Free Republic

Berliners have been given an unprecedented public holiday on Friday, to mark the end of World War Two but also liberation from Nazi rule. Not since reunification has a German city acknowledged 8 May as a day of liberation and some Berliners are unaware of the date's significances. A street party and several events have been cancelled because of the coronavirus pandemic. The holiday is one-off and is not being held outside Berlin. But there are growing calls for a public holiday to be held across Germany.

While some frenzied protestors call Trump “illiterate,” Polish crowds were impressed at the American president’s depth of historical understanding in (last year's) speech delivered in Warsaw’s Krasinski Square. The place chosen for the speech was remarkable in itself and holds great significance for Poles. Trump chose to speak at the memorial to the Warsaw Uprising in the center of Warsaw which commemorates the battle to the death by the Polish underground, bedraggled, outnumbered, and deciding on one last stand against their Nazi oppressors in August 1944. They had little chance of winning and hoped that the Soviet promise to help...

A Nazi state has been reborn within the European Union and its "blasphemous" leaders are bent on glorifying the Third Reich and insulting Russia. There is talk of sanctions and even of internal armed resistance. That, at least, is the view from Moscow, where politicians from President Vladimir Putin on down have condemned the government in the tiny Baltic republic of Estonia. On a snow swept square outside the medieval walls of Tallinn's old town stands the cause of a row that is straining Russia's relations with its former-Soviet neighbours. The Bronze Soldier of Tallinn was erected 60 years ago....