BERLIN: Russian President Vladimir Putin said he was moved to learn German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder’s father was killed by Soviet forces in World War Two and recalled how his mother nearly died during the Nazi siege of Leningrad. In a joint interview with Schroeder to appear in Friday’s Bild newspaper, Putin said their war experiences had made Russians and Germans wiser, more appreciative of life, freedom and the importance of good relations with their neighbours.

Schroeder, who will go to Moscow next week for ceremonies marking the 60th anniversary of the end of the war in Europe, said it was a “miracle” that the former enemies had become such close allies.

More than 21 million Soviet citizens and 7 million Germans were killed in the war started by Adolf Hitler’s Nazis in 1939.

“It’s a miracle in my eyes that such bitter enemies and war opponents are such close friends and partners living together as good neighbours today,” said Schroeder.

“The generation of my parents and grandparents would never be able to imagine that,” added Schroeder, who was born in 1944. “When you consider the horrors of the war, the German-Russian reconciliation is a political miracle.”

Both Putin and Schroeder said the end of the war on May 8-9, 1945 was a day of liberation for Germany. Schroeder said it also marked the start of an era of “new bondage”. Putin said the Western allies were to blame for Germany’s post-war division.

“My parents suffered very much and never forgot it,” said Putin of the 900-day Nazi blockade of Leningrad. His brother died during it and his father was wounded in combat nearby.

“But as strange as it may sound, there was never any hatred of Germans in my family,” added Putin, who was born in 1952. “My parents said it wasn’t the people or ordinary soldiers who were to blame but the regime that sent them into war.”

Exhausted by hunger and cold during the blockade of what is now St. Petersburg, Putin’s mother fainted and was thought to be dead. His father, wounded and in hospital, rescued her.

“A burial commando put her with a pile of corpses and was taking her to a cemetery,” Putin said. “She was still alive and my father had to pull her out of the pile of corpses. My mother only survived because he then gave her his place in hospital.”

GERMAN SUFFERING: Putin, who was a KGB spy in East Germany and speaks fluent German, said the civilian population in Germany had suffered greatly during the war but said this was not the Soviets’ fault.

“The Soviet Union or the Red Army can’t be blamed for that,” Putin said in what a Bild editor said was one of the longest interviews Germany’s top-selling daily has ever published. “It wasn’t the Soviet Union that started the war.”

Putin, who spoke to Bild with Schroeder while in Hanover last month, criticised Western allies for attacking civilians.

“And by the way, the Western allies didn’t abound with any special humanity. It’s incomprehensible to me to this day why Dresden was destroyed. There was no military reason for it.”

Denying that Moscow was to blame for Germany’s post-war division, Putin said Soviet leaders had worked hard “to preserve the integrity and unity of Germany” after the war. “But some of our allies unfortunately took the opposite position.”

Putin and Schroeder have become close friends in recent years, a bond intensified by their opposition to the Iraq war.—Reuters