2023-04-16 16:08:53
“Germany is sending an important signal with this”
The wreath-laying ceremony at Arlington Cemetery, with the Hamburg delegation in the background
Source: Joern Lauterbach
On the first day of his trip as President of the Federal Council to several US cities, Hamburg Mayor Peter Tschentscher visits the Arlington Cemetery and memorials in the heart of Washington – and encounters two special graves.
En a gently rolling hilly landscape, thousands of white stone blocks with inscriptions on the grass that commemorate the lives of the people buried here – many of them soldiers from several wars: this is Arlington National Cemetery, the second largest in the USA. Even those who have never been here know this place in the state of Virginia on the border with Washington DC, separated from the US capital only by the Potomac River. For high-ranking state guests, this is an important place in terms of protocol, especially for those from Germany, as there are also many fallen soldiers of the American armed forces who lost their lives during the liberation of Germany from the Nazi dictatorship in World War II.
Hamburg Mayor Peter Tschentscher (SPD) is one such state guest that day, following all he is traveling through the USA this week in his temporary side function as President of the Federal Council, Washington is on the program for the first three days, and this Sunday morning he is leading the way the way up here to the wreath laying at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. The changing of the guard before the formal act is carried out with great precision by the US regiment deployed there. The soldiers always take 21 steps, then present their rifle, wait another 21 seconds and then turn around.
The military message of the Federal President
For Tschentscher, this cemetery, with its around 400,000 graves, is a reminder of how many soldiers lose their lives in wars – also to fight once morest oppression and oppression, as in the Ukraine. “Here in Arlington, we see the terrible consequences of war in an impressive way,” says Tschentscher. Nevertheless, it is “an important sign” that Germany significantly increased its defense budget last year and is thus coming much closer to the agreed two percent target for government spending – measured in terms of the overall budget. He also had this message with him on this US trip, following all this step would not have been possible without the consent of the federal states in the Bundesrat.
Am Grab von Anton Hilberath
During a tour of the cemetery, Tschentscher and his delegation of business representatives and scientists, who will have appointments tailored to them in San Francisco and Los Angeles in the coming days, will stop at two special graves. One of the white blocks commemorates Anton Hilberath, one of only 830 German soldiers buried in US cemeteries. Hilberath had been taken prisoner as a sergeant and taken to the USA, where he died in 1946 and was buried in the nearest military cemetery in accordance with the Geneva Conventions.
Visit to the only grave in Arlington Cemetery where Anton Hilberath, a German Wehrmacht soldier, was buried
Source: Joern Lauterbach
Much better known is the fate of John F. Kennedy, the former US President found his last resting place with his three brothers in a large grave under stone slabs in the Arlington area. An eternal flame blazes above the simple cast plate. A special moment for Tschentscher, for him the most well-known president in the history of the United States embodies those “ideals that make up the forward-looking and optimistic spirit of this country.”
Back in Washington, too, the consequences of the wars are omnipresent; they are addressed at various locations in the capital, including at the memorial for World War II, located between the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument. When Tschentscher appears here, a big band is playing at the watercourse that belongs to the monument, many people are spending their Sunday off here.
Hamburg Mayor Peter Tschentscher (SPD) in front of the World War II memorial on the Washington Mall
Source: Joern Lauterbach
And the doctor, who studied medicine, is also implementing a rather private idea on this Sunday followingnoon, which is on his mind on many of his trips abroad – he visited a hospital in Washington to talk to leading doctors regarding the processes in the hospital, but also regarding health care in the USA to talk and collect their experiences. After all, says Tschentscher, hospital financing is also being reorganized in Germany – the procedures and attitudes in other countries are important to him in such a process.
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