Reply To: Remembering D-Day and the difficulty of being a German

[limburger 21712xp 1]

Today there was a slightly awkward press photo of the British Queen shaking hands with leaders of the Allied nations …
Awkward ? Yup because Merkel was there too, but Putin wasn’t (wouldn’t be surprised if he hadn’t been invited given how we are supposed to ‘hate’ his country …) … and this being the internet era someone had to tweet it too.
It kind of sucks it has been removed, because it highlights how something as basic as this has become a political event.

The twitter comments about anything Trump did today have been pretty damn nasty too.
I wish people would shut up about such things for one day.

Anyways … we have similar discussions on the May 4th (*) when we remember the fallen Dutch soldiers.
Officially it is all Dutch soldiers (including those in less popular conflicts like Sbrenica and Indonesia), but some want to restrict it to WW2 Allies only.German officials have been included as guests, but this has resulted in even more awkard stupidity because the organisation didn’t want to play the Dutch national anthem … it’s as if we refuse to be somewhat proud of our own flockin’ country.

I think part of the problem is that having to remember something in which you were the bad guys is a reminder that your own nation has a dark side too.

(*) side note : that’s why Star Wars day always feels like a bad joke to me as the rest of the world is making fun of a fictional battle while we remember those who died for our freedom …