
Weizsäcker's speech on 40th anniversary of WW2's end (1985) - Tomte
http://www.bundespraesident.de/SharedDocs/Downloads/DE/Reden/2015/02/150202-RvW-Rede-8-Mai-1985-englisch.pdf;jsessionid=9BC204670EC73ACE845085C27F5A7DC6.2_cid285?__blob=publicationFile
======
docdeek
"Guilt is, like innocence, not collective, but personal...The vast majority of
today's population were either children then or had not been born. They cannot
profess a guilt of their own for crimes that they did not commit. No
discerning person can expect them to wear a penitential robe simply because
they are Germans. But their forefathers have left them a grave legacy. All of
us, whether guilty or not, whether old or young, must accept the past."

~~~
realradicalwash
Just to be sure that the passage is not misinterpreted (not saying you do,
OP): This was not said to excuse the Germans from the responsibility of facing
their history.

I can personally be not guilty and yet, by being part of a society that builds
on a troubled past, bear the responsibilities that come with that past
(responsibility to do better, reparations, making amends, and alike).

And in this spirit, Weizaecker continued: "No discerning person can expect
them to wear a penitential robe simply because they are Germans. But their
forefathers have left them a grave legacy. All of us, whether guilty or not,
whether old or young, must accept the past. We are all affected by its
consequences and liable for it. The young and old generations must and can
help each other to understand why it is vital to keep alive the memories."

This point can imv be applied to many historical failings and their long
lasting legacies.

~~~
untog
> This point can imv be applied to many historical failings and their long
> lasting legacies.

Feels particularly resonant at this point in the United States. I've heard the
argument before that slavery was abolished long ago, so it's time to move on.
Unfortunately to the contrary: the effects are still with us. That doesn't
mean us white folks have to assume personal guilt as if we held slaves
ourselves, but we should be active in making amends.

~~~
kmonsen
The US also needs at some point to acknowledge it's past evils. Perhaps no
penance is needed, but it is need to acknowledge the evils of the confederacy
(and many other things like redlining, but I feel those are widely believed as
wrong today).

We as a country need our own truth and reconciliation commission.

~~~
lefstathiou
Out of curiosity what does “acknowledge” mean to you?

I want to do my part to acknowledge, just want to make sure we are aligned on
definitions.

~~~
kmonsen
I'm not too into the specifics, but if you are interested take a listen to
Bryan Stevenson: [https://www.npr.org/books/authors/356964348/bryan-
stevenson](https://www.npr.org/books/authors/356964348/bryan-stevenson)
[https://www.vox.com/2017/5/24/15675606/bryan-stevenson-
confe...](https://www.vox.com/2017/5/24/15675606/bryan-stevenson-confederacy-
monuments-slavery-ezra-klein)

Short story: Having confederate monuments and the way history is thought in
schools in some places is for sure a start. We need to get away from the south
did nothing wrong, and of course put focus on what the north did wrong as
well. There is a reason Minnesota is not the best place to live for black
people.

------
kensai
This: "For us, the 8th of May is above all a date to remember what people had
to suffer. It is also a date to reflect on the course taken by our history.
The greater honesty we show in commemorating this day, the freer we are to
face the consequences with due responsibility. For us Germans, 8 May is not a
day of celebration. Those who actually witnessed that day in 1945 think back
on highly personal and hence highly different experiences. Some returned home,
others lost their homes. Some were liberated, whilst for others it was the
start of captivity. Many were simply grateful that the bombing at night and
fear had passed and that they had survived. Others felt first and foremost
grief at the complete defeat suffered by their country. Some Germans felt
bitterness about their shattered illusions, whilst others were grateful for
the gift of a new start."

------
zakum1
The honesty and bravery of the speech is remarkable - that a leader can tell
those he leads painful and difficult truths - rather than tell them merely
what will appease them. Everyday we see evidence of how easy it is to appeal
to base and superficial feelings, rather than what is noble and honest. There
is so much we can learn from both the causes of the tyranny and how the
aftermath was handled, politically, personally and socially.

------
weinzierl
Just a little background from a German perspective: Weizsäcker here is not the
physicist but Richard von Weizsäcker, his brother.

Richard von Weizsäcker was President of Germany from mid 80s to mid 90s. The
President of Germany is, simply put, like British Monarchy. In practice he has
mostly a representative role. As a president Weizsäcker was well popular in
Germany and neither was reclusive nor caused any scandals, which cannot be
said about later presidents.

~~~
notkaiho
Except unlike the British Monarchy, one is not born into the position and
cannot expect to gain the position purely by blood. The position itself may be
largely ceremonial, but the holder of the post is recognised as an elder
statesperson in their own right for their career prior to the presidency.

~~~
barking
You can still get duffers in such jobs as often a candidate is put forward
who's agreeable all parties and as such can be the lowest common denominator
who won't rock the boat.

~~~
notkaiho
Term limits, though. :)

~~~
luckylion
Which is interesting, because those aren't common in Germany. For the
Bundespräsident, they have another interesting thing: there are no limits on
how many terms you serve, you just can't serve more than two in a row.

~~~
mb4nck
But that's also true for e.g. the US and russian presidents, no? Except those
actually hold real power.

In practise, most german presidents will just be way too old four years after
they leave office to be a viable candidate, and it looks a bit absurd for them
to be pushed back into the office, exactly because there's very little real
power.

~~~
luckylion
I don't think it's possible for the US president, they are limited to 10 years
(two terms + two years if they were vice president and became acting
president) which, afaik, is per life-time.

I agree though, it's not an issue, precisely because the German president has
historically not acted partisan (even though he's usually a member of a party)
and not be involved in day-to-day politics, so it's not too hard to find
somebody that everybody can agree on. This may change if the office becomes
more politicized, but I doubt we'll see somebody get re-elected after having
paused for a term.

~~~
notkaiho
That's correct - a US president cannot serve more than two terms. If they were
already acting as President for two or more years, they can only be elected to
the position once. This was codified in the 22nd Amendment to the US
Constitution.

------
burger_moon
Since we're on the topic of Germany WWII. I read a couple books about
Treblinka over the weekend. The atrocities that happened there were sickening.
To read about what these people were forced to do there in this death camp is
painful.

The Germans and Ukrainians who did these horrific acts of murder and torture
were unaffected by it, as told by two authors who survived.

It leaves me with more questions than answers. How can people do this to
others, it takes so little to motivate people to turn into savage murders, and
why did then not teach us about these death camps in school. Everyone knows
about Auschwitz but they skipped over the pure death camps and focused more on
the rah-rah we're winning battles than observing the suffering that took
place. It all makes me sad. It makes me sad knowing what some people in
America the "free" country were going through during this time too.

~~~
kazen44
i don't know where you are from, but the education about the holocaust i
received was especially memorable because it went through great detail
explaining how the holocaust was different from the millenia of bloodshed and
genocide that happened before. (European history is drowned in blood and
suppresion sadly).

The holocaust is especially horrifying because it turned killing into an
abstract process that made apathy the "silent killer" so to speak.

The holocaust was possible because step by step, the dehumanization and
abstraction of the process resulted in people being able to be apathetic to
it.

~~~
082349872349872
Speaking of dehumanisation and abstraction, Roberto Begnini's "math problem"
scene:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LhuGKejDq8&t=116](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LhuGKejDq8&t=116)
came to mind during March-era discussions of possible Covid responses.

------
lorey
Background information:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_von_Weizs%C3%A4cker#Sp...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_von_Weizs%C3%A4cker#Speech_on_the_40th_anniversary_of_the_end_of_World_War_II)

Speech in German:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3ZAzpk4IbE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3ZAzpk4IbE)

------
cs702
This passage near the end resonated with me:

"In our country, a new generation has grown up to assume political
responsibility. Our young people are not responsible for what happened over
forty years ago. But they are responsible for the historical consequences. We
in the older generation owe to young people not the fulfilment of dreams but
honesty. We must help younger people to understand why it is vital to keep
memories alive. We want to help them to accept historical truth soberly, not
one-sidedly, without taking refuge in utopian doctrines, but also without
moral arrogance.

From our own history we learn what man is capable of. For that reason we must
not imagine that we are now quite different and have become better. There is
no ultimately achievable moral perfection – for no individual and for no
nation. We have learned as human beings, and as human beings we remain in
danger. But we have the strength to overcome such danger again and again.

Hitler's constant approach was to stir up prejudices, enmity and hatred. What
is asked of young people today is this: do not let yourselves be forced into
enmity and hatred of other people, of Russians or Americans, Jews or Turks, of
alternatives or conservatives, blacks or whites. Learn to live together, not
in opposition to each other."

------
eruci
Guilt over past crimes is mainly a western thing.

There is for example, no such thing in modern Turkey over the extermination of
the native peoples of Anatolia which led to the formation of the Turkish state
with a uniform religious/ethnic composition. On the contrary, that is a source
of national pride these days.

Other examples abound (India, Pakistan, China, etc)

~~~
mengibar10
That's how it looks if you oversimplify history and do it with only one
sentence. Turks started to migrate into Anatolia about 600 AD. However, the
most defining moment and the most known turning point is the Battle of
Menzikert in 1071. This puts at least 1000 years of slow demographic change.

We can argue a lot of details about how it happened. But it is better to stick
to your main argument that the guilt over past crimes is mainly a Western
thing. That could not be further than the truth. That's where I object mainly.
Such demographic changes happened much faster and more brutal in the West by
the Western people. Both North and South American continents that are tens of
times larger areas than Anatolia has seen genocidal change for a much shorter
period of time for much bigger population. It is estimated that the populate
in North America was comparable to that of Europe when "discoveries" started.
I do not see such guilt proportional to what happened.

You may think that those are a bit in the past. How about French and Belgian
colonialism. The crimes committed by Belgian in Kongo pales even that of
Germans. The most conservative figure is that Belgians killed 10 Million
people. The upper estimate is about 40M. Why we do not hear about those crimes
as much as about what Germans did ? Kongolese are not human? or this much
emphasis serve a political agenda?

~~~
eruci
Regardless of when the first Turk appeared in Anatolia, it does not change the
fact that the native populations were completely wiped out mostly in recent
history. Is the state organized extermination of Armenians taught to Turkish
schools like the crimes of colonialism are in major western former colonial
powers? How about the current treatment of Kurds in Turkey and even in
neighboring countries?

It is you oversimplifying and throwing around numbers to over-justify.

I stand by my main claim the revisiting past crimes of nationhood, is mainly a
western thing.

~~~
mengibar10
I am deliberately avoiding the Armenian issue not to overlook it but not to
lose focus. I wanted to reply to your "mainly a Western thing" argument. All
my examples were only to enforce the argument and not to divert the attention.
That is why I am not dignifying other threads by replying since they are doing
exactly what they accuse me of.

It was probably my mistake not to make my point clear enough. I would like to
restate my argument is that we only hear German war crimes at this high
amplitude and frequency but almost never about the crimes committed by French
or Belgian or any other Western nation. Not on the front page of HN nor on
NYTimes. French and Belgian atrocities were also a nation-state crime
including the one committed in the Americas.

------
chewz
List of major perpetrators of the Holocaust

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_major_perpetrators_of_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_major_perpetrators_of_the_Holocaust)

Massacres and war crimes of World War II by location

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_war_crimes#Massacres_an...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_war_crimes#Massacres_and_war_crimes_of_World_War_II_by_location)

War crimes of the Wehrmacht

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_crimes_of_the_Wehrmacht](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_crimes_of_the_Wehrmacht)

Myth of the clean Wehrmacht

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_the_clean_Wehrmacht](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_the_clean_Wehrmacht)

German mistreatment of Soviet prisoners of war

> It is estimated that at least 3.3 million Soviet POWs died in Nazi custody,
> out of 5.7 million.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_mistreatment_of_Soviet_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_mistreatment_of_Soviet_prisoners_of_war#:~:text=It%20is%20estimated%20that%20at,prisoners%20who%20died%20were%20Jews).

------
jchallis
Only Nixon can go to China.

Only a conservative political leader who was a captain on the Eastern Front
telling the nation that it was time to acknowledge the past and look to the
future could be heard.

~~~
luckylion
"Acknowledge the past" would have been a controversial position in 1945, maybe
in 1955, but definitely not in 1985.

------
Tomte
"Yet with every day something became clearer, and this must be stated on
behalf of all of us today: the 8th of May was a day of liberation. It
liberated all of us from the inhumanity and tyranny of the National-Socialist
regime."

"What is asked of young people today is this: do not let yourselves be forced
into enmity and hatred of other people, of Russians or Americans, Jews or
Turks, of alternatives or conservatives, blacks or whites. Learn to live
together, not in opposition to each other."

------
ellimilial
It's educational how Germany's East / West division reverberates in this
speech with the special relation to the USSR. The apologetic tone,
appeasement, justification.

One can only hope that this would no longer be necessary nowadays.

~~~
indigo945
Why would apology no longer be necessary? The crimes committed by Germans
against the population of the USSR are unspeakable.

One can only hope that apologies like these will never again be necessary.

~~~
senderista
And the USSR undertook the greatest ethnic cleansing of the 20th century in
response. Should they apologize for that?

~~~
the_af
The USSR ethnically cleansed Germany in response? What? Or do you mean
something else?

Had Nazi Germany prevailed, it is estimated about 30 million of all Slavs in
Eastern Europe would have been cleansed, as per the stated goals of
Generalplan Ost [1]. Getting rid of "undesirables" and "surplus population" on
one of the widest scales mankind had ever seen was one of the main goals of
Nazi expansion. They started to carry out this plan, but thankfully losing the
war put a stop to that.

On the other hand, the USSR did prevail, and made East Germany into a puppet
state. We can see the results without speculation. Indeed this resulted in
repression and suppression and execution of political dissidents, let's not
mince words here. But there are still Germans alive, aren't there? Had Nazi
Germany prevailed, there would be few, if any, Slavs -- Russians, Poles or
whatever -- alive today.

The two cases aren't even remotely comparable.

\----

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generalplan_Ost](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generalplan_Ost)

~~~
zeveb
> The USSR ethnically cleansed Germany in response? What?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_and_expulsion_of_German...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_and_expulsion_of_Germans_\(1944%E2%80%931950\))

In particular, postwar Poland basically moved west: the Soviet Union kept the
77.6 thousand square miles of Polish territory it had captured when both
Germany and Russia partitioned it in 1939, while Poland was given 48.1
thousand miles of German territory. The Soviet-backed Polish government
cleansed the formerly-German territories of ethnic Germans.

Given the far worse behaviour of Germany during the war (I believe most
Germans survived the ethnic cleansing committed by Poland, while the goal of
Nazi Germany was extermination of the Poles), it can be a bit difficult to
care about the suffering of Germans. But consider that IIRC roughly two
million Germans died in the expulsions from Poland and other countries, and no
doubt at least a few of those were innocent women and children (as, of course,
were many of Nazi Germany's victims). Two wrongs do not make a right, and mass
murder of innocent civilians is always wrong.

~~~
the_af
> _Two wrongs do not make a right, and mass murder of innocent civilians is
> always wrong._

Fully agreed. It's hard to see the two events as similar, though. The scale
(and intent) alone is mind-boggingly different. The Germans intended to wipe
out Slavs (and other undesirables), and you couldn't opt out of this by
swallowing the party line or swearing allegiance to Germany (just as you
couldn't opt out of being a Jew -- Nazis didn't care about your religious
beliefs, if any; they considered Jewishness a "race" to be exterminated). At
best you could hope for their bullshit racial policies to deem you "Germanic",
if you looked white enough and weren't Jewish.

Compare this with Germans under the Soviet sphere of influence. Puppets,
maybe, but alive as long as they cooperated with the ruling ideology. There
was no plan to ethnically cleanse them to make room for Soviet citizens in
German land.

~~~
cygx
_Compare this with Germans under the Soviet sphere of influence. Puppets,
maybe, but alive as long as they cooperated with the ruling ideology. There
was no plan to ethnically cleanse them to make room for Soviet citizens in
German land._

The USSR declared Germans in the annexed territories illegal residents. Going
by Wikipedia, in 1947/48, officially, 102,125 Germans got shipped from East
Prussia to the Soviet Zone, though only 99,481 arrived there (one reason for
this was that food wasn't always provided on a journey that took 4-7 days by
train). The GDR attributed this discrepancy to a 'calculation error'.

There's also the issue of German orphans that were left behind (which are
known as 'Wolskinder'). The lucky ones got adopted (eg by Lithuanian farmers),
changed their names, and pretended not to be German. The unlucky ones were
exploited as cheap labour, starved or got killed. His criticism of the
treatment of German civilians was one of the things that got Solzhenitsyn
arrested.

~~~
the_af
I understand all of this. However, again look at the numbers and planned
genocide: the Nazis aimed at killing -- murdering, not expelling, mind you --
most of the Slavic population of Eastern Europe. About _30 million_ people
would have been killed, both through starvation and shooting/gassing if they
didn't die fast enough, because they were deemed vermin and "surplus"
population. And this wasn't even retaliation for anything, it was planned in
cold blood.

Did the Soviets exterminate all Germans in their sphere of influence once they
won the war? What were the Nazi plans had they won (and which they partially
implemented during the war)?

This doesn't excuse even a single German civilian killed by the Soviets. But
the scale and planning are tremendously different, which is why the comparison
makes little sense. I think the latter day equivocation that both sides were
more or less the same is a regrettable artifact of Cold War thinking.

------
amai
Sentences made for eternity:

"Hitler's constant approach was to stir up prejudices, enmity and hatred. What
is asked of young people today is this: do not let yourselves be forced into
enmity and hatred of other people, of Russians or Americans, Jews or Turks, of
alternatives or conservatives, blacks or whites. Learn to live together, not
in opposition to each other."

------
amai
Why is May the 8th still not a public holiday in Germany?

------
ihm
I couldn’t read the whole thing, but as a Jew whose relatives and culture was
murdered by the Germans, I found it did not adequately address the reality
that many Germans knew about the camps (to say nothing of the progroms and
humiliations that preceded them) and that the people who perpetrated the
Holocaust were in large part incorporated unreformed into German society after
the war.

The speech reads

> Yet with every day something became clearer, and this must be stated on
> behalf of all of us today: the 8th of May was a day of liberation. It
> liberated all of us from the inhumanity and tyranny of the National-
> Socialist regime.

Maybe this rang true to many Germans of 1985, I can’t know. But the historical
fact is (just to take an example) the post war German government was staffed
with individuals who served at high positions in the Nazi regime and surely
believed in, or at least we’re comfortable with, the Nazi cause. I’m sure in
the private sector there were even more unreformed Nazis.

It also seems to suggest that the German people couldn’t know what atrocities
were being committed, which it was well known what was going on. Both the
camps and the progroms and public humiliations visited upon Jews and others.
EDIT: I take the criticism of some of the commenters below that not all
Germans knew the full extent of the mass murder.

So the whole speech rings hollow to me, and it’s purpose mostly seems to be to
assuage the guilt of an entire population responsible for truly horrific acts.
Which, yeah, the Germans would need that in order to be able to move forward,
but the comments here are definitely not understanding the speech in that
critical light.

~~~
coldcode
Saying that the German people all knew of what was being done is not
historical, nor the experience of my family. When my great grandparents were
taken from their home in 1943 along with all the other Jews in town (other
than my Grandmother who was married to a non-Jew, and my mother) they had no
idea where they were being taken. Of course they all died but no one had any
idea until after the war was over and even today we can only speculate exactly
where. My grandmother later survived a year in a camp, and my mom hid in a
basement for year as a child. No one in their small town had any inkling of
what was happening inside Germany other than what the propaganda was telling
them, although there were people with hidden radios in town, even the Allies
did not say anything useful.

To say everyone knew is incorrect; to imagine you could change things if you
knew is also wrong. Can we today stop our government from cramming children
into cages and then forgetting them? Yet we have modern media and still
horrific things are done in our name and we either ignore it or feel helpless
to do anything.

History is bad enough without changing it just because we have moved beyond,
nor is forgetting its lessons and winding up in the same boat again. Guilt
belongs to the guilty not the collective; it's up to the collective to ensure
it never happens again and keep the guilty from getting away.

~~~
ihm
> To say everyone knew is incorrect; to imagine you could change things if you
> knew is also wrong. Can we today stop our government from cramming children
> into cages and then forgetting them? Yet we have modern media and still
> horrific things are done in our name and we either ignore it or feel
> helpless to do anything.

I agree with this point and take your criticism that I painted with too broad
a brush in terms of who could know what.

~~~
goto11
Careful now. Everybody knew the Jews were persecuted, had their rights and
belongings taken away and were rounded up in ghettos and camps, from where
they eventually were "evacuated to the East". What civilians could justifiably
claim is they didn't know where or how the killing happened. Information about
this was kept vague. While the concentration camps where public knowledge, the
extermination camps were kept secret. So German civilians could say they
didn't know about Babi Yar or Treblinka and the gas chambers - but that is a
far cry from saying they didn't know about the persecution and genocide.

It should also be noted that the T4 euthanasia program was scaled back due to
public protests. This shows not only that people actually knew it happened
(even if it was kind-of secret) but also that protest could actually work. The
Nazi party actually cared a great deal about public opinion which is why
propaganda was so important to them. One of the reasons the extermination
camps were kept secret is they feared protests.

There were also the Rosenstrasse protests, where (non-Jewish) wives of Jewish
men protested against deportation of their men. This actually caused the men
to be released.

So "we didn't know and couldn't have done anything anyway" is ahistorical. I
can understand why people cling to it, but it is a dangerous myth.

------
anpKA
It is a famous and well written speech, made at a time when Germany was still
a cohesive country and WWII criminals were still alive.

I don't see the relevance when we face completely different issues nowadays.
European/German guilt has been used to justify a lot of measures that
strangely enough always benefited the upper class and the stock market.

Perhaps there should be a new Weizsaecker speech.

~~~
hef19898
Different issues, still generally applicable principles. Yes, there should be
a new Wiezsaecker speech.

I just doubt it would be what you think, considering your views on
"German/European guilt".

~~~
SuoDuanDao
I have German citizenship but have not lived in Germany since my teens, so I'm
a bit ignorant of the political situation these days. How would you summarize
GP's views on German/European guilt?

~~~
jacobush
It's probably a reference to immigration and how it (in their view) only
benefited Capital owners.

~~~
SuoDuanDao
Is it taboo in Germany to suggest that increasing the supply of labour would
drive down the price?

~~~
hef19898
Overall, Germany profited greatly from the EU and the Euro. Also average
workers. There is a group of employees in very precerious conditions, heritage
of Agenda 2020. Nothing taboo to talk about, in fact ALG 2 and such are quite
often discussed and challenged.

Both factors have nothing to do with "German Guilt", implying that is a right
wing thing. And not grounded in reality.

Given that Weizsaeckers speach was all about accepting history, tolerance and
so on, it would be fair to say if anything he would call for unity against
racism, nationalism and so on.

~~~
ajTHak
No such thing has been implied, but you are only attacking straw men in this
subthread (Dolchstosslegende, really?),

European guilt (countries fighting each other since the beginning of time) has
been used as a justification for the European Union.

German guilt has been used as a justification for the Euro.

The theory that average workers benefit from the Euro is false, and usually
only propagated by those in cozy government positions, like bureaucrats or
teachers who are isolated from reality.

> implying that is a right wing thing.

And there we go, such a position is literally fascist.

