The Second World War not only left behind physically unbelievable destruction.
Especially those who experienced these years consciously have also suffered mental damage.
All the greater is the achievement of all those who, after 1945, managed to shake hands with the former enemy in reconciliation.
Queen Elizabeth II played a special role.
Peter Storm
Editor in politics, responsible for "political books".
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On the one hand, this resulted from her position as representative of the United Kingdom, which had evolved from a victorious power to one of the three protective powers for the young Federal Republic.
But especially in her case, very personal things also played a role.
She was always aware of the fact that her family was actually very "German".
During her reign, nothing reminded the outside of what had begun in the 18th century with the personal union between Hanover and Great Britain.
But, and this is particularly important in a tradition-conscious society like the British, at the time of Elisabeth's accession to the throne in 1952, it was only a brief historical moment that "Saxony-Coburg-Gotha" had become the "Windsor" family.
Under pressure from a patriotic public, this step was taken in 1917, in the middle of the First World War.
However, the close connections to Germany remained relatively unaffected.
It was also a relief that German-British relations had become steadily more difficult after 1871, but that a term such as "hereditary enmity", which was used in connection with France, never seriously disturbed the German-British network of relationships.
However, many Germans looked at the British with a mixture of envy and admiration, who had already achieved what not only the German Emperor Wilhelm II was striving for, a world empire.
The Germans learned painfully, and through their own fault, during the Second World War that power-political splendor is fleeting.
But even the victors, including Great Britain, were so exhausted in the fighting that their empires gradually disappeared.
Nevertheless, Elisabeth's first state visit to Germany in 1965, only 20 years after the end of the war, was for the hosts a mixture of looking into a foreign, glittering world and at the same time a highly political gesture of reconciliation.
By this point at the latest, the Germans could once again feel like recognized members of Western democracies.
The royal "icebreaker visit" was to be followed by many more.
And each time, the monarch was greeted with jubilation from almost all sides.
Whether the first visit would have been so comparatively relaxed if Elisabeth had started it a year later is of course not so certain.
Politically, the situation would have been the same as in 1965. But for Germans and at least for English people, 1966 is associated with an event that is still capable of arousing emotions today.
The national football teams of both countries faced each other in the final of the World Cup.
That was ultimately decided by a goal that objectively wasn't one.
It was perhaps a good thing for Anglo-German relations that the wrong decision was made by a Soviet official.
At least that fit into the established enemy images of the time.
Elizabeth II, eyewitness to the hot game, congratulated the German players,