Angela Merkel regards the occupation of Czechoslovakia by the troops of the Warsaw Pact countries in 1968 as a sad culmination of the Soviet Union’s policy of oppression. This was stated by her spokesman, Steffen Seibert. Brave people in Czechoslovakia, according to Merkel, have contributed to a united Europe in the following years.
According to the head of the German government, the events of August 1968 have to be seen in one line with the suppression of the rebellion in the GDR in 1953 and the revolution in Hungary in 1956 or the declaration of the state of emergency in Poland in 1981.
“All these very different historical events have in common the fact that people behind the Iron Curtain did not want to reconcile with their fate having been imposed on them by the elites of the Communist parties,” says the Chancellor.
She thinks that the year 1968 brought at least the basis of the demands which were then fulfilled in 1989 when the will of the people finally broke through. In particular, it was the desire to overcome the communist regime and live in democracy and freedom.
Today, Germany as well as Europe are fortunately united according to Merkel. “And it is quite clear that brave people in the today’s Czech Republic and Slovakia have contributed to it a lot,” says the head of the German government.
