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Flowers at the Neue Wache to commemorate the war
Berlin’s Governing Mayor Kai Wegner (lr, CDU), the Ukrainian Ambassador Oleksii Makeiev and Minister of State Tobias Lindner (Bündnis 90/Die Grünen) lay flowers in the Neue Wache in memory of the end of World War II. photo
© Kay Nietfeld/dpa
To commemorate the surrender of Germany on May 8, 1945, the Ukrainian Ambassador Makeiev lays flowers at the Neue Wache. Other memorials will be demonstratively avoided this year.
To commemorate the end of the Second World War 78 years ago, the Ukrainian Ambassador Oleksii Makeiev laid flowers at the central Neue Wache memorial in Berlin. Berlin’s Governing Mayor Kai Wegner and Minister of State at the Federal Foreign Office, Tobias Lindner, also attended the ceremony on Monday.
Against the background of the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine, Ambassador Makeiev said he deliberately refrained from laying wreaths and flowers at Soviet memorial sites this year. Instead, he came to the Neue Wache, the Federal Republic’s central memorial for the victims of war and tyranny.
Events and demonstrations to commemorate the war were planned for Monday in many places in Germany. In Berlin alone, several rallies were announced at the Soviet memorials and at the Brandenburg Gate. The police fear tensions over the Ukraine war and are on duty with more than 1,500 officers.
The Berlin police originally wanted to ban Russian and Ukrainian flags, symbols and songs around the Soviet memorials in Treptow, Tiergarten and Schönholzer Heide for the commemoration days on May 8th and 9th. However, the administrative court in Berlin initially lifted the ban on Ukrainian symbols in summary proceedings over the weekend. In a separate case, the court also ruled against the ban on Russian symbols. The police appealed this decision to the Higher Administrative Court. A decision was expected on Monday.
After the World War that Germany had started, the Wehrmacht capitulated on May 8, 1945 to the allies of the Soviet Union, the USA, Great Britain and France. Because the nightly signing of the surrender document fell on May 9, Moscow time, Victory Day is traditionally celebrated on this day in Russia.