end, and join their German counterparts in carrying the sobering weight of inherited apologies.

t.

The smallest group it speaks to is the most disturbing. The threat to the subject named within. Neo-Nazis do persist in modern Germany, as they do in Orange County, California, the American South, far too many other corners of the world. But Dresden is a notable center for their contemporary movement, and among the many other spray-paint stencils on walls throughout the Neustadt I saw one of theirs. An advertisement to a rally protesting police that would have occurred back in June. For decades they've chosen Dresden as their focal point because of the firebombing. Their flagship rallies, including the largest since the height of World War Two, are typically held on its anniversary, hoping the mourning may be galvanized into anger. Which is the exact problem with unwarranted destruction, lapses in morality on such a grandiose scale. When you kill, you create. And a phoenix is a hateful fucking creature.

They'd exist nonetheless, without Dresdens or Abu Ghraibs to fuel recruitment. But we still shouldn't help buttress their propaganda with obvious transgressions. We should never create more destinations for the more somber of our American grandchildren to have to visit in the future.

The wall in Dresden says NO NAZIS. But the ones in Richmond, Virginia could easily say NO SLAVEHOLDERS. NO KLANSMEN in Montgomery and Sumner. NO MANIFEST DESTINY throughout the nation entire. They should be read as reminders, speak self-aware apologies as long as the buildings stand to serve as canvas. And if they're read as threats let them be strong ones, until those seeing them are too afraid to come around these streets anymore.