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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsGermany marks 75th anniversary of plot to kill Hitler
BERLIN (AP) German Chancellor Angela Merkel has urged Europeans to confront populism, nationalism, racism and anti-Semitism as she paid tribute to the Nazi resistance in her own country.
Speaking Saturday at a solemn ceremony marking the anniversary of the failed attempt to kill Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler, Merkel said the courage and sacrifice of the conspirator should serve as an example to people today.
They put humanity over their own human lives, she told the crowd at the site where plot leader Col. Claus von Stauffenberg and others were executed.
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Merkel took the occasion to pay tribute to all who stood up against the Nazis in different ways, including people who hid Jews to save them from the death camps, the Jews who rose up in the Warsaw Ghetto to attack their Nazi captors in 1943, the Polish fighters of the 1944 Warsaw Uprising and other partisans who fought against the German occupiers and others.
Von Stauffenberg is a symbol of the resistance, but his story is not the only story of the resistance, she said.
Amid evidence of rising anti-Semitism and racism in Germany, Merkel said people need to draw inspiration from the civil courage shown by those who resisted the Nazis and make their voices heard.
Instead of looking away or being silent, we need to be engaged, she said.
On a wider scale, she said Europeans need to speak out and act against nationalism and populism.
We need to think multilaterally, not unilaterally; global, not national; open not isolationist; together, not alone, she said to applause.
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murielm99
(30,761 posts)truly the leader of the Western alliance. We no longer have any claim to that leadership.
Oddly, I was thinking about that assassination plot just yesterday.
Mc Mike
(9,115 posts)The Nazi Defense Dept version of a retirement program.
ck4829
(35,091 posts)Buckeyeblue
(5,501 posts)Would someone more competent than Hitler taken over to better carry out the final solution?
Which is what I would fear from a Pence presidency.
Aristus
(66,462 posts)than Hitler.
But he was so drab and colorless, I doubt that, even if Germany hadn't been on the brink of defeat, people would have rallied to him the way they did with Hitler.
First Speaker
(4,858 posts)...though it was almost complete by then. And they would have called for an armistice. What would have happened then is anyone's guess. Churchill, perhaps, leader of a war-weary Britain, just might have listened. FDR--and Stalin--would have insisted upon the Unconditional Surrender option. And just maybe, the War would have lost its unity of purpose in America. It's not hard to see the 1944 election devolving into charges and countercharges--FDR accusing the GOP of "aiding the enemy"; the GOP accusing FDR of prolonging the War to help Stalin expand Communism in Europe. With Stauffenberg and Co talking always of their willingness to compromise, and being ready to oppose Bolshevism... It might just have been an ungodly mess.
roamer65
(36,747 posts)Yeehah
(4,591 posts)like the Czech fighters who assassinated Heydrich. Incredible courage.