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- Celebrations for the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II take place in several European countries.
- Due to measures taken as part of the Covid-19 crisis, the ceremonies are largely closed to the public.
- Official speeches emphasize the importance of the day with respect to many institutions today and the strength of democracy in general.
Celebrations and ceremonies commemorating the end of the war 75 years ago have not become major events. Usually, a handful of politicians and military men wear crowns and give speeches to the nation.
In Germany President Frank-Walter Steinmeier called on citizens to defend democracy. “At that moment we were released. Today we have to free ourselves, “he said in Berlin, calling for the new nationalism, hatred, agitation and” xenophobia and contempt for democracy. “
In memory of May 8, 1945, Steinmeier also brought together the heads of the other four constitutional bodies, Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) and the Presidents of the Bundestag, the Federal Council and the Federal Constitutional Court, at the Neue Wache in Berlin. .
France It commemorated the end of World War II 75 years ago with a commemoration at the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. President Emmanuel Macron first placed a flower wreath in front of the statue of General Charles de Gaulle in Paris in the morning, and then went to the triumphal arch. There symbolically he rekindled the Eternal Flame; The singers of the army choir sang the Marseille national anthem.
In the United Kingdom Queen Elizabeth II gives a speech to the nation. His speech will be shown on British television on Friday night (10 p.m. CEST), exactly three-quarters of a century after his father King George VI’s speech on radio. In addition to speaking to the monarch, there will be a two-minute silent commemoration in the UK at 12 noon.
In Italy Italian President Sergio Mattarella had to walk alone to the Altar of the Fatherland in Rome due to the national ban on events, to place a crown there in memory of the liberation of Nazi Germany. Italy does not celebrate the official end of World War II, but the revolts of the resistance movement in the main Italian cities in late April 1945.
Katarzyna Goral is an employee in the Polish city of Zgorzelec. Commemorate 75 red roses on a border fence on the old town bridge on the Polish border in Zgorzelec east of the Neisse.
Keystone
The Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania 75 years after the end of the Second World War, the fate of Eastern Europe is commemorated after the German surrender. «The end of the Second World War does not mean freedom for the nations of Central and Eastern Europe. Instead, one totalitarian regime was replaced by another, “wrote the presidents of the three EU countries in northeast Europe in a joint statement on Thursday. “The central and eastern part of the continent remained under the rule of the communist regimes for almost half a century.”
Russia celebrates the victory day of the Soviet Union this Saturday, one day later, because the new day had already begun at the Wehrmacht capitulation on May 8, 1945 in Moscow. With 27 million deaths, the Soviet Union had the highest number of victims in Europe in the World War. Putin also sent several letters of congratulations to heads of state and government to commemorate the victims, according to the Kremlin. Victory was achieved at that time, it was said with a view to the former Soviet republics.
