(...)  During the coming weeks and months, people across Europe will be remembering the overthrow of the Communist dictatorships in central and eastern Europe 20 years ago. Commemorative events, conferences, exhibitions and films will recall the civil courage of the many who, with their peaceful protests, not only overcame the dictatorships, but also laid the foundations for establishing democracy and ending the partition of Europe and Germany. This partition, and more than four decades of Communist rule in central and eastern Europe, began with the Second World War. And so we remember with shame and sorrow September 1st, 70 years ago, when Nazi/National Socialist Germany invaded Poland. Eight days earlier, Germany and the Soviet Union had signed the ruinous "Hitler-Stalin Pact" dividing up the Baltic states, Poland, Finland and Romania between the two totalitarian dictatorships. The attack on Poland by Germany and the Soviet Union in September 1939 marked the beginning of an unprecedented war of conquest and extermination, in which Germany inflicted immeasurable suffering on its neighbours across the whole of Europe, above all in central and eastern Europe and especially in Poland and the Soviet Union.

After Europe and Germany had been liberated from the Nazis/National Socialism, people in all the countries of Europe were hoping for a future in freedom and democracy. But these hopes were bitterly disappointed for many. The Soviet Union enforced new dictatorial regimes in the central and eastern European countries and in part of Germany – all of which had been weakened by the War and by Nazi rule – with devastating consequences for the societies, the economy and culture, and for countless people who were persecuted as political opponents or lost their lives because they stood in the way of those in power. Thus, the Germans not only bear a heavy responsibility for the extermination of European Jews, the persecution and murder of Sinti and Roma, homosexuals, the disabled, people stigmatized as anti-social or political dissidents, and for the millions upon millions of people who were victims of the War. We are painfully aware that if Germany had not started the Second World War, there would have been neither the Communist dictatorships in central and eastern Europe, nor the partition of the continent and of Germany.

Today, in 2009, when we look back on the history of Europe and Germany in the 20th century, we are mindful of the evils of Nazism/National Socialism, and we are glad that Germany today is an equal and respected member of the European family of nations.  http://www.23august1939.de/english.php