CRI听力:People Visit the Cecilienhof Palace, Marking the 70th Potsdam Anniversary

The Cecilienhof Palace, located in a large park, close to a lake shore, is known for being the location of the Potsdam Conference, which was held in July and August 1945.

On July 26, 1945, a document was issued there by China, the United States and Britain, demanding Japan's unconditional surrender in WWII.

Despite originally ignoring the Potsdam Proclamation, Japan did eventually announce its surrender on August 15th, and formally signed the articles of peace based on the Potsdam Proclamation on September 2nd, 1945.

Matthias Simmich is the deputy curator of Cecilienhof Palace.

"The Potsdam Proclamation explicitly said that all the territories that Japan took from China before World War II shall be restored to the Chinese. Northeast China and Taiwan were included."

German historians and politicians have urged Japan to admit to its history of aggression ahead of the upcoming anniversary of the proclamation.

Stefan Bollinger, professor with the Institute of Political Science under the Free University of Berlin, says Japan's aggression to its neighboring countries actually started years before 1945.

"I believe Japan, especially its leadership, has not acknowledged that what they have done in Asia, countries such as China, Korea, the Philippines and Cambodia in dozens of years before 1945, the aggression and destructive war. It was a crazy destructive war, a brutal war full of crimes. For example, Japanese unit 731 employed modern methods to carry out killing as genocide. But even today, most Japanese elites and members of the public do not treat these as issues that need to be discussed."

Manfred Goertamaker is a professor of contemporary history at the University of Potsdam.

He says Germany has acknowledged the wrongdoings of Nazi Germany during the war, admitted its wartime atrocities and earnestly repented. However, Japanese actions have been totally different.

"In Germany, people are actively reflecting on the past. The historians are trying to expose historical truth. And the reflection features on the political level as well as legal level. However, we cannot see such historical reflection at all in Japan. A new force with the notion of so-called 'normal country' is developing in Japan; its textbooks even deny its war crimes."

To mark the 70th anniversary of the Potsdam Conference, a series of special events are scheduled to be held in the Cecilienhof Palace from this July to September this year.

Decades after the end of the historic event, the original furnishings of the rooms used for the Potsdam Conference are still well preserved. Some visitors say they feel the original decoration and exhibition shows a respect for the history and people should also take the same attitude when it comes to the historical truth.

For CRI, I'm Niu Honglin.