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2nd LD Writethru: Former German President Richard Von Weizsaecker dies at 94

Xinhua, January 31, 2015 Adjust font size:

Former German President Richard von Weizsaecker has died at the age of 94 in Berlin, Germany's Office of the Federal President announced on Saturday.

Weizsaecker was born in April 1920 in the German city of Stuttgart. He became president in 1984 and held the position until 1994. In addition, he was the Mayor of West Berlin from 1981 to 1984.

As president, he received great international recognition for a speech on May 8, 1985, the 40th anniversary of the end of the Second World War.

Weizsaecker described in his address May 8 as the "day of liberation from the inhuman system of National Socialist tyranny", and urged his country to confront its Nazi past.

"All of us, whether guilty or not, whether young or old, must accept the past," he said. "Anyone who closes his eyes to the past is blind to the present."

Current German President Joachim Gauck said Saturday in a message of condolences to Weizsaecker's widow that the ex-president "stood for a federal republic that faces up to its past."

"His dictum that 'May 8, 1945 must not be separated from January 30, 1933' has become a non-revisable basis for our self-image and our actions," Gauck added. Endit