June 17 recalls a special day in the history of divided Berlin

Yesterday Germany remembered June 17, 1953.

Seventy years ago in East Berlin and across the former German Democratic Republic tens of thousands of people took to the streets protesting against poor wages and calling for free elections and German unity.

At lunch time on that fateful day Russian tanks rolled on to the streets of the capital city of the GDR. In the melee that followed 55 people were killed and ‘order' was restored across the GDR..

At a moving ceremony yesterday in Berlin German president Fran-Walter Steinmeier and chancellor Olaf Scholz spoke of the bravery of the people. Scholz referred to the fact that it was the brutality of the Russian tanks that killed the dreams of the East Germans.

Every day with the war in Ukraine both Russian and German tanks recall all that is horrible and worrying about war.