From defeat to the day of liberation – diepresse.com
The historiography is a child of their time. It wasn’t that long ago when the surrender of the Wehrmacht was perceived as shameful for many. Berlin now turns May 8th a holiday to honor the Nazi exemption.
Berlin. May 8, 1945, an inconspicuous officer scasino of the Wehrmacht in the Karlshorst district of East Berlin. Large parts of the German capital are in ruins. There are still fighting in some places, but Hitler’s war was long since lost. The Red Army Checked the east of Berlin for weeks, the barracks in Karlshorst use as a headquarters for their generals. On the evening of May 8th, high representatives from the Soviet Union, the USA, Great Britain and France should come together on German soil for the first time.
Together they presented a historical document for signing to the Liehrmacht commands: the unconditional surrender of the German Wehrmacht. With the signatures, the surrender declaration from the previous day in the American-British headquarters in Reims in France was ratified and the joint victory of the anti-Hitler coalition sealed. This ended the Second World War in Europe.
« /> Museum boss Jörg Morré in front of the historic table in Berlin-Karlshorst, where the surrender of the Wehrmacht was signed late in the evening of May 8, 1945. APA / AFP / Tobias Schwarz
Today, 80 years later, this place of world -historical importance is a museum. The hall in which the signing has taken place is still preserved. Large marble boards with Cyrillic engravings hang on the walls. The old wooden parquet creaks when museum director Jörg Morré leads through the hall. « The generals and signatories all ran over this floor at the time, » says the historian. The place is particularly important for Russia. After the end of the war, the building was the seat of the military administration in Germany, after the withdrawal of Soviet troops in 1990 the area became a German-Russian place of memory of the atrocities of National Socialism.
Turning points of commemoration
« Russia has a legitimate concern to commemorate its millions of victims from the Second World War, » says Morré. The war of attack on Ukraine does not change this. Today’s museum should also be « a forum for different historical interpretations », but one clearly distance itself from the history revisionist propaganda from the Kremlin. The Russian flag in front of the museum was obtained on February 24, 2024, next to the Germans the Ukrainian flag is now blowing. However, all the crimes of Russia – then as now – would not change the historical merit of the Red Army to have freed Germany from a dictatorial regime.
The historiography is always a child of their time. In 1945 there was little awareness of liberation in Germany and Austria, but one of disgrace and defeat. It was only on May 8, 1985, 40 years after the end of the Second World War, that the then German President, Richard von Weizsäcker, was supposed to rewrite the history narrative of the Federal Republic. « May 8th was a day of liberation, » he said in his speech to the Bundestag and thus heralded a turning point in German memory culture.
« History lies of the Kremlin »
Liberation from National Socialism has long shaped German identity. « We are all children of May 8th, » said the philosopher Jürgen Habermas. And yet the interpretation of history is still competitive and controversial. The German Federal President, the German President, becomes more and more politically instrumentalized. Frank-Walter Steinmeiersay in his speech before the Bundestag on Thursday.
Inside and outside, there are increasing forces that, with a manipulative history narrative, question the liberal legal and values. « We have to counteract today’s history lies of the Kremlin, » the presidential office quotes from his speech in advance.
May 8th on May 8th in Berlin
At the liberation celebrations, the newly composed federal government around Chancellor is also Friedrich Merz ((CDU) participate. On the 80th anniversary, Berlin declared May 8th this year as a public holiday. Throughout the city, numerous memorial events, exhibitions and concerts take place on this day to underline the importance of the historical date.
