Weizsaecker challenged the country’s attitudes about the Holocaust by arguing that the country had been liberated by the Nazi defeat in 1945. His death was announced by incumbent President Joachim Gauck’s office on Saturday.
During his 10 years in the office, Weizsaecker did not shy away from thorny political debates such as on integration, and won recognition and respect at home and abroad.
He presided over the reunification of East and West Germany in 1990, 11 months after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Weizsaecker was most remembered for a landmark speech in May 1985 marking the 40th anniversary of the end of the second World War in which he urged Germans to come to terms with responsibility for the Holocaust, stirring controversy by saying Germany had been liberated by the Third Reich’s downfall.
“All of us, whether guilty or not, whether young or old, must accept the past. We are all affected by its consequences and liable for it. Anyone who closes his eyes to the past is blind to the present. The 8th of May was a day of liberation. It freed us all from the system of National Socialist tyranny.”
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