Status: 14.11.2021 2:01 p.m.
The heads of the state commemorate the war dead and the victims of tyranny on today’s day of national mourning. Federal President Steinmeier remembered the victims of the German war of aggression in Eastern and Southeastern Europe.
On today’s day of national mourning, Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier called on people to remember specific places of violence and war. Memory fails, for example, in the face of mass crimes against civilians in Eastern Europe, warned Steinmeier. He remembered the victims of the German war of aggression and extermination in Eastern and Southeastern Europe.
Certain places say nothing to Germans
Places that were on the advance of the Wehrmacht through Poland, the Baltic States, Belarus and the Ukraine to Russia meant nothing to many Germans today, the Federal President said at a central memorial in the Bundestag: “Our memory shies away when it comes to information about war and crimes in the east and south-east of Europe. ”
The memory fails before the crimes committed against civilians, forced laborers and Soviet prisoners of war, said Steinmeier. Hundreds of thousands died in the first few months after the attack: “Starved, slain, shot.”
On the day of national mourning, people in Germany remember the victims of both World Wars and National Socialism.
“Discomfort with Military Rituals”
Auschwitz has become the epitome of the murder of millions of European Jews, declared the Federal President. But memory does not have a map that shows the countless other locations of German crimes. Many Germans feel uneasy about military rituals, he said.
“For a country whose name remains associated with the endless suffering that two world wars have brought to Europe, and whose army has been guilty of a murderous war of aggression, this discomfort may be understandable,” said Steinmeier. But: “That really does not make it easy for those who risk their lives for our country, the veterans of the missions abroad, especially the families of the fallen.”
What a society suppresses and conceals, “we as a society owe: the soldiers of the Bundeswehr, the disabled, the fallen and their families”.
Overcome speechlessness
Assuming responsibility for one’s own history should not mean shying away from dealing with the conflicts of the present: “We have to overcome the speechlessness – including the speechlessness of many parts of society towards our army.”
Steinmeier had previously taken part in a wreath-laying ceremony on the day of national mourning in the Neue Wache, the central memorial for the victims of war and tyranny, together with representatives from the Bundestag, Bundesrat, Federal Government and Federal Constitutional Court.