German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder on the liberation of Auschwitz

German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder has also been speaking on the Holocaust in connection with the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp.

Germany's shame over evil of the Holocaust by Charles Bremner Times of London 01/26/05

Herr Schröder said: “The vast majority of Germans alive today are not to blame for the Holocaust, but they do bear a special responsibility. The evil of Nazi ideology did not occur without preconditions. The brutalisation of thought and the loss of moral inhibitions had a history. Above all, Nazi ideology was desired by people and man-made.”

The memory of the genocide was part of German national identity. “Remembering the era of National Socialism and its crimes is a moral obligation . . . it is true that the temptation to forget and suppress it is great, but we will not succumb to it.”

Berlin Commemorates Auschwitz Liberation Deutsche Welle 01/25/05

Chancellor Schröder warned Germans to be vigilant in the fight against anti-Semitism on Tuesday and expressed his shame as Berlin marked the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.

"That anti-Semitism still exists is not to be denied. It is the duty of all of society to fight against it," Schröder said in a speech at Berlin's German Theater during a commemoration ceremony to mark the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz.

The ceremony was attended by death camp survivors, ministers and Jewish leaders.

"It is the common duty of all democrats to confront the offensive agitation of the neo-Nazis and their continuing attempts to minimize Nazi crimes," Schröder said, in a somber address befitting the historic weight of the occasion.

I should mention that the following paragraph talks about over a million Jews and others being murdered by the Nazis.  The sentence is a little awkward, but it's referring specifically to those murdered in the Auschwitz camp.  There were five other death camps, plus killings done outside the camps.  (The other five were Belzac, Chelmno, Maidanek, Sobibor and Treblinka.)  Many were also killed in concentration camps that did not operate specifically as death camps like Auschwitz did.

Here are links to the full German texts of two recent speeches, from the Chancellor's Web page.

"Die Nazi-Ideologie war menschengewollt und menschengemacht." 01/25/05

Rede von Bundeskanzler Gerhard Schröder aus Anlass des 60. Jahrestages der Befreiung des Konzentrationslagers Auschwitz 01/25/05