German-Israeli Relations: The Normality of Abnormality

Normal relations between Germany and Israel are unimaginable in light of the Holocaust. But the two countries have managed to develop a friendly parthership based on solidarity, even if its start was difficult.

German President Horst Koehler said during a speech to Israel's parliament, the Knesset, that normality could not exist between Germany and Israel. That was in 2005, when the two countries had already been fostering diplomatic relations for 40 years. The feeling that nothing could be normal between the two countries was even stronger in the first decade after the Holocaust.

From its outset, the young West German democracy was to bear the moral responsibility of the murder of millions of Jews.