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Document 258358
RONALD REAGAN. Press Release signed: "As
per your request-Ronald Reagan", 2p and two lines on a third sheet, 8½x14,
separate sheets. Headed: "The White House/Office of the Press
Secretary/(Bitburg Air Base, Federal Republic of Germany)/For Immediate Release
May 5, 1985/Remarks of the President/at Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp/Federal
Republic of Germany". Lightly creased. Staple holes at upper left corners.
With photocopy of excerpts of commentary regarding the speech, 1p, 8½x11.
Lightly creased at upper margin, which has staple holes at left, else fine.
President Reagan's 1985 trip to Germany began as part of a well-intentioned plan
to observe the 40th anniversary of V-E Day -- May 8, 1945, the day Hitler's
Third Reich collapsed and Europe was freed from Nazi tyranny. German Chancellor
Helmut Kohl asked Reagan to join him in appearing at a German military cemetery
to symbolize the reconciliation of their two countries, once mortal enemies and
now staunch allies. Kohl suggested the KOLMESHOHE CEMETERY at Bitburg, a
town in the Eifel hills where nearly 11,000 Americans attached to a nearby
airbase lived in harmony with the same number of Germans. Approximately 2,000
German servicemen were interred at Kolmeshohe. Reagan had originally decided not
to visit a concentration camp because he did not want to risk "reawakening the
passions of the time" or offend his hosts. What the President's advance team
failed to discover was that 49 members of the notorious Waffen SS were buried at
Kolmeshohe. Opposition to the visit grew quickly. In Congress, 53 senators, 11
of them Republicans, signed a letter urging the President to cancel the visit,
while 257 Representatives, including 84 Republicans, signed a letter asking
Chancellor Kohl to withdraw the invitation. Neither Reagan nor Kohl budged.
But before visiting Bitburg on Sunday, May 5th, Reagan and Kohl appeared at
the Bergen-Belsen death camp. The President's speech there, according to "Time"
magazine, was a "skillful exercise in both the art of eulogy and political
damage control." He quoted from the Talmud and spoke of Anne Frank, who died at
Bergen-Belsen. Two items.
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