German President Steinmeier leads November 9 commemorations

Berlin (dpa) – Germany’s President Frank-Walter Steinmeier has called for the country to treat November 9 “as a day for reflection.”

It is the date of three very different anniversaries, each with very different significance for German history.

On November 9, 1918 a republic was declared, ending Germany’s monarchy, while November 9, 1938 went down in history as a day of National Socialist pogroms and stands for the persecution and extermination of the Jews. And on November 9, 1989, the fall of the Berlin Wall led to German reunification.

Speaking at a commemorative event in the Bellevue Palace on Tuesday, President Steinmeier stressed that those momentous events should remind Germans that freedom and democracy did not “fall from the sky” and should not be taken for granted.

The president said that Germans needed to accept both the shame and grief over the victims, and respect and appreciation for the pioneers of democracy. “Enduring this ambivalence, carrying light and shadow, joy and sorrow in your heart, that is part of being a German,” Steinmeier said.

“That is the core of enlightened patriotism – a patriotism of quiet tones. Instead of triumph and self-assurance, a patriotism of mixed feelings.”

Later in the commemorations, the youngest member of the new parliament, Emilia Fester from the Greens, looked back at the events of 1918.

Quoting from Philipp Scheidemann’s proclamation of the republic, she said: “The German people have won across the board. The old rottenness has collapsed. Militarism is finished. The Hohenzollerns [a German royal dynasty] have abdicated. Long live the German Republic.”

Margot Friedlaender’s description of the morning after the pogrom night in Berlin in 1938 was particularly moving. The Holocaust survivor, who is 100 years old, was led onto the stage by President Steinmeier, who later called her a “blessing for our country.”

Remembering November 1938, she told how she had been struck by the unusual emptiness of the street, where actually only “men with the hated brown uniforms” stood around in front of destroyed Jewish properties.

“I heard crunching under my shoes,” she said. “I had stepped on glass, the glass of the Jewish shops that no longer existed.”

Friedlaender spoke of her fear, helplessness and powerlessness and said in a faltering voice: “We knew this was the beginning of much worse to come.”

A feeling of powerlessness was also experienced by civil rights activist Roland Jahn when he was forcibly expelled from East Germany in 1983. However, he said he experienced a “very personal day of happiness” on his November 9, when he rushed from West Berlin to his family in Jena immediately after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

It was, he said “a signal to the world” that could give people courage. “Dictatorships can be overcome,” he said.