World leaders gather for D-Day
2004-06-06 07:48
Caen, France - Leaders from the World War II Allied powers and their former foe Germany were to stand on Sunday in an unprecedented show of remembrance for the soldiers who 60 years ago landed on the beaches of Normandy to liberate Europe from Nazi rule.
The landings of over 135 000 Allied troops amid foul weather on June 6 1944 were the biggest seaborne invasion in history and ultimately triggered the collapse of Hitler's Third Reich.
Never before have so many world leaders gathered to pay their respects to the dead from both sides of the invasion and also to the survivors, hundreds of whom have converged on Normandy to take a proud part in the commemorations.
The appearance of President George W Bush, whose country played an instrumental role in the landings, is expected to be a potent symbol of the historical foundation of the Franco-German relationship, which strained to breaking point last year after a row over the Iraq war.
Meeting in Paris on Saturday, Bush and French President Jacques Chirac managed to put on a show of cordiality but the latter still rebuffed an attempt by Bush to draw a parallel between World War II and the conflict in Iraq.
Bush, whose visit to the French capital was marked by high security and a protest attracting thousands, stressed "the timeless lessons that D-Day teaches: that sacrifices must always be borne in the defence of freedom".
Chirac, while making a point to thank Americans for their "sacrifices" to free France in World War II, rejected any parallel, saying that "history does not repeat itself - it's very difficult to make historical comparisons".
Bush and Chirac were to attend a binational ceremony at the US war cemetery in Colleville-Sur-Mer, where 9 386 US soldiers are buried. Overall some 4 000 Allied troops were killed on the first day and another 55 000 were to die in the Normandy campaign.
The centrepiece of Sunday's events was to be an international ceremony on the beaches of Arromanches, attended by 22 heads of state and government, including Queen Elizabeth II of Britain.
Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder was to become the first German leader to attend the D-Day commemorations, emphasising the depth of reconciliation between his country and Western allies only six decades after the end of the war.
"The Germany which had to be defeated in this war to end the Nazi nightmare is no longer the same country which I have the honour to represent today in these ceremonies commemorating June 6 1944," said Schroeder in an open letter to the Ouest France newspaper.
However, his visit has not been without controversy: conservative politicians at home have suggested Schroeder is being unpatriotic by not visiting an official German war cemetery while some former French resistance members believe he should not be there at all.
Another historic first is the participation of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has been invited in view of the extraordinary sacrifice made by the Red Army in winning a war that claimed the lives of nine million Soviet troops.
In an open letter to the same newspaper on Saturday, Putin paid tribute to the heroism of Allied soldiers who took part in the Normandy landings, drawing a line under decades of Soviet historiography which underplayed the importance of D-Day in ending the war.