Berlin, for the first time since reunification, observed a public holiday for this eightieth anniversary of VE Day with political leaders—pointedly excluding the ambassadors of Russia and Belarus—gathering in the Bundestag to commemorate liberation from Nazi dictatorship. 
President Frank-Walter Steinmeier told guests assembled in the chamber that Germany must never downplay its burden of responsibility for the second world war and the Holocaust as the perpetrators that caused the Shoah and were unwilling or unable to resist the regime orchestrating these crimes against humanity. Steinmeier went on the acknowledge the role of the Red Army, comprised of Russians, Ukrainians and many others, in freeing Europe from the regime—but adds that the “liberators of Auschwitz have become the new aggressors,” rubbishing long-standing regional peace and security which stood as a sign of hope that we had retained some lessons from the past and revising and inverting the historical records—excusing his war of aggression as a fight against neo-Nazism—with imperial ambitions. That war casting a pall over solemnities that were otherwise celebrating the beginning of an unprecedented period of liberty and freedom, many others recognising the dire need for recommitting to the defence of democratic values and harmony.
synchronoptica
one year ago: the Hard-Hat Riot of 1970 (with synchronoptica) plus locomotive music
seven years ago: a Prohibition Era Isle of Pleasure charted plus assorted links worth revisiting
eight years ago: HH Holmes’ murder castle, the French far-right, PC clones plus the cartographic trope of the land octopus
ten years ago: a utopian factory town plus an ingestible password
eleven years ago: a self-massage technique called she-do
