Extremists Set Fire to Historic WWII Mansion
Suspected right-wing extremists set fire to the grand hall in Potsdam’s Cecilienhof mansion, where the victorious World War II powers settled the fate of defeated Nazi Germany in 1945, police said Friday.
The fire damaged priceless carpets and the table where Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, President Harry S. Truman and British Prime Minister Clement Attlee signed the landmark Potsdam Agreement. A note found near the scene bore the symbol of the extreme right-wing West German Republican Party, police said.
The Potsdam Agreement of Aug. 2, 1945, divided Germany into occupation zones and awarded large chunks of Germany’s eastern territories to Poland and the Soviet Union.
The Republicans and other right-wing groups favor a return to Germany’s prewar borders.
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