NRW Jubilee Prince William wows crowds in Düsseldorf
Düsseldorf · Prince William, Angela Merkel and Hannelore Kraft took part in yesterday’s jubilee celebrations.
The Band of the Grenadier Guards has served 15 monarchs in the course of its 325 year existence. It plays for the British royal family at coronations, weddings and births. On Tuesday afternoon, the most famous military band in the world lined up in the Ehrenhof in Düsseldorf. The sun blazed down on the impressive bearskins of the musicians who had flown in for the ceremony. Led by Major Phil Stredwicks, the band struck up “Der Steiger kommt” (The pit foreman is coming” - a traditional German song).
Minister President Hannelore Kraft and Prince William inspected the troops of the 20th Armoured Infantry Brigade. The pitman’s song, the Grenadier Guards, an SPD politician from Mühlheim on the Ruhr and his Royal Highness the Duke of Cambridge – it is perhaps the abiding memory of this jubilee. North Rhine-Westphalia formed by order of the British Occupation Force on 23 August 1946 by combining the Rhine Province and Westphalia.
Prince William landed in Düsseldorf in the afternoon and gave the region’s jubilee some royal splendour. Several hundred eager spectators had gathered behind barriers in Düsseldorf’s Ehrenhof. They held up gingerbread hearts, waved British flags and shouted, “Willlliiie.” Kraft presented the 20th Armoured Infantry Brigade from Paderborn-Sennelager with the federal state’s highest honour, the Fahnenband. The precisely one metre long banner was made by Johannes Rau in 1981 and has since been presented to troops who have been stationed in North Rhine-Westphalia for a long time. “For the exemplary relations between the Brigade and our state,” said Kraft. The 20th Armoured Infantry Brigade has been stationed in North Rhine-Westphalia since 1951. There are currently still around 4000 British soldiers stationed here, mainly in Ostwestfalen and in Mönchengladbach. They will all leave by 2020. “There is so much we will miss when our British are no longer here,” said Kraft.
The federal state jubilee was to the Minister President’s tastes. Kraft studied in London, speaks English well and seemed to get along famously with Prince William. Even though the pair were surrounded by police, bodyguards and protocol, the Minister President appeared as relaxed as if she were at her own garden party in Mülheim-Dümpten. She later met ordinary people who were also celebrating milestone birthdays on 23 August.
Many who spoke assured Britain that the Brexit vote would not change the friendship between North Rhine-Westphalia and Great Britain. “Our ties are weatherproof and will not be brought into question by any vote,” said Landtag (State Parliament) President Carina Gödecke to loud applause at the official ceremony in the concert hall.
Prince William responded by praising North Rhine-Westphalia as having developed remarkably in every respect over the last 70 years. The economic “German powerhouse” was here in this “dynamic federal state.” Even Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) did not want to be left out and praised North Rhine-Westphalia as “a strong part of Germany” - something that has not been heard in Düsseldorf for a long time.
Wonderful performances by the WDR symphony orchestra and choirs from Gütersloh and the Ruhr accompanied films of the economic wonders of the Ruhr, the current nil growth and all the negative balances forgotten for a while.
Kraft energetically addressed the audience of prominent guests from North Rhine-Westphalia. “We are a homeland for all,” she said. She said solidarity was the greatest legacy of North Rhine-Westphalia and that structural changes had been more successful than in many other parts of the world.
Prince William thrilled everyone with a few closing words of German: “Alles Gute and Dankeschön.”
(Orig. text: Tobias Blasius; translated by Kate Carey)
