The speech Germany's President Steinmeier gave today in Berlin, commemorating May 8th 1945
Below is the English translation of the speech. Historian Simon Schama called the speech “ moving and magnificent”
Some quotes
Rabbi Nachman once wrote: "No heart is as whole as a broken heart." Germany’s past is a fractured past – with responsibility for the murdering of millions and the suffering of millions. That breaks our hearts. And that is why I say that this country can only be loved with a broken heart.
Anybody who cannot bear this, who demands that a line be drawn under our past, is not only denying the catastrophe that was the war and the Nazi dictatorship. They are also devaluing all the good that has since been achieved and denying the very essence of our democracy.
"Human dignity shall be inviolable." This first sentence of our constitution is and remains a public reminder of what happened in Auschwitz, of what happened in the war and during the dictatorship. It is not remembrance that is a burden – it is non-remembrance that becomes a burden.
... In 1945 we were liberated. Today, we must liberate ourselves.
From the temptations of a new brand of nationalism. From a fascination with authoritarianism. From distrust, isolationism and hostility between nations. From hatred and hate speech, from xenophobia and contempt for democracy – for they are but the old evil in a new guise. On this 8 May, we commemorate the victims of Hanau, of Halle and Kassel. They have not been forgotten in the midst of COVID-19.
Whole text here
https://www.bundespraesident.de/SharedDocs/Reden/EN/Frank-Walter-Steinmeier/Reden/2020/05/200508-75th-anniversary-World-War-II.html