Your fathers and grandfathers died in the battle or are missing. We know that many of you still wrestle with it today. It brought with it interminable suffering, destruction and death. The German-British publicist Sebastian Haffner described the Ardennes offensive as an "insane enterprise" from a military point of view. Here in Belgium, which was invaded by Germans twice in the last century.
I am aware that my speaking here today is not something to be taken for granted. I stand before you, and before all Belgians, humbly and gratefully in my role as President of the Federal Republic of Germany. Majesty, I thank you from the bottom of my heart, I thank you for the invitation to join you today in commemoration. Seventy-five years ago today, the German Wehrmacht commenced one of the last offensives of the Second World War, a brutal battle in a war that had long since been lost.
Seventy-five years ago today, in the early hours of 16 December, the horrors of war descended on the Ardennes.
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