Remembrance on the fields of Flanders
In Ypres heads of state and government are remembering the First World War and the victims of a new kind of industrialised warfare.
A poppy with a barbed wire stem symbolises the horrors of death on the fields of Flanders with Ypres at the centre. Endless battles were fought here for four long years. The German troops used poison gas for the first time and caused unprecedented suffering amongst the civilian population. Between 1914 and 1918 this region in Belgium witnessed the deaths of hundreds of thousands. During the First World War more than half a million people were killed near Ypres alone, and almost 17 million soldiers and civilians were killed during the entire war. At the same time, the defence of Ypres symbolised the resistance of the Allies against the German invaders. Each year at the end of October the Kingdom of Belgium traditionally commemorates the first battle of Flanders which lasted from 20 October until 18 November 1914. One hundred years later, prominent political representatives, including Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel, are gathering at this highly symbolic site.
Committed to peace
In the centenary year of 2014, German politicians have been stressing the need to understand the past as a commitment to the future. In September Federal President Gauck addressed the Convention of German Historians saying: “Everything we so greatly enjoy today, peace, freedom, prosperity (…) is fragile and finite, like everything devised by human beings. It has to be defended, renewed and rewon.” And speaking in May at the German Historical Museum during the opening of the exhibition 1914-1918: The First World War, Chancellor Merkel referred to the unification of Europe as the crucial lesson from the sorrowful history of the continent. The Federal Foreign Office called for the centenary year to be used for reflecting on its own work. A series of events entitled 1914 – The Failure and the Need for Diplomacy focused on the failure of diplomacy in 1914 and its consequences for foreign policy today. The events ranged from a review of the early 20th century to a responsible foreign policy in today’s complex and highly networked world.
The Kingdom of Belgium’s Commemoration Ceremony of the 100th Anniversary of the First World War on 28 October 2014 in Ypres
www.bundesregierung.de/gedenken