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Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier criticized a divided relationship between the Germans and the Bundeswehr on the day of national mourning.
Berlin – The soldiers are spoken of as “citizens in uniform”, Steinmeier said on Sunday at the central commemoration in the Bundestag. But if these soldiers were to be honored, as they were recently before the Reichstag, then many citizens would in the end prefer to see them dressed in civilian clothes and without a torch in hand.
Steinmeier called for “the speechlessness of many parts of society towards our army” to be overcome. “That is today’s order,” said the Federal President at the memorial hour. Assuming responsibility for history should not mean to shy away from dealing with the conflicts of the present and with those who bear the heavy and heaviest responsibility in them.
“The experience of two world wars, guilt and shame shape the relationship between German society and the German army to this day,” said Steinmeier. Many Germans feel uneasy about military rituals. “You don’t want to be reminded of what the deployment of an army, including the Bundeswehr, means. Death and trauma, German soldiers in armed deployment, in foreign countries – we Germans like to suppress that.” It is talked about too seldom and only reluctantly.
Before the commemoration of the German War Graves Commission, which was attended by the heads of the state and members of the Bundestag, Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer (CDU) laid a wreath at the Jewish cemetery in Berlin Weißensee. The minister then took part in the ceremony at the Bundeswehr memorial in Berlin’s Bendlerblock.
The day of national mourning has been taking place two weeks before the first Advent since 1952. The solemn ceremony this year was dedicated to the memory of the war of aggression and annihilation in Eastern and Southeastern Europe, to which millions of people fell victim. It began 80 years ago with the occupation of Yugoslavia and Greece and the attack on the Soviet Union.
The President of the Volksbund, the former General Wolfgang Schneiderhan, said in the Bundestag that the day of national mourning is a day of appeal “never again to allow conditions that lead to war”. Reconciliation with other countries includes recognizing their suffering. That is why not only the German victims of the wars are remembered, but also the victims of the Germans.
ran / ilo
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