Germans cannot turn backs on Nazi past, Merkel says
Germany cannot simply draw a line under its Nazi past and must remain sensitive to the damage it caused to other countries including Greece, Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Saturday, just ahead of the 70th anniversary of the end of World War Two.
Speaking in her weekly podcast, Merkel said she was looking forward to a May 10 memorial in Moscow with Russian President Vladimir Putin. She and other leaders have said they will not attend Russia's traditional May 9 military parade amid tensions with Moscow over its annexation of Crimea and fighting in Ukraine. In the German capital, the 70th anniversary of the end of the Battle of Berlin, the climactic battle of the war, was marked in tributes on Saturday. The war ended on May 8, 1945. "There's no drawing a line under the history," Merkel said, dismissing a yearning that many post-war generations of Germans harbour.
