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President Steinmeier: "As a society united in our grief"
Photo:
Jesco Denzel / Federal Press Office / picture alliance / dpa
The Federal President stands at the window of his official residence and lights a candle.
This picture from January will be one of those who will stay with Frank-Walter Steinmeier: light a match, ignite the wick, blow out a match, pause.
When Frank-Walter Steinmeier was little, in the 1950s, the light in the window was a ritual that was intended as a reminder of the soldiers who died or went missing in the war and of the prisoners of war.
This gesture, customary on Memorial Day, arose from the understandable pain of the bereaved, but there was still something to it: the prevailing attitude in the 1950s of seeing Germans as victims of the war.
This attitude faded over the years, as did the candles in the window.
Steinmeier took it out again to find a way to commemorate the sick and dead of the corona pandemic.
He doesn't stop at this gesture, but is planning his own memorial service on April 18 in the Berlin concert hall on Gendarmenmarkt.
»The Federal President would like to send a signal that we as a society mourn together.
We are united as a society in our grief for the dead and for the lonely departed.
We feel with the bereaved, «said a spokeswoman.
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