The State Visit Continues

Tuesday morning, His Majesty The King laid a wreath at Neue Wache. This building was erected 1816-1818, and served from an early stage as a monument to those who fell during the Napoleonic Wars. It was destroyed during WWII, but was thereafter rebuilt as a memorial to the victims of fascism and militarism. In 1969, an unknown soldier and an unknown concentration camp prisoner were buried here, surrounded by soil from battlefields and concentration camps. In 1993, Neue Wache was designated as Germany’s central memorial to the victims of war and tyranny.

Jüdiches Museum

Following the wreath-laying ceremony, The King and Queen visited Jüdisches Museum. The museum is one of Berlin’s most popular, and is described as a journey through two thousand years of German-Jewish life. Three axes, the axis of Continuity, the axis of Emigration and the axis of the Holocaust, are used to describe key events in Jewish history.

The Rafael Roth Learning Center provides visitors with an interactive history experience. The current exhibition tells the story of the immigration of Jews from Eastern Europe to Germany toward the end of the German empire.

The Willy Brandt Award

The King and Queen attended the ceremony at which Egon Bahr and Thorvald Stoltenberg were presented with the Willy Brandt Award. The award is granted to persons or institutions that have made an outstanding contribution to the establishment of good ties between Norway and Germany. Recipients are given a statuette of Willy Brandt designed by Norwegian sculptor Nils Aas and a diploma.

In its remarks on the bestowal of the award, the jury states that:
“Through their cooperation, the two recipients have made important contributions within the fields of security policy, European policy and several other areas. Egon Bahr and Thorvald Stoltenberg were among the initiators of the Willy Brandt Foundation. The strengthening of Norwegian-German cooperation resulting from the work of the foundation may therefore to a large extent be credited to the recipients.

The evening programme

Later Tuesday, His Majesty The King visited the Nordic embassies where the exhibitions “Detour” and “Norwegen Jetzt” are on display. King Harald also visited Deutsche See – Germany’s largest supplier of seafood.

Queen Sonja gave her presentation “Impressions of Norway”, before the King and Queen together attended the event “Taste of Norway”, which presented Norwegian ingredients, food and culinary art.