Merkel Says Germany Can’t Cut Off Nazi Past, Cites Greece

Germany has a duty to deal sensitively with the Nazi era, Chancellor Angela Merkel said, citing a debate in Greece about German responsibility for the country’s occupation during World War II.

“One can’t draw the line on history,” Merkel said in her weekly podcast Saturday before the 70th anniversary of the war’s end next week. “We see this in the discussion in Greece and also in other European countries. We Germans do have a special responsibility to deal in an aware, sensitive and knowledgeable way with what we perpetrated under Nazism.”