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Around 300 guests attended on Friday evening (01.11.19) at the Chapel of the Holy Spirit of the Humboldt University in Berlin to attend the awarding of the cultural prize of the Association of German-Hellenic Societies (VDGG) to former President of the Republic Karolos Papoulias.
The Ring of Honour is awarded every two years to personalities and institutions that have made a significant contribution to the strengthening of Greek-German relations. Two years ago, the award was presented to the Greek broadcast of Deutsche Welle. In explaining this year's selection, VDGG President Sigrid Scarpelli-Sperk said that "Karolos Papoulias is a blessing for Greek-German relations", as he contributed in an exemplary way to the understanding between the two peoples.
Because he was unable to come to Berlin due to illness, his daughter Anna Papoulias received the award, who also read out her father's greeting. In it, the now 90-year-old former president refers to the experiential relationship he has with Germany. At the age of 14 he took part in the Resistance against the German occupation forces, and from the early 1960s until the fall of the Junta he lived in Germany.
At the University of Cologne he did his dissertation in law, worked at the same time on the Greek broadcast of Deutsche Welle and participated actively in the anti-dictatorship struggle, which was supported in many ways by German parties, student organisations and trade unions. He returned to Greece after the post-war period, co-founded PASOK, served for almost 12 years as Foreign Minister and for two terms, until 2015, as President of the Republic.
His tenure in this office coincided with the Greek debt crisis, during which Greek-German relations were severely tested. During this period, as throughout his political career, Karolos Papoulias made efforts and took initiatives to develop and improve Greek-German relations. An additional reason for this interest is that his three daughters and grandchildren live in Germany. As he says in his address: "I came here as a student and when I left Greece I left a part of myself here".
The "miracle of reconciliation"
Karolos Papoulias as an emblematic figure of the volatile Greek-German relations from the Occupation to the present day was the leitmotif of numerous speeches at the event, especially by former German President Joachim Gauck, who was the keynote speaker. Calling Papoulias a Greek, a European, a resistance fighter and a friend of democracy, G. Gouak called him a Greek, a European, a resistance fighter and a friend of democracy. Gauss referred extensively to his 2014 visit to Ligiades. This is a village north of Ioannina, where German troops in 1943 killed and burned 82 infants, women and old men.
While thanking Mr Papoulias for accompanying him on this visit, at a time when Greek-German relations were tense, he recalled the words addressed to him by Mr Papoulias. "I am deeply grateful to you for the fact that we can stand together, even in the face of the difficult part of our common past. It is for me one of the great miracles that result from reconciliation. For this reconciliation you have made efforts. After all, you yourself personify it. As a young man you fought the German occupier, you suffered yourself, your family, your friends and your comrades. You lost people close to you and yet you extended a hand of friendship to the Germans and to me personally as a representative of my country. You proved that reconciliation can exist even after incredible pain."
After the visit to Ligiades, the two presidents had visited the synagogue in Ioannina, where Joachim Gauck met Jewish survivors of Auschwitz. We had the opportunity during that part of the visit to ask the former Greek president about the importance he attached to his German counterpart's visit to Ligiades, where he had asked the relatives of the victims and the Greek people for "forgiveness" (Verzeihung) for the crimes committed during the German occupation. With his own sense of the historicity of the moment, Papoulias replied that "this is our Warsaw". That is, he likened Joachim Gauck's attitude to Chancellor Willy Brandt's kneeling in 1970 at the memorial to the Jewish victims of the Polish capital's ghetto during the German occupation.
The guests
Mr. Gauck was not the only German speaker who confided from the podium that he had learned ancient Greek at school. Similar revelations were made in their welcoming remarks by the Finance Minister of the Berlin state government, Mathias Kolats, as well as the State Secretary for Family, Women and Youth of the federal government, Julianne Seifert. If one takes into account the university professors, archaeologists and many others who also had this opportunity, then a considerable number of Germans who at least know ancient Greek must have gathered in the hall.
Present at the event were, among others, the German Liberal MP Grigoris Angelides, the Director General of Deutsche Welle Peter Limburg as well as old colleagues of the Greek broadcast, the Greek Ambassador Theodoros Daskarolis, the former President of the German Archaeological Institute DAI Hans Joachim Görke. The musical program of the evening was covered by the Greek-German choir "Polyphonia" with Plakiotika Songs, Theodorakis, Hadjidakis, Leontis.
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