FROM WEIMAR TO THE WALL

A prosaic memoir of public life by the respected former president of the Federal Republic of Germany (1984—94). After six years of combat duty during WWII, WeizsÑcker earned a law degree in war-ravaged Germany and worked for several major corporations during the next two decades. In the 1960s he became active in the ecumenical church movement, holding responsible positions within the German Protestant Conference and on the executive committee of the World Council of Churches. He was elected as a Christian Democrat to the German parliament in the early 1970s and served admirably as the mayor of West Berlin from 1979 to 1981. Throughout his public life, his chief political concerns were world peace and reconciliation with both East Germany and Eastern Europe. His most noteworthy accomplishment was a speech in the Bundestag on May 8, 1985, calling for a truthful recognition of Germany’s Nazi past, reconciliation with former enemies, and restitution to and a plea for forgiveness from victims of Nazi brutality. This speech set the moral tone for the rest of WeizsÑcker’s presidency. He represented his nation abroad with dignity and fostered good relations with neighboring nations, most importantly the Soviet Union, which was instrumental in the achievement of German reunification in 1990. All this he relates with a certain detachment. There are few intimate revelations, and in recounting his life under Nazism, WeizsÑcker provides no details about his wartime experiences on the Eastern front, surely seminal for an understanding of his subsequent career. He defends the honor of the German army and implies that his family was sympathetic to the German Resistance against Hitler. Most disturbingly, he proclaims the innocence of his nationalistic father, Baron Ernst Freiherr von WeizsÑcker, a high-ranking Foreign Ministry official convicted of crimes against humanity at Nuremberg. Such a glaring moral blind spot, though personally understandable, renders this memoir hollow, a disappointment to the discerning reader. (16 pages b&w photos, not seen)