DISCLAIMER
This article talks about events that would occur four years later in TimeGhost Time, so consider this a massive spoiler. Pictures will be posted in a few hours.Thought to share something I personally remember 25 years later…
Reading Eagle (May 8, 1995)
80 NATIONS AT PARIS V-E DAY RITES
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Mitterand leads ceremonies joined by leaders of victorious and defeated nations 50 years after the end of the war in Europe
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Paris (AP) –
In his last starring role on the world stage, President François Mitterrand played host to the leaders of nearly 80 nations today at ceremonies marking the end of a war that tore France in two.
Mitterand, who served in the collaborationist Vichy government before joining the French Resistance in World War II, was accompanied by President-elect Jacques Chirac at the commemorations of the 50th anniversary of the Nazis’ surrender. Chirac, a conservative, won Sunday’s presidential runoff.
They were joined by leaders of the war’s victorious and defeated nations at the Arc de Triomphe, where Nazi soldiers goose-stepped daily during their occupation of Paris.
A huge area of central Paris was cordoned off today by police, and more than 5,000 security force members were deployed. Mitterand arrived in a limousine escorted by scores of helmeted cavalrymen.
Most of the dignitaries, including Vice President Al Gore, Chancellor Helmut Kohl of Germany and Prime Minister John Major of Britain, came to Paris after attending a ceremony of reconciliation Sunday in London.
Mitterand led the government leaders across a broad plaza to the Arc de Triomphe, and they stood silently behind him as he paid homage at the tomb of France’s unknown soldier.
On the podium, Mitterand and Chirac stood side-by-side during a rousing rendition of “La Marseillaise” by a military chorus, then watched a parade by 2,500 soldiers, from youthful navy cadets to bearded Foreign Legionnaires.
About 10,000 guests, including many World War II veterans, also watched the parade, which concluded with a flyover by jets sending streams of red, white and blue smoke over the Champs-Élysées.
The world leaders then rode to the Élysée Palace for a state luncheon featuring lobster, pullet with foie gras, a pear-and-almond dessert, and three of the presidential wine cellar’s finest vintages. Most of the dignitaries departed after lunch for Berlin for further ceremonies tonight.
The guests included Britain’s Prince Philip, King Juan Carlos of Spain, Prime Ministers Jean Chrétien of Canada and Viktor Chernomyrdin of Russia, and Presidents Oscar Luigi Scalfaro of Italy and Franjo Tuđman of Croatia.
President Lê Đức Anh of Vietnam also attended, the first leader of that Communist nation to visit France, his country’s former colonial ruler.
Many heads of state were from former French colonies in Africa, which provided troops for the Free French forces commanded by war hero Gen. Charles de Gaulle.
Mitterand, 78 and ailing with prostate cancer, began World War II as a soldier who was taken prisoner, and ended it as an important member of the Resistance. But in between, he – like tens of thousands of other French people – supported and worked for the pro-Nazi collaborationist regime of Philippe Pétain.
Disclosures by a biographer last year showed the outgoing president had performed so well as a Vichy bureaucrat that he received a decoration from Pétain.
Elsewhere:
In Moscow, President Boris Yeltsin laid flowers at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier today and soldiers marched crisply past as Russia began two days of huge celebrations commemorating victory in World War II.
Yeltsin said in a message sent to Russian troops and released to the ITAR-TASS news agency:
The courage and heroism, military fellowship and high skill demonstrated by the Red Army soldiers in battles, defending their homeland, will stay a model for all Russian warriors forever.
In Jerusalem, hundreds of Soviet Red Army veterans, their chests covered by medals, marched along palm tree-lined streets today to mark the Nazi surrender. Many veterans had come to Israel during the past six years.
Sunday’s ceremony in London began with the soaring bugle blasts of Aaron Copland’s “Fanfare for the Common Man,” written by the Jewish-American composer in 1942 as a rebuff to Nazi racist ideology.
Prince Charles, appearing with his estranged wife Princess Diana, watched children lead politicians to flagpoles in Hyde Park to sign olive leaves as symbols of peace.
Earlier, the leaders joined in thanksgiving and prayers for reconciliation at St. Paul’s Cathedral, which still bears scars of the combat. The royal family, led by Queen Elizabeth II, attended the service.
Kohl had traveled Sunday night from London to Berlin for the dedication of a Jewish community center and permanent exhibit in Berlin’s partially reconstructed, golden-domed New Synagogue.
Arsonists, meanwhile, set fire early Sunday to the storeroom of another synagogue in the northern city of Lübeck.
Over the weekend, street fights between neo-Nazis and young leftists occurred in Munich and in the eastern town of Neuhaus, where police said a 21-year old right-winger was killed Saturday.