Observances of V-E Day Reflect a Divided Europe

Europe marked the 40th anniversary Wednesday of Nazi Germany’s defeat with observances that ranged in mood from reserved solemnity to lavish celebration.

The vast differences in the commemorations served as a reminder of the most visible and painful legacy of Germany’s defeat--the prolonged political division of Europe into East and West.

In Communist Eastern Europe, cities were bedecked with flags as they prepared for large military parades today to celebrate May 9, the date the Soviets view as Victory in Europe Day.

Western European countries, out of deference to their West German allies, conducted more subdued celebrations.

In Paris, French President Francois Mitterrand reviewed troops on the Champs Elysees, placed a wreath at the Arch of Triumph and decorated nine members of the World War II French liberation forces. A huge French tricolor fluttered at the famous arch.

But Mitterrand stressed that the day was being remembered “in a spirit of reconciliation and concord between the peoples of Europe.”

In London, where Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government decided to hold formal celebrations only after pressure was applied by veterans’ groups, Queen Elizabeth II joined about 2,000 people at a Westminster Abbey commemorative service.

Then, in a rare radio interview, the queen reminisced about how she slipped out of Buckingham Palace on May 8, 1945, and joined, unnoticed, in London’s wild street celebrations.

“It was one of the most memorable nights of my life,” she said.

In towns and villages throughout Britain, there were church services and wreath-layings evoking more a spirit of remembrance than celebration.

There were also commemorations in the Netherlands, Norway, Denmark and Belgium, all countries occupied by Germany during the war.

In Eastern Europe, the day was marked by last-minute preparations for even larger festivities today.

In Warsaw, youthful marchers converged on the city center for a wreath-laying at the tomb of Poland’s unknown soldier. Today, a large military parade is planned.

Soviet, Czech Flags

In Prague, traffic has been tied up for the last 10 days as the city prepares for a massive military parade through streets bedecked with Soviet and Czech flags.

But the differences in commemorating the Nazi collapse were especially sharp in the two Germanys.

In a solemn, yet powerful speech, West German President Richard von Weizsaecker told a joint session of Parliament that May 8 was a day of liberation for the Germans but was no day for celebration.

He rejected the concept of collective German guilt for the Holocaust but charged that those Germans who said they were unaware of it at the time professed ignorance because they did not want to know of the crimes being committed by the Nazis.

‘Unrestrained Hate’

“Those hands that carried out the crime (genocide) were few and it was shielded from the public eye,” he said. “But every German could experience what Jewish citizens had to suffer, from cold indifference to concealed intolerance to unrestrained hate.

“Whoever opened his ears and eyes, who wanted to know, could not escape the fact that deportation trains were on the roll,” he added.

The speech was carried live on national television and also transmitted to Austria, part of Hitler’s Third Reich during the war.

For West Germans, Von Weizsaecker’s speech was the climax of a monthslong, often-agonizing debate over the May 8 commemoration. The debate, which centered on modern West Germany’s relationship with its past, resulted in the most extensive examination of the Nazi period since the war.

It was during that period that Chancellor Helmut Kohl asked President Reagan to lay a wreath at a German war cemetery as a gesture of reconciliation.

‘Without One-Sidedness’

Von Weizsaecker’s speech listed those groups that suffered most under Hitler’s tyranny and stated, “We need and we have the strength to look the truth in the eye as well as we can, without glossing over anything and without one-sidedness.”

Later Wednesday, Von Weizsaecker joined Kohl and other political leaders for a nondenominational commemorative service at the Cologne Cathedral.

The opposition Greens party boycotted Wednesday’s joint parliamentary session, saying that Germans should commemorate May 8 with the victims of Nazi Germany.

A delegation of 64 party members, including 10 members of Parliament, traveled to the site of the former Auschwitz concentration camp in southwestern Poland and placed flowers at a memorial to those who died there.

For the East Germans, however, there has been no such hand-wringing about the past or the Holocaust. East German authorities declared May 8 a public holiday and mounted a youth festival and a series of ceremonies honoring the Soviet armed forces.

For weeks, posters have been placed in windows of East German towns showing a Soviet soldier hugging a Teutonic blonde girl behind the caption, “Thank you, Soviet soldier.”

Selective Use of History

The ability of East Germany to celebrate with such abandon stems from its selective use of history, arbitrarily declaring itself the successor state of German Socialists and Communists who opposed Hitler.

For days, the East German Communist Party organ Neues Deutschland has previewed the anniversary of the “great Soviet victory over the German fascists.”

There has been only passing reference to U.S. and British participation in the fight against Hitler. Invitations to an official celebration of the anniversary reflected this bias. They showed a hammer and sickle crushing the shattered remains of a swastika.