Germany Commemorates End of World War II and Liberation from Nazism

Posters marking the end of World War Two have been put up across Berline ( Kulturprojekte )

By EFE

Berlin, May 8 (EFE) .- The German authorities commemorated the end of World War II today as “liberation from Nazism” although, as President Frank Walter Steinmeier recalled, it took three generations to assume it.

“May 8, 1945 was the end of the Nazi dictatorship, the end of nights and death bombs and marches, of unprecedented German crimes and of the bankruptcy” of the civilization that led to the Holocaust, said Steinmeier in an act broadcast on television.

The original plan was to hold a major state act in Berlin, but the coronavirus pandemic forced the ceremony to be held with a small circle of participants.

The only attendees at the ceremony were, in addition to Steinmeier, Chancellor Angela Merkel; Bundestag President Wolfgang Schäuble; Brandenburg Prime Minister and incumbent President of the Bundesrat, Dietmar Woidke, and President of the Constitutional Court, Andreas Voßkuhle.

All of them deposited floral offerings in the “Neue Wache”, a monument to all victims of wars and dictatorships, in the center of which is a large reproduction of a sculpture by Käte Köllwitz representing a mother with a dead son in her arms. .

They were joined by trumpeter Lorenz Jansky, who performed some musical pieces that helped give the act a certain ghostly appearance.

“This loneliness allows us to return to May 8, 1945. So the Germans were alone. Defeated militarily, morally on the ground and we had won over the entire world as an enemy, “said Steinmeier.

Let’s take advantage of the silence. I ask all Germans to remember the victims of war and National Socialism . Think about what May 8 means for your life and what you do, “he added.

THE UNCLOSED RELEASE

The idea of ​​May 8 as liberation day stems from a speech by one of Steinmeier’s predecessors, Richard von Weizsäcker, delivered in 1984, which at the time caused resistance from conservative sectors.

«I think that today we have to read the phrase of Richard von Weizsäcker, otherwise liberation is not something that is finished. In 1945 they freed us, today we have to get rid of the temptation of a new nationalism, “said Steinmeier.

“Liberation came from outside, it had to come from outside, this country was too handcuffed because of its own fault. It did not happen in a single day, it was a long and painful road, and decades of fighting against silence, “he added.

That fight to keep memory alive, according to Steinmeier, is something that continues and can never end, and he assured that if the world currently trusts Germany, it is because the country has assumed its history.

“Only because we assume our history have the peoples of the world given us new confidence. There is no German patriotism without breaks. German history is a broken history, “he said.

COMMITMENT TO EUROPE

Germany, according to Steinmeier, is a country that can only love “with a broken heart and whoever denies it not only denies the crimes of Nazism but everything good that we have done since 1945.”

“Memory is not a shame, denialism is a shame,” said the president.

The key lesson of the war, the “Nie wieder” (never again), means for Steinmeier also a “never again alone” and therefore, he added, there is a duty to keep Europe together.

“We have to keep Europe together, if we do not succeed we are not worthy of May 8. If Europe fails, the ‘never again’ fails. ‘ said.

The Neue Wache monument was built, at the initiative of Helmut Kohl, after the reunification of Germany and forms, together with the monument to the victims of the Holocaust, one of the main symbols against Nazism and militarism that exist in Berlin.