Proud of Germany

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These are the days of the speeches reflecting on the past and looking towards the future as the 60th year anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe is commemorated.

Today, the President of Germant Horst Köhler addressed a special session of the German Parliament in Berlin. It's a wideranging speech well worth reading, although there is still no English version available on the net.

Obviously, much of the speech deals with what he calls the "moral ruin" of Germany between 1933 and 1945 and the sufferings those years brought to the peoples of Europe, the German one certainly not excluded.

But he ends by looking forward and says that the present generation has reasons to be proud of Germany in the view of its achievement of building a stable democracy and a land governed by the rule of the law as well as achieving reconciliation with its neighbours.