Germany marks 75th anniversary of plot to kill Hitler

BERLIN (AP) — German Chancellor Angela Merkel has urged Europeans to confront populism, nationalism, racism and anti-Semitism as she paid tribute to the Nazi resistance in her own country.

Speaking Saturday at a solemn ceremony marking the anniversary of the failed attempt to kill Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler, Merkel said the courage and sacrifice of the conspirator should serve as an example to people today.

“They put humanity over their own human lives,” she told the crowd at the site where plot leader Col. Claus von Stauffenberg and others were executed.

Merkel took the occasion to pay tribute to all who stood up against the Nazis in different ways, including people who hid Jews to save them from the death camps, the Jews who rose up in the Warsaw Ghetto to attack their Nazi captors in 1943, the Polish fighters of the 1944 Warsaw Uprising and other partisans who fought against the German occupiers and others.

“Von Stauffenberg is a symbol of the resistance, but his story is not the only story of the resistance,” she said.

Amid evidence of rising anti-Semitism and racism in Germany, Merkel said people need to draw inspiration from the civil courage shown by those who resisted the Nazis and make their voices heard.

“Instead of looking away or being silent, we need to be engaged,” she said.

On a wider scale, she said Europeans need to speak out and act against nationalism and populism.

“We need to think multilaterally, not unilaterally; global, not national; open not isolationist; together, not alone,” she said to applause.

“Those are the tasks of today.”