We should welcome Germany at the Cenotaph

SIR – My father was an Australian pilot in the Battle of Britain, badly burnt in combat this month 78 years ago, when he was only 20 years old.

He recovered and served as an RAF pilot until retirement. I spent some of my early years with him when he was stationed in Germany in the late Fifties, and recall his friendship with his contemporaries in the post-war Luftwaffe. They would sit over a beer and compare their flying logbooks to determine if they had been in the same battle space at the same time. They were really interested to see if any of them had shot at each other!

I became a historian and was director general of the RAF Museum. I got to know veterans from both sides and realised that the Allied and Axis air forces had identical personalities, both using the cream of their young adult populations. Hence, in the air forces and navies in particular, mutual respect was normal. The behaviour of the army (Wehrmacht), and the Waffen SS was, as we know, often beyond the pale, yet the bravery of the average German soldier was never doubted. Wars are started by politicians and fought by ordinary citizens.

The German president, unlike the chancellor, represents the whole nation, and we should welcome him on Remembrance Sunday to the Cenotaph. However, it should be some time before the German chancellor is invited.

Dr Michael A Fopp

Soulbury, Buckinghamshire

SIR – Gisela Stuart (Comment, September 26) received an apology while working in a Manchester bookshop in the Seventies.

“All my family died in a concentration camp,” the man told her, “and I had promised myself that for the rest of my life I would never knowingly speak to a German. I now think this was wrong. The world has moved on and you are a different generation. Please forgive me.”

It is essential that the German nation is represented at the Cenotaph. HAL Alexander

Hambledon, Surrey