German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier on Thursday criticised Russia’s “historical lies” over the Ukraine war, as he marked the Nazi defeat that ended World War II in Europe 80 years ago.<\/p>\n
Steinmeier’s speech to parliament expressed gratitude to the Allied soldiers and resistance movements who, “with all their strength and at great sacrifice”, defeated Nazi Germany.<\/p>\n
He also praised the Soviet Red Army — in which Russian and Ukrainian troops fought side-by-side — for their role in the Nazis’ defeat, noting it had liberated the Auschwitz concentration camp in Nazi-occupied Poland.<\/p>\n
“We do not forget this,” Steinmeier told the Bundestag, during a sombre commemoration on the May 8 anniversary of Nazi Germany’s unconditional surrender to the Allies.<\/p>\n
“But precisely because of this, we firmly oppose the Kremlin’s historical lies today,” he added.<\/p>\n
Russia has cast its three-year offensive against Ukraine as a fight against “neo-Nazis” and has channelled its own wartime legacy to try to justify the war.<\/p>\n
But Steinmeier went on: “The war against Ukraine is not a continuation of the fight against fascism.<\/p>\n
“(President Vladimir) Putin’s war of aggression, his campaign against a free, democratic country, has nothing in common with the fight against Nazi tyranny in World War II.”<\/p>\n
Steinmeier’s speech received lengthy applause from MPs, although many from the far-right AfD — now the biggest opposition party after coming second in February elections — did not join in.<\/p>\n
Others in the West and Kyiv, including independent experts, have also rejected Moscow’s narratives.<\/p>\n
Germany has been a key backer of Kyiv in its fight against Moscow. Russia’s ambassador to Berlin was not invited to Thursday’s commemoration, which was being marked with a public holiday in the capital.<\/p>\n
– ‘Extremist forces’ –<\/p>\n
Moscow is on Friday set to hold a large Victory Day parade to mark the anniversary of the Nazis’ defeat.<\/p>\n
During his 25 years in power, Putin has elevated May 9 to Russia’s most important public holiday, using it to champion his army as defenders against fascism.<\/p>\n
Steinmeier also said it was a “shock of unprecedented proportions” that the United States was “turning its back on” the international, rules-based order which Washington had helped to forge.<\/p>\n
Even such an old democracy “can quickly be endangered when the judiciary is disregarded, the separation of powers is undermined and academic freedom is attacked,” he said.<\/p>\n
Europe has been rattled by US President Donald Trump’s return to office, and is particularly fearful that his administration is no longer committed to helping protect the continent.<\/p>\n
Steinmeier expressed fears about “extremist forces” gaining strength in Germany, following the AfD’s recent electoral success.<\/p>\n
He did not mention the party by name but noted that such forces “mock the institutions of democracy and those who represent them”.<\/p>\n
Steinmeier’s speech recalled former president Richard von Weizsaecker’s watershed address in 1985 when he became the first to call on Germans to remember May 8 not as a day of defeat, but one of liberation from Nazi tyranny.<\/p>\n
Nevertheless, Thursday’s commemoration was not taking place in “calm certainty,” Steinmeier stressed.<\/p>\n
“Today we no longer need to ask — did May 8 liberate us?”, he said.\u00a0\u00a0“But we must ask — how can we remain free?”<\/p>\n
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