Sixty years ago, on May 12, 1965, Germany and Israel established diplomatic relations after a long period of preparation. It was anything but a matter of course at the time: World War II had ended just two decades earlier and the memory of Nazi Germany's genocide of the European Jews was present in both countries. Even now, 80 years after the end of the war, relations with Israel remain extremely important, but also difficult.

Israeli President Isaac Herzog is coming to Berlin to mark the anniversary. Together with German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, he plans to visit the "Platform 17" Holocaust memorial at Grunewald station in southwest Berlin. Some 10,000 Jews were deported from the train station to concentration camps during the Nazi era.

Herzog will meet with more than 100 German and Israeli youth, well aware that antisemitism has risen sharply, especially among young people in Germany, since the start of the war in the Gaza Strip more than a year and a half ago. Herzog and Steinmeier will then travel to Israel together and visit a kibbutz on the border with Gaza.

The visit takes place during the first days of the new German government under Chancellor Friedrich Merz of the conservative

© Deutsche Welle