France's decision to invite German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder to attend June commemorations of the D-Day invasions shows that times have changed in Europe, a government spokesman said on Friday.
It was "with great joy" that Schroeder accepted the invitation to attend the 60th anniversary celebrations on the Normandy beaches, government spokesman Thomas Steg said in Berlin.
Steg stressed the "enormous symbolic meaning" of inviting a German head of state to mark D-Day, signaling the resolution of many post World War II questions that have plagued Europe -- particularly the two former enemies.
"It is a sign that times truly have changed," Steg said.
Schroeder is to be the first German leader to mark an anniversary of the Normandy landings on June 6, 1944.
For the 60th anniversary commemoration, France has invited leaders of World War II's Allied nations, including US President George W. Bush.
Ten years ago, Chancellor Helmut Kohl was not invited to the 50th anniversary ceremony -- a decision that caused sore feelings in Germany and soured relations with France.
French-German ties got a boost in January last year, when the neighbors marked 40 years of reconciliation, pledging to work together at the heart of the EU.
D-Day, while largely credited with launching Europe's liberation from the Nazis, is virtually unknown in Germany. The day is not publicly acknowledged in any way and is little taught in German schools. Only two German veterans were invited, by US veterans groups, to attend the 50th anniversary celebrations in 1994.
"Operation Overlord," the code name for the landings, will be marked with a ceremony at Arromanches, a Normandy town between two of the beaches where soldiers came ashore.
About 21,000 Germans are buried at La Camb in Normandy. A few simple wooden crosses -- erected by German veterans and discreetly apart from the cemetery for the 9,386 fallen US soldiers -- mark the spot above Omaha Beach where the last German forces fell.
Auschwitz survivor Eva Schloss, the stepsister of teenage diarist Anne Frank and a tireless educator about the horrors of the Holocaust, has died. She was 96. The Anne Frank Trust UK, of which Schloss was honorary president, said she died on Saturday in London, where she lived. Britain’s King Charles III said he was “privileged and proud” to have known Schloss, who cofounded the charitable trust to help young people challenge prejudice. “The horrors that she endured as a young woman are impossible to comprehend and yet she devoted the rest of her life to overcoming hatred and prejudice, promoting kindness, courage, understanding
‘DISRESPECTFUL’: Katie Miller, the wife of Trump’s most influential adviser, drew ire by posting an image of Greenland in the colors of the US flag, captioning it ‘SOON’ US President Donald Trump on Sunday doubled down on his claim that Greenland should become part of the US, despite calls by the Danish prime minister to stop “threatening” the territory. Washington’s military intervention in Venezuela has reignited fears for Greenland, which Trump has repeatedly said he wants to annex, given its strategic location in the arctic. While aboard Air Force One en route to Washington, Trump reiterated the goal. “We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security, and Denmark is not going to be able to do it,” he said in response to a reporter’s question. “We’ll worry about Greenland in
PERILOUS JOURNEY: Over just a matter of days last month, about 1,600 Afghans who were at risk of perishing due to the cold weather were rescued in the mountains Habibullah set off from his home in western Afghanistan determined to find work in Iran, only for the 15-year-old to freeze to death while walking across the mountainous frontier. “He was forced to go, to bring food for the family,” his mother, Mah Jan, said at her mud home in Ghunjan village. “We have no food to eat, we have no clothes to wear. The house in which I live has no electricity, no water. I have no proper window, nothing to burn for heating,” she added, clutching a photograph of her son. Habibullah was one of at least 18 migrants who died
Russia early yesterday bombarded Ukraine, killing two people in the Kyiv region, authorities said on the eve of a diplomatic summit in France. A nationwide siren was issued just after midnight, while Ukraine’s military said air defenses were operating in several places. In the capital, a private medical facility caught fire as a result of the Russian strikes, killing one person and wounding three others, the State Emergency Service of Kyiv said. It released images of rescuers removing people on stretchers from a gutted building. Another pre-dawn attack on the neighboring city of Fastiv killed one man in his 70s, Kyiv Governor Mykola
RSS