 Ladies and gentlemen, will you please rise for the national anthems of the United States of America and the Federal Republic of Germany? It does not happen often that otherwise the historical extension of the past in the present and in the future of our country has reached as impressively as in these hours here in Bitburg. The President of the United States of America, our friend Ronald Reagan and I have been there a few minutes ago on the soldier cemetery. There are dead people there. And with you, all victims of the war and the violence of the dead and the persecuted nation, the march with President Reagan over the soldier graves of Bitburg was not an easy course. He had to and had to call for deep experiences with many. For me, he means first and foremost sadness and oppression over the infinite suffering the war and totalitarian regime over the peoples brought. Sadness and oppression that will never pass. But from you, the obligation to peace for us as the top goal of our political action and this march to the graves of Bitburg also means a confirmation and a widely visible and informed guest of the exhibition between our peoples. The people of the United States and our Germans. An exhibition that does not consume the past but it overcomes it with each other. And finally our here to be the confirmation of a friendship that has become firm and reliable and that is founded on knowledge and common values. I thank you, Mr. President, for the whole German people and I thank you personally as a friend that you did this march with me together. I believe that many in our German people understand this expressive friendship and that it will grow for our peoples a good future for us. The city of Bitburg was a special witness of the progress of the Third Reich. It was the year 45th of July and it found its way into reconstruction in the years of the dissolution. Here in Bitburg there are 25 years of shared memory in which American, French and German soldiers and the citizens of this city and region remember the victims of the war and their friendship and their will together to enter the context of peace again and again. Here in particular in these years there are fears, friendly relations between the American strikers and our peoples. Bitburg can be considered a symbol of the expulsion of the German-American friendship. Soldiers of the Bundeswehr most of them were born after the 8th of May 1945. They did not know war and forcedness in our country anymore. They grew up in the time of building our republic. In the time in which the friendship between us and the American people revived and developed. They have our American friends as helpers, as partners and as allies. Day by day again, they are suitable especially the young generation of our people to remember that this for us so happy development is not self-evident or that the erhalten of peace in freedom requires our very personal commitment. They, the soldiers of the American strikers in the Bundesrepublik Deutschland serve their country the United States of America and our republic equally. The security of the Bundesrepublik Deutschland is the fear with the partnership with the friendship with the United States of America. We know what we thank you and also your families. We also know that for many of you the service means sacrifice. Be sure that you are in our country in the Bundesrepublik Deutschland happy to see you here and let yourself be invited by an insignificant minority of others. You are welcome from the heart as friends as allies as guarantors of our security. The relations between the American strikers and the Bundeswehr have grown over many years and never before. I would like to thank you the Americans and the German soldiers for this almost self-evident partnership for us. It strengthens our common will to defend and peace and freedom of our countries and this partnership as I just mentioned in Bitburg is a source of the opposite understanding of our people a source and a foundation for many personal friendships. I wish you the soldiers of the American strikers I wish our soldiers of the Bundeswehr I wish all of us together our contribution to peace and freedom of our country to peace in the world and may God bless us. Thank you very much I have just come from the cemetery where German war dead lay at rest no one could visit there without deep and conflicting emotions I felt great sadness that history could be filled with such waste, destruction and evil but my heart was also lifted by the knowledge that from the ashes has come hope and that from the terrors of the past we have built 40 years of peace, freedom and reconciliation among our nations the visit has stirred many emotions in the American and German people too I have received many letters since first deciding to come to Bittberg Cemetery some supportive others deeply concerned and questioning and others opposed some old wounds have been reopened and this I regret very much because this should be a time of healing to the veterans and families American servicemen who still carry the scars and feel the painful losses of that war our gesture of reconciliation with the German people today in no way minimizes our love and honor for those who fought and died for our country they gave their lives to rescue freedom in its darkest hour the alliance of democratic nations that guards the freedom of millions in Europe and America today stands as living testimony that their noble sacrifice was not in vain no their sacrifice was not in vain I have to tell you that nothing will ever fill me with greater hope than the sight of two former war heroes who met today at the Bittberg Ceremony each among the bravest of the brave each an enemy of the other 40 years ago each a witness to the horrors of war but today they came together American and German General Matthew B. Ridgway and General Johannes Steinhoff reconciled and united for freedom they reached over the graves to one another like brothers and grasped their hands in peace to the survivors of the holocaust your terrible suffering has made you ever vigilant against evil many of you were worried that reconciliation means forgetting well I promise you we will never forget I have just come this morning from Bergen-Belsen where the horror of that terrible crime the holocaust was forever burned upon my memory no we will never forget and we say with the victims of that holocaust never again the war against one man's totalitarian dictatorship was not like other wars the evil war of Nazism turned all values upside down nevertheless we can mourn the German war dead today as human beings crushed by a vicious ideology there are over 2,000 buried in Bittberg Cemetery among them are 48 members of the SS the crimes of the SS must rank in history but others buried there were simply soldiers in the German army how many were fanatical followers of a dictator and willfully carried out his cruel orders and how many were conscripts forced into service during the death throes of the Nazi war machine we do not know many however we know from the dates on their tombstones were only teenagers at the time there is one boy buried there who died a week before his 16th birthday there were thousands of such soldiers to whom Nazism meant no more than a brutal end to a short life we do not believe in collective guilt only God can look into the human heart and all these men have now met their supreme judge and they have been judged by him as we shall all be judged our duty today is to mourn the human wreckage of totalitarianism and today in bitburg cemetery we commemorated the potential good and humanity that was consumed back then 40 years ago perhaps if that 15 year old soldier had lived he would have joined his fellow countrymen in building this new democratic federal republic of Germany devoted a human dignity and the defense of freedom that we celebrate today or perhaps his children or his grandchildren might be among you here today at the bitburg air base where new generations of Germans and Americans joined together in friendship and common cause dedicating their lives to preserving peace and guarding the security of the free world too often in the past each war only planted the seeds of the next we celebrate today the reconciliation between our two nations that has liberated us from that cycle of destruction look at what together we've accomplished we who were enemies are now friends we who were bitter adversaries are now the strongest of allies in the place of fear we've sown trust and out of the ruins of war peace tens of thousands of Americans have served in this town over the years as the mayor of bitburg has said in that time there have been some 6,000 marriages between Germans and Americans and many thousands of children have come from these unions this is the real symbol of our future together a future to be filled with hope, friendship and freedom we now could sometimes even be glimpsed in the darkest days of the war I'm thinking of one special story that of a mother and her young son living alone in a modest cottage in the middle of the woods and one night as the battle of the bulge exploded not far away and around them three young American soldiers arrived at their door they were standing there in the snow lost behind enemy lines all were frostbitten one was badly wounded even though sheltering the enemy was punishable by death she took them in and made them a supper with some of her last food and then they heard another knock at the door and this time four German soldiers stood there the woman was afraid but she quickly said with a firm voice there would be no shooting here she made all the soldiers lay down their weapons and they all joined in the makeshift meal Heinz and Willi it turned out were only 16 the corporal was the oldest at 23 their natural suspicion dissolved in the warmth and the comfort of the cottage one of the Germans a former medical student tended the wounded American but now listen to the rest of the story through the eyes of one who was there now a grown man but that young lad that had been her son he said the mother said grace I noticed that there were tears in her eyes of war surely we allies in peacetime should honor the reconciliation of the last 40 years to the people of Bittberg our hosts and the hosts of our servicemen like that generous woman 40 years ago you make us feel very welcome veal and dunk and to the men and women of Bittberg air base I just want to say that we know that even with such wonderful hosts your job is not an easy one you serve around the clock far from home always ready to defend freedom we're grateful and we're very proud of you four decades ago we waged a great war to lift the darkness of evil from the world to let men and women in this country and in every country live in the sunshine of liberty our victory was great and the federal republic, Italy and Japan are now in the community of free nations but the struggle for freedom is not complete for today much of the world is still cast in totalitarian darkness 22 years ago President John F. Kennedy went to the Berlin Wall and proclaimed that he too was a Berliner but today freedom loving people around the world must say I am a Berliner I am a Jew in a world still threatened by anti-Semitism I am an Afghan and I am a prisoner of the Gulag I am a refugee in a crowded boat foundering off the coast of Vietnam I am a Laotian a Cambodian a Cuban and a Mosquito Indian in Nicaragua I too am a potential victim of totalitarianism the one lesson of World War II the one lesson of Nazism is that freedom must always be stronger than totalitarianism and that good must always be stronger than evil the moral measure of our two nations will be found in the resolve we show to preserve liberty to protect life and to honor and cherish all God's children that is why the free Democratic Federal Republic of Germany is such a profound and hopeful testament to the human spirit we cannot undo the crimes and wars of yesterday nor call back the millions back to life but we can give meaning to the past by learning its lessons and making a better future we can let our pain drive us to greater efforts to heal humanity's suffering today I've traveled 220 miles from Bergen-Belsen and I feel 40 years in time with the lessons of the past firmly in our minds we've turned a new brighter page in history one of the many who wrote me about this visit was a woman who had recently been bat mitzvahd she urged me to lay the wreath at bitburg cemetery in honor of the future of germany and that is what we've done on this 40th anniversary of world war two we mark the day when the hate the evil and the obscenities ended and we commemorate the rekindling of the democratic spirit in germany there's much to make us hopeful on this historic anniversary one of the symbols of that hate or that could have been that hope a little while ago when we heard a german band playing the american national anthem and an american band playing the german national anthem while much of the world still huddles in the darkness of oppression we can see a new dawn of freedom sweeping the globe and we can see in the new democracies in europe and america in the new economic freedoms and prosperity in asia in the slow movement toward peace in the middle east and in the strengthening alliance of democratic nations in europe and america that the light from that dawn is growing stronger together let us gather in that light and walk out of the shadow let us live in peace thank you see you all