this is deja vu news live from berlin remembering d.-day and the very moment when allied troops stormed the beaches of normandy to free europe from nazi rule 75 years ago we're bringing you live coverage of american president donald trump's visit to a military ceremony near omaha beach where u.s. troops came ashore is there where the president tomorrow will mark all of france to pay tribute to the sacrifices made to secure freedom 75 years ago today.

alone a very warm welcome i'm brian thomas great to have you with us for a special live coverage of the 75th d.-day commemorations in france on this day 75 years ago the biggest invasion force of its kind in history began the assault that would lead less than a year later to the complete collapse of nazi rule over europe and a moment now we're expecting the french president to manual mccall and u.s. president. to speak to the remaining normandy veterans and the assembled guests at the ceremony for the americans who died on d.-day at colleville sooner to talk about today's events i have our political correspondents emanuel chase and hans frond in the studio and max hoffman is standing by for us at the american cemetery max can you tell us what's happening where you are. the 2 presidents u.s.

president donald trump and fresh president threaded and one of my call just arrived and so the ceremony has started as we understand it will start with the 2 him so the american one and the french one and later 5 american veterans d.-day veterans will receive the prestigious legion of honor medal from him and call that is a big deal here in france and we're also looking forward to the speeches of the 2 presidents who had some well clashes in the last years although their relationship seemed to have a good start when trump came into office it has deteriorated in the last years the 2 really not being on the same page on a number of issues so how they will smooth this over for the special occasion will be very interesting ok among other important speeches today involving the french president and the british prime minister theresa may for the unveiling of a memorial to the british soldiers who died on this momentous day 75 years ago what

was the characteristic of those speeches what tone were the 2 leaders striking. no 1st of all it seems quite incredible brian that there isn't a memorial for the british vets in this area yet so it was high time for that many think at least because the british paid a high price also and were crucial for the whole operation and now there is a an interesting political part to the speech by theresa may because it is a last international trip as the head of the governing tory party so the conservatives in the u.k. and she will step down as prime minister later in july probably but that basically means she's giving up her office tomorrow so last international trip but she stayed the course she said how important it was to have the special relationship between france and the u.k. she honored the sacrifice as everybody is doing you know after all that's what the 75th anniversary is all about interesting again here was

a man who had mcauliffe what he said especially at the end of his speech and it seemed like he was looking beyond brags that as you know the u.k. is well trying to leave the european union but it might remain michael made it clear that no matter what in the future that the u.k. and france would stay close partners you know max this commemoration we're getting live images right now i'd like to let our viewers i know that comes and comes at a real juncture in a lot of ways for transatlantic relationships and as well for european unity. yeah i mean that there are a whole lot of crossroads for the 75th anniversary 1st of all it's probably maybe the last or one of the last. major anniversaries for d.-day where you actually still have that iran's living alive there to tell the story and as you know as soon as the memory of something fades people tend to also forget the conclusions that

other generations drew from those events and d.-day when you stand here today at this peaceful coast of normandy seems very far away although just really 200 meters in that direction so many people died on the beach which was also called bloody omaha if you know your d.-day history you'll know what i'm talking about and then you have 2 nations that were crucial for d.-day represented by 2 leaders that actually stand for a different spirit than the spirit that pervaded or even made d.-day possible back then you have donald trump who is increasingly isolationists something that the americans were not back then when they chose to do something about the situation in europe to liberate europe and after that to help europe and especially germany to get back on its feet and then you have to use a man who is also departing from the course of the last decades trying to get the u.k. out of the european union back then after the 2nd world war the u.k.

did exactly the contrary to be able to influence what was happening on the continent so those are important political and historical crossroads i think doesn't put my life at the crossroads it's also a time when the veterans and you've been talking to a lot of them are we're seeing them right now in our lives some of the remaining. what have they been saying to you what does this commemoration the 75th mean for that. the message has really been the same in the last decades from these veterans that keep coming back year after year. after a year but the message seems more urgent now 1st of all because they are disappearing and 2nd of all because you have currents in europe and also in the states that are going against what the message is in the message is we have to be careful with each other we should not forget what kind of violence and the war and the bloodshed and well the sacrifice that happened here in germany and all the politics of the international organization and the alliances after that try to

prevent something from that like that happening and aren't being valued as much as they used to so the message from these vets is be careful make sure something like that will never happen again max you also had a chance to talk to a serving coast guard admiral klaus shelves and he was pointing out the vitality of the nato alliance or certainly something that's grown out of what happened 75 years ago what was he saying about d.l. lyons and its state today. well you were speaking militarily because as you know d.-day is considered to be one of the greatest military feat feats in the history of you know military feats basically because you had 150000 people from basically 4 different countries you had all those different armies and navies and. the asians needing to coordinate this feat in

a time where you couldn't even reliably predict what the weather was going to be like the next day so he told me that of course today nato partners are capable of this kind of coordination which i found very interesting but he also mentioned i think it's obvious but it's still you know you need to realize that every once in a while that. we're talking about completely different times with cyber war for example nowadays you use drones computers all those things that weren't available back then so warfare today is still of course a terrible thing but it has changed and so is this insight was interesting and then of course as you know the commandant of the u.s. coast guard he also expressed his feelings which is a rare thing for a soldier but his feelings towards towards those that lost their lives back then and you know what what the generations today can take away from from what their

peers did on d.-day you know there's a lot of messages there for the generations today from what's called the greatest generation we saw some incredible commemorations yesterday of parachuting 94 year olds and 97 year olds i mean really some unbelievable physical feats of this generation. yes a bit i do think that man is probably the exception he was assistant but 75 years ago if you had been standing here where i'm standing right now there would have been many parachutes coming from the sky and many of those by the way not that in the location that they were intended to land because the weather was much worse 75 years ago you had strong winds they predicted that they knew that but they thought that they could handle it because they needed to do it on the 6th of june because the conditions they were looking for with the tides for example and the full moon and all that would have come back only much later so weeks later so they felt like

they could handle the weather but what also came as a surprise back then and we really almost not have that today were low hanging clouds in the morning and that was bad for the planes because of course they had their targets but they couldn't see them and again you have to remember how much technology has evolved since then so if they couldn't see their targets it was very hard for them to do anything so not everything went according to plan but they persevered they continued even if you know many of the troops were off target it took them longer than planned but in the end they made it they made and that was that was the most important point you know that those beachheads were secured next we'll be getting back to you through through the course of these special commemorations i'm going to bring into the studio now and. our french correspondent. from france from. us. we just heard from some of the tactical elements and the french are certainly very conscious of much of what

happened on beaches 75 years ago and there was a comment by the supreme allied commander general eisenhower that this was not a success on the beaches of normandy was not by any means gone exactly it wasn't a given that d.j. would lead to victory and try ties now. or as the supreme allied commander in charge of all forces involved india operation overload say to his men before they went on to carry on. you are about 20 pounds a great crusade each year are gay and we will we have lost a man this war could go on for 10 years for 10 years that was that was the thinking we have to keep that in mind as well when these young men mainly as we're we've been talking about today 171819 years old most of them when they stormed those beaches and here they are we're looking at right now gives a live image is the veterans from 75 years ago today they didn't know what was

going to happen they didn't know how long this effort would take in their supreme commander was telling them it could take a decade meaning they would spend most of their young lives fighting word that the case emanuel for the people of france today this commemoration. is certainly a moment that transcends politics and and is really about the common values and unity shared between france and britain we were talking about that earlier but also today in this commemoration there were about to see with president between france and the united states was very interesting to see president trump attending such ceremonies because if you draw a parallel between what happened 25 years ago and what happens today it's an imaginable to see someone like prison term who. is imagine an end imaginable to see him advocating to have negation of u.s. troops today for a greater cause or greater good with all of his isolationist stances and yet here

he is today to pay his respects to the u.s. soldiers who failed and not only on d.-day i think 6 tasman u.s. sold these died on the day this 1500000 u.s. soldiers who were deployed in england in preparation for d.-day and all to. getter needed 60 tao's and men. landed on june 6th on no mentees beach and what so so interesting and that's is that this ceremony comes at a point where the very concept of the west in east called into question yet there's a show of unity between president trip and of for french president emmanuel mccall today show of unity you say you say did it transcends differences i mean the 2 need as i say to have a good working relationship ever since the president. took office oh

they disagree on certain questions i'm thinking but iran iran story so big differences on iran certainly climate change those have to run for there's a huge clash between those 2 leaders so even even for defense questions the 2 countries are at odds but obviously this is not what he's going to take over today today it's really about a show of unity in the in respect to those events honestly german perception of the events of 75 years ago and the collapse of the nazi nazi regime have been evolving of course over the years of the decades how is this to memorization today being viewed here in germany. what's back of the chancellor said yesterday and that was repeated today by the foreign minister is that this was the 1st step towards liberating europe and liberating germany from nazi rule from nazi terror there is

a perception that has developed over the last few decades obviously directly after the war most germans i imagine would have felt that it was simply a very humiliating defeat but over the years it has been. emphasized that to germany suffered under nazi rule and in fact one has to say they were followers and tens of thousands of germans that died here tour. normandy beaches the beaches that we're looking at today and many of those would have died fighting for a cause that they didn't believe in fighting for. being forced into a situation that they didn't really want to be in. in some sense. you know germany is able to take into account knowledge is that the sacrifices that were made on the beaches of normandy were also meant for germany they will.