By Verena Schmitt-Roschmann, dpa l Wednesday, March 29, 2023
BERLIN – Britain’s King Charles III travels to Germany on Wednesday for his first state visit abroad as monarch, in a three-day trip that features an address before the German parliament and a meeting with Ukrainian refugees.
King Charles, who is travelling with his wife, Camilla, the queen consort, will be received with a 21-gun salute at Berlin’s airport on Wednesday afternoon, before he travels on to the Brandenburg Gate.
In front of a crowd of well-wishers, the king will be the first state guest ever to be greeted with military honours at the Berlin landmark.
The next item on the agenda is a reception and discussion at Bellevue Palace, the official residence of German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, about energy transition and sustainable development.
In the evening, Steinmeier will host a state banquet for Charles with around 130 guests.
Charles had planned to visit France before coming to Germany. But that leg of his journey was postponed due to the widespread social unrest triggered by President Emmanuel Macron’s pension reform.
Charles’ trip, which comes just weeks before his coronation on May 6, is seen as marking a new beginning in the partnership between Germany and Britain.
Exactly six years ago, on March 29, 2017, the British government officially announced its exit from the European Union. Brexit was completed on January 31, 2020.
The German president’s office said before the visit that London and Berlin were looking to leave the “turmoil of separation” behind them.
The British royals are popular in Germany. The death of Queen Elizabeth II last year prompted an outpouring of condolences from German leaders and a wave of public mourning.
Steinmeier and his wife Elke Büdenbender will accompany Charles and Camilla through their programme in Berlin and Hamburg. Charles is due to address lawmakers in the Bundestag on Thursday.
He last spoke to the parliament as heir to the throne in November 2020, during the depths of the coronavirus pandemic, when he delivered a speech on remembering the victims of war and tyranny. In a reminder of his German ancestry, he began his remarks in German.
Also on Thursday, Charles will meet Ukrainian refugees who fled the Russian invasion to Germany and are now staying at Berlin’s former Tegel Airport.
On Friday, Charles travels to Hamburg on a Deutsche Bahn high-speed train. His first stop upon arrival is a monument commemorating the Kindertransport – the effort to get Jewish children out of Nazi Germany and bring them to Britain during the Holocaust.
Charles then plans to lay a wreath at the ruins of St Nikolai. The church, largely destroyed in the Allied bombing raids during World War II, is now Hamburg’s central memorial to the victims of the Nazi regime.
