On Thursday, 1 July Federal Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle will be opening a conference of historians at the Federal Foreign Office entitled “Remembering World War II – Memorials and Museums in Central and Eastern Europe”.

Over two days, historians from Germany, Poland, Russia and other Central and Eastern European states will compare their national cultures of remembrance. Berlin’s museums and memorials will serve to illustrate how in Germany’s remembrance culture the War and the Holocaust are inseparably linked.

The German-Polish-Russian format for the debate, a format resulting from a Federal Foreign Office initiative, is intended to help intensify mutual trust among the three countries.

The conference is part of the EU partners’ intensive dialogue with Russia: only last week, Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov attended the Weimar Triangle meeting in Paris.