ROANOKE TIMES 

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, May 24, 1994                   TAG: 9405240073
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: BERLIN                                LENGTH: Short

GERMANS ELECT NEW PRESIDENT

Chancellor Helmut Kohl's candidate for president emerged victorious in close balloting Monday for a largely ceremonial post looked to as a moral pulpit for bringing Germans together.

But the opposition quickly attacked Roman Herzog's acceptance speech as insensitive to foreigners and to the country's Nazi past.

Herzog, 60, head of Germany's highest court, is the first president elected since reunification in 1990. He will replace Richard von Weizsaecker, who is widely admired for reminding Germans of the need to atone for Nazism and going out of his way to show sympathy for victims of neo-Nazi violence.

- Associated Press 


 by CNB