Former German president Richard von Weizsaecker, who challenged German attitudes about the Holocaust by arguing that the nation had been liberated by the Nazi defeat in 1945, died on Saturday at the age of 94, the current president’s office said.
A member of one of Germany’s most distinguished aristocratic families, von Weizsaecker also presided over the reunification of the former East and West Germany in 1990, 11 months after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
He was most remembered for a speech in May 1985 marking the 40th anniversary of the end of World War II, in which he urged Germans to come to terms with responsibility for the Holocaust. He stirred controversy by saying that Germany had been liberated by the Third Reich’s downfall.
“All of us, whether guilty or not, whether young or old, must accept the past. We are all affected by its consequences and liable for it. Anyone who closes his eyes to the past is blind to the present. The 8th of May was a day of liberation. It freed us all from the system of National Socialist tyranny,” he said.
Von Weizsaecker, a conservative Christian Democrat who had served as a Wehrmacht officer during World War II, became West Germany’s president in 1984 and left office a decade later.
He used the largely ceremonial post to serve as the “conscience of Germany” and spoke out about the nation’s special responsibility after World War II.
“The death of Richard von Weizsaecker is a great loss for Germany,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel said. “He rendered a great service to our country. We will not forget him.”
He drew criticism for having served in Hitler’s army, where he was promoted several times and in 1944 awarded the Iron Cross. The young lawyer also defended his father, Ernst, who served in the Nazi Ministry of Foreign Affairs from 1938 to 1943 and was a member of the SS, at the Nuremberg trials from 1948 to 1949.
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