Germans cannot turn backs on Nazi past, says Chancellor Merkel

Germany cannot simply draw a line under its Nazi past and must remain sensitive to the damage it caused to other countries including Greece, Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Saturday, just ahead of the 70th anniversary of the end of World War Two. Speaking in her weekly podcast, Merkel (pictured) said she was looking forward to a May 10 memorial in Moscow with Russian President Vladimir Putin. She and other leaders have said they will not attend Russia’s traditional May 9 military parade amid tensions with Moscow over its annexation of Crimea and fighting in Ukraine.

We Germans have a special responsibility to be alert, sensitive and aware of what we did during the Nazi era and about lasting damage caused in other countries. I’ve got tremendous sympathy for that.

Chancellor Angela Merkel

In the German capital, the 70th anniversary of the end of the Battle of Berlin, the climactic battle of the war, was marked in tributes on Saturday. The war ended on May 8, 1945. “There’s no drawing a line under the history,” Merkel said, dismissing a yearning that many post-war generations of Germans harbour. “We can see that in the Greece debate and in other European countries.” Also on Saturday, President Joachim Gauck, who has little real power, reignited a debate over reparations, saying Germany should consider Greece’s demands for 279 billion euros ($312 billion) in reparations for the Nazi occupation.

We’ve truly done a lot in coming to terms with our Nazi past. But there are some victims that haven’t been taken into account at all or sufficiently - such as the Soviet prisoners of war.

President Joachim Gauck

Politics merkel