Flanked by German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Holocaust survivor Elie
Wiesel, Obama became the first US president to visit the Buchenwald concentration
camp in central Germany.
Obama’s stops in Dresden, Buchenwald and Normandy together form a poignant two-day mission of World War II remembrance.
Dresden was controversially flattened by Allied bombing in the final months of the war, killing an estimated 35,000 people.
The city has been lovingly restored in the intervening years, and Merkel led Obama to the Baroque Church of Our Lady which was destroyed in the war and reopened in 2005 after a lavish reconstruction financed with donations from around the globe.
Obama remains extremely popular in Germany, nearly a year after he drew a rapturous crowd of 200,000 people to the streets of Berlin as a presidential candidate.
Smiling warmly, he and Merkel played down any rumours of a rift over issues ranging from the planned closing of the US anti-terror lockup at Guantanamo Bay to a recent negotiations on rescuing the European arm of General Motors.
Calling Merkel “my friend,” Obama said he had neither asked for nor received any hard commitments from the chancellor on taking Guantanamo detainees.
Although she frequently called for the camp’s closure, Merkel is leery of accepting potentially dangerous inmates four months before a national election.
Obama also praised European efforts on fighting climate change and said the United States was now willing to now willing to lead the way.
The president was due to pay a visit to wounded US troops at the Landstuhl medical centre in western Germany before heading to France later Friday.
France 24
I could just cry tears of joy from his deep compassion. My faith in goodness is restored.
