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Address by Dr. Antje Vollmer former Vice-President of the German Bundestag at the official memorial ceremony for Dr. Richard von Weizsäcker, former President of the Federal Republic of Germany, Berlin, 11 February 2015 Mr President, Excellencies, Ladies and gentlemen, members of the Weizsäcker family, On the last day of January, as the news began to spread that Richard von Weizsäcker had died, for a moment the world came to a stop. It seemed as though the old Federal Republic of Germany had passed away – or part of the old Europe. If it were still possible, Vaclav Havel would be standing here today and describing what kind of a person Richard von Weizsäcker was. The two men shared the kind of friendship that is extremely rare among politicians. Each was for the other a model, mentor, motivator in a relationship of almost tender admiration and the highest respect. The difference in their ages made no difference. Havel’s principle of “living within the truth” was translated by Weizsäcker thus: “We must find the standards alone ... We need the power and we have the power to look the truth in the eye as best we can, the whole, unvarnished truth.” All their lives, they both worked to heal the split dividing the European continent and their own people. They wrote to each other already before the Velvet Revolution. After only three months in office, the president of Czechoslovakia invited the German Federal President to Prague for a state visit, on a date with great symbolic significance: the 15th of March, the anniversary of Nazi Germany’s violent subjugation in 1939 of what was left of Czechoslovakia. Fifty-one years after the humiliation of Hitler occupying the Hradčany district, Weizsäcker, the people’s president, walked up the hill to Prague Castle, to Havel, the people’s president, a guest going to visit a friend. That was not only a policy of European reconciliation; it also healed a personal wound. 1 Weizsäcker’s speech on May 8, 1985, had an impact like that of Willy Brandt falling to his knees in Warsaw. Both politicians took away the fear of the Germans felt by our traumatized European neighbours, and they enabled us younger Germans to return hesitantly to our own country where we had lived like strangers. It was like a thaw. It once again pays to invest trust. What was the secret of this speech? It was not sentimental, not didactic. It was mostly short, simple sentences. For weeks, Richard von Weizsäcker had invited all sorts of people – ambassadors of neighbouring countries, politicians of every party, young people and old, expellees and participants in the youth protests of 1968 – to ask “What does the 8th of May mean to you?” That was when I met him. He was a different kind of politician. He wasn’t constantly broadcasting a message; he listened. The politician Richard von Weizsäcker was an extremely intense listener who was truly interested in people, who never prejudged them. That is how he was able to find that magic place where everyone was able to face the leaden weight of the past and yet move towards a European future of free people on a continent both inwardly and outwardly free. Four years later, on that happy June evening when Mikhail Gorbachev was visiting Bonn and the realization had begun to dawn that the Cold War was ending, Willy Brandt and Richard von Weizsäcker stood aside each other for a while, apart from the rest. Humble phrases were expressed, such as “One did what one could,” and “We did manage to accomplish something in our lives,” but to me they looked like two people who were utterly free. Politicians like them no longer exist today. They lived through dark times and yet were able to combine their melancholy occasionally with an almost Mozart-like cheerfulness of being. Starting in 1996, the Mittwochsgesellschaft (Wednesday Society), a circle of friends, met nearly every month to reflect on the reunification of the Republic and possibly the entire continent. It was Marion Dönhoff’s idea, and Richard von Weizsäcker was 2 always the host. Important statesmen, artists and intellectuals came as guests; everyone spoke openly and sometimes argued, but the discussions always remained confidential. Each meeting began with an expression of gratitude that our busy guest had taken the time to come to us. At the end, Richard von Weizsäcker summed up, in his incomparable way, what we had heard: the precise essence of what had been said, yet somehow transformed. He never hesitated to seek the truth where it hurt the most, where the wound is most painful. It is no coincidence that, during his lifetime, the last invited guest was the Russian Ambassador Vladimir Grinin. For the only time in nearly 20 years, his chair remained empty, because he was exhausted. Now it is up to us to find an answer to the essential question of Europe’s future. On July 20, 2014, as he did every year, he was one of the first to take his seat at the Bendler Block, alone under the glaring sun. He never missed this occasion or the wreath-laying at the memorial stone for Henning von Tresckow. He knew so many of the victims personally: Stauffenberg, Schulenburg, Olbricht, Kleist, Klausing. It was difficult for him to talk about them and those days. His father, the diplomat, had wanted in 1938 to prevent the war but failed. His brother Heinrich was killed on the second day of the war, only a few hundred metres away from him. His closest friend, Axel von dem Bussche, had agreed to assassinate Hitler, but was prevented from doing so by one of those incredible coincidences. Millions of people in the camps and at the front could have been saved. Weizsäcker’s political beliefs were rooted in thinking about this failure and what could be learned from it. I sometimes felt that his dead friends accompanied him his whole life – and he listened to them. We bow before our friend who showed us what an authentic and cosmopolitan life one can lead despite everything, even as a German. We bow before the grief of his children Robert, Beatrice and Fritz, and before the great love of his life, Marianne. They met after the war and after the strenuous effort of defending his father was over and remained devoted to each other for more than 64 years. Only once, when he was leaving office as federal president, did he say in public that she still had that cheeky, cheery smile that had first captured his heart and was still his greatest joy. Our whole country is grateful for his life and service. Thank you, dear Richard von Weizsäcker! 3 .

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