FORTY years, as the Old Testament shows, marks a psychological threshold. Richard von Weizsäcker observed this on May 8th 1985, as he gave the speech of his presidency and his life. In 40 years, a people could traverse the desert and reach the promised land; but they could also forget old lessons and stray from the path. And so, 40 years after their surrender in the war they had started, the Germans should face their crimes and their own destruction as honestly as they could. Only then—and this was his shocking twist—would they understand that the day of their defeat was the moment of their liberation.Helmut Kohl, then chancellor, had muttered something similar a few weeks earlier, but the public had taken little notice. Now, however, the thought came from the ceremonial head of state, a white-haired and elegant aristocrat, the son of a diplomat, and it was delivered in dialect-free German that resonated with gravitas. Suddenly the sentiment struck with full force, at home and abroad. A few months after the speech, Mr von Weizsäcker became the first German president to visit Israel.By then, Germans had made much progress in confronting their past. But members of...
from The Economist: Obituary http://ift.tt/17mRjIh
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