German President's apology to Ligiades

"I wish to express what the culprits but also those politically responsible over the years in the post-war period did not want to or could not say: that what happened here was a brutal injustice. With a sense of shame and anguish, I want to say sorry to the families of those who were murdered," he said according to ANA-MPA

Earlier, the German president had laid a wreath at a monument for the fallen, who were killed in a mass execution carried out by the Nazi regime on October 3, 1943.

During his speech, Gauck declared himself shocked at the "robberies, terrorist actions and murders committed by a country that had become a ruthless dictatorship".

"I bow before the victims of the horrific crimes that were committed here and in so many other places in Greece," he said. Gauck noted that such places made him feel a "double shame", both that people raised within German culture had become murderers but also because democratic Germany, from the moment that it started to gradually process its past with a critical eye, had learned so little from its guilt concerning the Greeks.