France, Germany remember WWI dead
Print Edition
FRENCH President Francois Hollande and his German counterpart Joachim Gauck paid emotional tributes yesterday to the millions of soldiers who died during World War I, exactly 100 years after Germany declared hostilities against France.
The two leaders gathered at Hartmannswillerkopf where 30,000 soldiers lost their lives in fierce battles around the mountain peak known as the “man-eater” in France’s Alsace region near the border between the two countries.
In a speech lauding as “an example for the world” the friendship between two countries that were once fierce enemies, Hollande remembered conflicts still raging around the world, including the confrontation between Israel and Hamas in Gaza that has claimed over 1,800 lives.
“France and Germany, beyond their suffering and bereavements, had the courage to make up — it was the best way to honor the dead and provide a guarantee of peace to the living,” he said.
Their friendship is “an example for the world, a strength and an invitation, wherever peace is threatened, wherever human rights are violated, wherever the principles of international law are flouted.”
Standing near the bucolic peak of Hartmannswillerkopf, Gauck reminded onlookers that the site “symbolizes the absurdity and horror of those years.” “We commemorate the dead, the missing, the injured on both sides, and we honor their memory. They are not forgotten,” he said.
Other countries also held events or were due this week to commemorate the 1914-1918 war, which left some 10 million dead and 20 million injured on the battlefields.
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