Ex-president Richard von Weizsaecker, who challenged German viewpoint regarding the Holocaust by reasoning that the nation had been saved by the Nazi defeat in 1945, passed away on Saturday at the age of 94, the current president's office said. A member of one of Germany's most eminent aristocratic families, von Weizsaecker also took the chair over the reunification of East and West Germany in 1990, 11 months after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

He was most remembered for a milestone speech in May 1985 observing the 40th anniversary of the end of World War Two in which he suggested Germans to come to terms with responsibility for the disaster. He agitate few controversy at home by saying Germany had been liberated by the Third Reich's downfall.