King Charles celebrates UK-Germany ties in historic address to Bundestag - BBC News

Next, in External Source we move on to the second day of King Charles' state visit to Germany and we saw the first speech by a British monarch before the German Parliament. Here's some of that. Chris, the unprovoked invasion of Ukraine has inflicted the most unimaginable suffering on so many innocent people, countless lives have been destroyed, I mentioned a word, I mentioned brutal, freedom and human dignity have been trampled in the most brutal way. I'm watching that speech by our Berlin correspondent, Jenny Hill. I think he's certainly more outspoken than his mother, the late queen of Of course, and I guess there are two things going on here, Ukraine and climate change, they are real focuses of this trip and that's because they are challenges, and he can to say that Britain and Europe want to work closely together, both countries, sorry.

Well, the EU and Britain face those challenges, they are united problems and today he said that they have both been united in their response, that is useful, but I think it is also an opportunity for King Charles III to start showing us what kind of monarch is. It's going to be and I think we've gotten a little taste of that, you know, what's caught my attention is the energy and enthusiasm shown so far on this tour, now a big theme of this tour is the environment. Earlier today, the

king

visited an organic farm, as he can see, and on Friday he will travel to Hamburg to tour a renewable energy project.

We also know that King Charles will visit this monument and place a wreath of flowers to the German victims of the Allied incursions in World War II and that is another first that the German tabloid built has called it a silent gesture but it will say more than any speech. and state visits while we sing are designed to deepen relations between two countries, let's evaluate what the objective will be. Be with this Robert Lacy is a royal historian who served as a

historic

al consultant on the Netflix series The Crown. Thank you very much for joining us in the external source.

How would you best summarize the general objective of this particular visit? um um in terms of Anglo-German relations British-German relations you just said um this is the first major visit after Brexit and it shows that there can be life with Germany after Brexit um and um of course it's also the debut from Prince Charles and I think everyone who watched the speech will have been impressed by how incredibly accomplished we just saw him speak German there. um it was a mix of German and English that he spoke um uh and it was the mix of solemn message that we saw what he had to say about Ukraine. and then he started tal

king

about Monty Python and the Beatles and how it was quite healthy for the English to laugh at the Germans and for the Germans to laugh at us, and I think what's particularly interesting is what's going to happen tomorrow when, As we have already heard, he will lay a wreath in Hamburg in memory of the victims of the British bombing raids during the war.

That's something the Queen never did. She made 15 visits to Germany, five of them state visits. They pressured her. We know. by the British government to make that gesture she wouldn't do it, but Prince Charles will, we understand that tomorrow and that's interesting that you bring up the dynamic between the monarchy and the government at that time, tell us how that works. We are the ones who decide certain elements of the choreography throughout the three days. Well, it's a joint decision and it also involves the German government. Sorry Prince Charles, here we are again. You see, he spent his entire life preparing for this job and I think one.

One of the things we saw today was actually how well prepared he is for it, everything he said today and everything he will do tomorrow has been approved by the British government itself, obviously in collaboration with the Germans, but we can see his initiative , the Queen. She wouldn't have made jokes about Monty Python and we know that the queen, having experienced the bombing herself, which was a step she was unwilling to take, was booed in Dresden 20 years ago because they expected her to make some reference to the British bombing. Prince Charles is going to do it and that marks a change in style but always within the scope of what the British government believes is correct and finally the Monarch would also have a vision about where he could visit.

Next up, where the next state visit should be, where he will be able to exert some influence, if possible, on a particularly important relationship between the UK and another country. Well, I'm sure it will be the Commonwealth, if not the next tour, then very soon, the Commonwealth. is a great creation of his mother, it has to take you to a further stage, this is again in the post-brexit era, the Commonwealth is an important aspect of British soft power, as in the world, we have already seen an interesting alliance between Britain. Australia and the United States, I'm sure it will be the Pacific and the Commonwealth that will come very soon, that's where the queen went after her coronation in '53.

I'm sure we'll see Prince Charles come in, sorry, there I'm going again, King. Charles is going in the same direction, we have all made that mistake at times. I'm sure Robert Lacy, thank you very much for joining us and talking to us about King Charles III's state visit to Germany and of course you can get a lot more coverage of that on the BBC News website soon left