King Charles III honours German victims of WWII allied bombing

King Charles III has honoured victims of World War Two allied bombing raids on the last day of his three-day tour to Germany.

The King laid a wreath in memory of the victims during a visit to Hamburg’s St Nikolai memorial, the remains of a church in Germany’s northern port city severely damaged by the air raids.

The gesture comes shortly before the 80th anniversary of the allied bombing of Hamburg in July known as “Operation Gomorrah” which killed some 40,000 people and destroyed swathes of the city.

In response to Nazi air raids on civilian targets in Poland and later London, the Allies dropped about 1.9 million tonnes of bombs on Germany in an effort to cripple German industry. The allied raids killed some 500,000 people.

Earlier, Charles also paid his respects at the memorial to the Kindertransporte, a rescue mission that allowed some 10,000 Jewish children to flee Nazi-occupied Europe in the late 1930, mostly to Britain.

“Heeding the lessons of the past is our sacred responsibility, but it can only be fully discharged through a commitment to our shared future,” Charles said in a bilingual address to the Bundestag lower house of parliament on Thursday.

“Together we must be vigilant against threats to our values and freedoms, and resolute in our determination to confront them.”

Throughout his visit, German officials have praised his interest in environmental causes and sustainability which has shone through in the engagements he has chosen to undertake.

Olaf Scholz, the German chancellor dubbed the “climate chancellor” during his election campaign in 2021, tweeted, “I have great respect for his decades-long commitment to the protection of the environment and climate.”