June 4, 2004: Germany's chancellor Gerhard Schröder keeps two photos on his desk in his Berlin office. One is of his wife Doris, and the other is of his father, a German soldier who was killed in action during World War II. In view of the personal loss Schröder suffered – he never got to know his dad – it seems odd that the first German chancellor ever to take part in the June 6 D-Day memorial celebrations in Normandy, France, would be criticized by the opposition parties in Germany for displaying a lack of patriotism.

In comments made to the "Bild-Zeitung", Peter Ramsauer, a member of the German Bundestag from the Christian Socialist Union (CSU) party, criticized Schröder's decision not to visit a German military cemetery during his visit to Normandy. "Mr. Schröder is continually preaching patriotism," Ramsauer said. "If he passes by a German military cemetery without placing a wreath, then he is an anti-patriot for me." Ramsauer called Schröder's avoidance of a German military cemetery an "insult for all German war widows and the many Bundeswehr soldiers who take care of the graves." Ramsauer's Bundestag colleague Norbert Geis (CSU) urged chancellor Schröder to learn from Helmut Kohl's example, who visited a military cemetery in Bitburg during a 1984 visit by then President Ronald Reagan. Kohl was not intimidated by protests over the fact that some German SS soldiers were also buried at the Bitburg cemetery.

The president of the German National War Graves association, Reinhard Führer, chided the chancellor for being overly cautious in declining to visit a German cemetery: "It would have been enough for him to distance himself clearly [in a statement] from the war atrocities."

In an interview with Germany's ARD television network, Schröder rejected the criticism by calling his invitation to attend the Normandy celebrations a "great gesture of reconciliation by the former war enemies, who are now partners with Germany for peace and freedom in the world." Schröder will indeed be visiting a military cemetery, "one where war dead from eight nations are buried, including 300 German soldiers." Emphasizing the "joint remembrance" by former enemies, Schröder remarked that "there are Allied soldiers buried there, too." He summarized his invitation to participate in this year's D-Day celebration by adding: "The postwar era is over."

Helmut Kohl supposedly wanted to attend the 50 year celebration of the Normandy landing in 1994, but the CSU and his own Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party reportedly would have considered his participation inappropriate. As it turned out, he was not invited to the main celebration anyway.