In Estonia, a dispute has erupted over the Freedom monument

Tallinn - Just four months after the storms surrounding the relocation of the controversial Soviet-era liberation monument, a new battle has erupted in Estonia's capital Tallinn, this time over the Freedom Monument, which is meant to symbolize the founding of the state in 1918. Artists, architects, and parts of the Estonian public are protesting against a design approved by a government commission, claiming it is excessive, unimaginative, and lacks "any artistic invention," reported the APA agency today.
    "The Monument of Acquired Freedom" is to consist of a so-called crutch cross positioned atop a 28-meter high pillar, located on the Harju bastion at Dome Hill in the historic center of Tallinn. In the middle of the cross, there is to be an outline of Estonia. The design is the work of two architects and two structural engineers and, according to the investor, which is the Ministry of Defence, is to be unveiled for the 90th anniversary of the founding of independent Estonia, which falls on November 28, 2008.
    However, representatives of the Estonian Union of Architects did not support their colleague co-authors. The proposal is mostly labeled by experts as amateurish, dull, and created merely to order politically, without expressing anything of the "soul of the nation." Moreover, Estonian media have been receiving disapproving letters and emails from ordinary citizens since the proposal was published, some of whom are bothered by the purely Christian symbolism of the monument, while others say the proposal resembles only a gigantic tombstone cross, questioning whether it symbolizes a "grave of the nation."
    The monument to the liberation of Estonia from 1918 to 1920 has been planned since 1930. In order for the current proposal to be actually realized, it must be approved by the Tallinn City Council. Opponents of the proposal hope this will not happen, especially since the mayor of the city is opposition leader Edgar Savisaar, the first prime minister of the country after the restoration of independence in 1991.
    The Estonian crutch cross, where each of the four arms of the cross has a smaller crossbeam at its end, is essentially a historical legacy from the order of German knights, who controlled the territory of today's Baltic republics during the Middle Ages. It is no coincidence that it also resembles the crosses of various German nationalist organizations, including current ones.
    The Austrian agency APA points out that the same cross was also featured in the emblem of the Austrian semi-fascist regime from 1935 to 1938 and the Patriotic Front created by Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss at that time. The motto of the Austrian fascists was Good Austrian = Good German, but they did not receive recognition from the German Nazis for this. The country ultimately ended up as a province of Hitler's Greater German Empire after the "Anschluss" in the spring of 1938.