NATO Secretary General at Atlantik-Brücke event in Berlin 🇩🇪, 25 APR 2024

Published on 2024-04-25 | Archived on 2024-05-15

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg remarks upon accepting the Eric M. Warburg Award at Atlantik-Brücke in Berlin, 25 APR 2024.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg received the Atlantik-Brücke’s Eric M. Warburg Award at a ceremony in Berlin on Thursday (25 April 2024). German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius presented the award after laudatory remarks by Dr Irina Scherbakowa, co-founder of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning “Memorial” human rights organisation.

In his acceptance speech, the Secretary General praised Berlin for “building one of Europe’s strongest and best-equipped armed forces,” saying “NATO can rely on Germany”.

Mr Stoltenberg warned that in today’s Russia, “the past echoes loudly in the present. Thought is controlled, freedom is curtailed, opposition is crushed.” He added that, “as Russia has become more oppressive at home it has become more aggressive abroad, waging a fully-fledged war in Ukraine.”

🗣 | NATO Secretary General:

Good evening, excellences, ladies and gentlemen,
Dear Sigmar, dear Irina, dear Boris, thank you so much for your kind words.
I'm not used to this. It is very nice but it also remind me of the fact that I am getting old. That is also okay. Thank you.
I'm very honoured and humbled by receiving this award tonight.
And a special thanks to Sigmar and Atlantic Brücke for hosting us all and organizing this event.
After the War, the Atlantik-Brücke helped anchor the Federal Republic in the political and cultural West.
It also played an important role in building a strong transatlantic relationship with Germany at its core.
By doing so, Atlantik-Brücke helped to make NATO stronger.
And Sigmar, I promise to not tell any details from the time we met but I can say that make NATO stronger was not the main purpose of our activity. The first time I met Sigmar it was green grass somewhere outside of Bonn and we attended a big concert called “Rock gegen rakete”.
We had longer hair, but we were okay guys also then. No more details except for that I learned how to have good parties in Germany, I admit that.

Thank you, Boris, for your leadership, for our friendship and also for reminding me on the many times we actually work together over this last year.
And I have learned a lot from you. And I was very impressed for the first time I met you because you had only been in your job for a couple of days, but you already had the authority and the strength and the commitment, which have demonstrated every days since you were appointed Minister of Defence.
Boris, your clear-eyed understanding of the challenges, they are vital,
Not least in spearheading the Zeitenwende. Building one of Europe’s strongest and best-equipped armed forces.
And strengthening NATO´s deterrence and defence by permanently deploying a full brigade in Lithuania.
And the reality is that before you made that decision, no one expected that to happen. But this was something you personally pushed through and I was in Lithuania when the decision was made. And this was really something they appreciated and the whole Alliance appreciated because it demonstrates the unwavering commitment of Germany to Lithuania, to the Baltic region, and to NATO.

And today I have the honour and the pleasure and the privilege to witness first hand not the German brigade in Lithuania, but to fly in a German Euro fighter.
And to tell you the truth that is in itself a reason to become Secretary General of NATO. But don't tell anyone.
It was great to see the commitment, the professionalism and actually the care those pilots showed for me because I was a bit excited by putting all the things and the gear I had. But then to fly and to see the Luftwaffe in action, actually together with a Swedish plane, and there was a German tanker air to air refuelling tanker that actually first fuelled German Euro fighter but then fuelled a Swedish Gripen. Showing that our newest member Sweden is now fully integrated and demonstrating how we are interoperable and this Alliance and how Germany is at the core of NATO, working together as Allies.
Germany is the European Ally that provides the most support for Ukraine.
Not least, because of your personal commitment, Boris.
One thing is certain,
NATO can rely on Germany.
Ladies and gentlemen,
I am humbled to receive this prestigious award in the name of Eric Warburg.
A Jew in Nazi Germany, forced to flee to the United States.
He understood the fragility of peace, freedom and human rights.

Continues: https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/opinions_224838.htm
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