32 years after the reunification of Germany, this world-historical event is also remembered in Hesse.
Rasdorf (dpa / lhe) - Hesse's Interior Secretary Stefan Sauer (CDU) described the Day of German Unity as a day of hope. Peace in Europe can no longer be taken for granted, Sauer explained on Sunday with a view to the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine. "We were all firmly convinced for decades that the time of war, destruction and human suffering on our continent was over. Unfortunately, we were deceived."
The Day of German Unity is therefore also a day of hope, on which solidarity and support with the people who are currently campaigning for democracy and freedom are expressed, the CDU politician emphasized at a ceremony on the Day of German Unity at Point Alpha Foundation at the "Point Alpha" memorial in Rasdorf.
At the same location, the vicar general of the Catholic diocese of Fulda, Prelate Christof Steinert, called for action for peace, freedom and the protection of Christian values at an ecumenical service on Monday. As a child of this region on the former German-German border with the relaxation after 1989, he could not have imagined that there would be war again in Europe, in Ukraine, he said according to the statement. "Was I, were we, too naive?" asked the vicar general in his homily.
Point Alpha on today's Hessian-Thuringian border was an observation post for the US armed forces. From July 1946, US soldiers in such posts took over the surveillance of the border to the Soviet occupation zone. The former barracks in the camp now serve as presentation areas.
In the Paulskirche in Frankfurt, where Germany's first democratic parliament met with the National Assembly in 1848/49, city treasurer Bastian Bergerhoff emphasized on Monday according to a statement: "We should be grateful for the historical stroke of luck that made German reunification possible without war , and without whom we could not celebrate German Unity Day today - in peace and in freedom." Bergerhoff drew a parallel between the goals of the Paulskirchen Parliament of 1848/49 and the peaceful revolution in the GDR of 1989: "Here and today, the place and the event are closely related." The city of Frankfurt wants to celebrate the 175th anniversary of the Paulskirche Parliament in 2023 with a big program.
