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''We who were enemies are now friends,'' Mr. Reagan told about 5,000 American military personnel, their families and local German residents at the Bitburg Air Base, less than one mile from the military cemetery.
''We who were bitter adversaries are now the strongest of allies,'' Mr. Reagan said. ''In the place of fear we have sown trust, and out of the ruins of war has blossomed an enduring peace.''
Jewish demonstrators from the United States, France, Britain, West Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Israel and other countries protested the President's visit to Bergen-Belsen as well as the stop at Bitburg. They were joined by groups of veterans and politicians, many of them weeping.
Rabbis Refuse to Attend
Although Roman Catholic and Protestant clergymen took part in the ceremonies at the Bergen-Belsen site, German rabbis refused to attend because of the Bitburg visit.
The Israeli Ambassador to West Germany, Yitzhak Ben-Ari, came to the Bergen-Belsen ceremony - despite anguish, he said, about Mr. Reagan's visit to Bitburg. ''I believe the new Germany can be trusted,'' he said.
White House aides have acknowledged that the Bitburg visit is probably the biggest fiasco of Mr. Reagan's Presidency. The visit, which was made at the insistence of Mr. Kohl, was overwhelmingly opposed by both houses of Congress, Jewish organizations, veterans' groups and others.
Up to the last moment, White House officials sought to minimize the effect of the visit. As Mr. Reagan left Bonn this morning for Bergen-Belsen, officials disclosed that the President and Mr. Kohl would be joined at Bitburg by two prominent retired American and German military officers.
The two were Gen. Matthew B. Ridgway, 90 years old, who led the 82d Airborne Division in Europe and later fought in the Battle of the Bulge, and Lieut. Gen. Johannes Steinhoff, 71, a World War II flying ace who later rose to the highest ranks of the West German Air Force. After the brief ceremony at the military cemetery, the two men shook hands.
Visit to Adenauer's Grave
Mr. Reagan, starting an official visit to West Germany after the end of the seven-nation economic summit conference in Bonn on Saturday, began his day with an unscheduled drive in the hills overlooking the Rhine to place a wreath at the grave of Konrad Adenauer, West Germany's first Chancellor. White House officials said the idea for the visit had come from Billy Graham, the evangelist.
Mr. Reagan and Mr. Kohl then flew aboard Air Force One to Hanover and traveled 15 minutes by helicopter to the gate of Bergen-Belsen. Before coming to West Germany, Mr. Reagan initially decided against a visit to a concentration camp site, then reversed the decision amid the furor over his plans to visit the Bitburg cemetery.
Under gray skies and in a light drizzle, Mr. Reagan entered the camp site with his wife, Nancy, as well as leading aides and the United States Ambassador to Bonn, Arthur F. Burns. Mr. Kohl was accompanied by his wife, Hannelore.
The site is an open area with mounds that contain the mass graves of the camp's victims.
Outside, a handful of demonstrators echoed the words voiced by Elie Wiesel, the writer and Holocaust survivor, at the White House two weeks ago. The demonstrators, referring to Bitburg, cried: ''You don't belong there. Come back, please, Mr. President. We don't want you to go in there.''
Asked about the demonstrators, Mr. Reagan shrugged and said, ''It's a free country.''
Exhibits of Camp Viewed
The Premier of Lower Saxony, Ernst Albrecht, escorted the Reagans, the Kohls and their entourage into a document center with photographs and exhibits of the camp, where Jewish, Gypsy, Polish, Russian, French and Dutch inmates died of torture, starvation and disease.
As the Reagans paused in front of a photograph of stacks of bodies found by the British, who liberated the camp in April 1945, Mr. Reagan put his arm around his wife.
Members of Mr. Reagan's staff looked grim during the visit. Robert C. McFarlane, the national security adviser, walked alone, staring at the ground.
Mr. Reagan, standing before the obelisk, his voice low and drained, recounted the story of Anne Frank, the Dutch girl whose moving diary tells of hiding from the Nazis with her family in Amsterdam. She died in Bergen-Belsen at the age of 15.
''Somewhere here lies Anne Frank,'' Mr. Reagan said. ''Everywhere here are memories - pulling us, touching us, making us understand that they can never be erased.'' Mrs. Reagan, seated with 300 other guests, dabbed her eyes.
''Rising above all this cruelty,'' Mr. Reagan went on, ''out of this tragic and nightmarish time, beyond the anguish, the pain and the suffering for all time, we can and must pledge: Never again.''
Mr. Reagan placed a wreath of green ferns near an obelisk at the site. A ribbon on the wreath read, ''The People of the United States of America.''
Mr. Reagan and Mr. Kohl traveled by limousine to the military cemetery, in the town's western suburbs, where they were met by an American and West German honor guard.
As the two leaders walked slowly past the graves, West German Army musicians played a somber drum roll.
Mr. Reagan and Mr. Kohl briefly arranged two large circular wreaths at the foot of the memorial tower before standing to attention.
For several moments silence fell across the cemetery, except for the click of cameras. A trumpeter played a melancholy German soldiers' song, ''I Had a Comrade.'' The song mourns fallen soldiers.
Mr. Reagan stood a few feet from two graves with SS markings.
At the cemetery, Mr. Reagan met families of wartime German resistance leaders. As he left, the President also spoke to General Ridgway.
''Our visit to the soldiers' graves here in Bitburg was not an easy one,'' Mr. Kohl said later in a speech at the air base before a crowd of Americans and Germans. ''I thank you, Mr. President, both on behalf of the whole German people, and I thank you very personally as a friend, for visiting the graves with me.''
Mr. Reagan, in his address, said: ''I have just come from the cemetery where German war dead lay at rest. No one could visit here without deep and conflicting emotions.''
He added: ''The evil world of Nazism turned all values upside down. Nevertheless, we can mourn the German war dead today as human beings, crushed by a vicious ideology.''
I wouldn't mourn those dead. Really.
Why did Ronald Reagan lay a wreath on the graves of the Waffen SS in Germany?
And why did he defend it by stating that the Nazi's were also victims?
Did the "Greatest Republican" Reagan really hold Nazi ideals?
Is this what the Republicans have really stood for all these years?
Did the "Greatest Republican" Reagan really hold Nazi ideals?
Is this what the Republicans have really stood for all these years?
Additional Details
2 years ago
2 years ago
Best Answer - Chosen by Asker
The fact that he was the "greatest republican" does not change the fact that he was one of the "worst Americans"
Any limitation on peaceful public protest is a violation of all of our rights, no matter how much you might disagree with the protestors.
2 years ago
2 years ago
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