The presidents of Germany and France commemorate the victims of one of Nazi Germany’s greatest war crimes in Oradour-sur-Glane. Steinmeier also draws a connection to the present.
Following the success of right-wing parties in the European elections, Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier has called for the defense of a cosmopolitan and peaceful Europe. “Let us never forget what nationalism and hatred have done in Europe,” he said on Monday in Oradour-sur-Glane in western France at a memorial for the victims of an SS massacre exactly 80 years ago. “Let us never forget the miracle of reconciliation that the European Union has achieved. Let us protect our united Europe! And let us never forget the value of freedom.”
Right-wing parties won the European elections in France and Italy, among other places. In Germany, the AfD became the second strongest force behind the Union.
The Federal President commemorated the victims of the massacre in Oradour-sur-Glane together with French President Emmanuel Macron. Steinmeier sharply criticized the fact that the murderers were not later punished in Germany. He was ashamed that they had gone unpunished and that the most serious crimes had not been atoned for. “Here my country has once again incurred a second guilt.”
Ruins preserved as a memorial
On June 10, 1944, members of the SS division “Das Reich” wiped out the village. They murdered 643 men, women and children and burned the place down. There were only a few survivors. The Oradour-sur-Glane massacre is considered Nazi Germany’s greatest war crime on the western theater of war. Only one of the approximately 150 SS soldiers involved was sentenced to life imprisonment in the GDR in 1983, but was released early. The ruins of the village have been preserved as a memorial. Steinmeier and Macron walked side by side on the tarred village road past the destroyed houses.
“On behalf of Germany, I would like to express my shock and sadness at the incomprehensible, cruel and inhuman crimes that Germans have committed here (…),” said Steinmeier in his speech, which he delivered in French. For Germans and French, the hope for a better future has become a reality with the German-French friendship.
“Our mission is the European Union,” stressed Steinmeier. He also recalled the landing in Normandy a few days before the massacre of Oradour-sur-Glane, with which the Allies brought France and ultimately Germany freedom from dictatorship and terror at great cost. “The same applies today: freedom must be fought for and it must be defended,” said Steinmeier.
Source: Stern
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