Germany’s Wadephul expresses ‘horror and shame’ at Holocaust memorial

Germany’s new Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul on Sunday expressed his “horror and shame” for the country’s responsibility for the Holocaust, as he visited the Yad Vashem memorial in Jerusalem.

Wadephul, who took office this week, said Germany has a responsibility “to remember the victims,” to “honour the survivors” and to learn the lessons from the crimes of the Holocaust.

He laid a wreath in the Hall of Remembrance to commemorate the 6 million Jews killed by the Nazi regime in Germany.

“With horror and shame, I stand here as German foreign minister,” Wadephul said. “This place reminds us Germans again and again that the monstrosity of the Shoah was ordered in German, planned by Germans and carried out by Germans.”

Following the visit, Wadephul was due to hold talks with Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.