Willy Brandt Born: Architect of German Reconciliation
Willy Brandt was born in December 1913 in Lübeck, Germany, the illegitimate son of a saleswoman. He fled to Norway in 1933 when the Nazis came to power, took Norwegian citizenship, fought with the Norwegian resistance. After the war he returned to Germany, rebuilt a political career, became Mayor of West Berlin during the 1961 Wall crisis, and eventually Chancellor of West Germany. In December 1970 in Warsaw, at a memorial to the victims of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, he knelt. He hadn't planned it. He said later that he did it because words felt inadequate. He won the Nobel Peace Prize the following year.
December 18, 1913
113 years ago
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