COLOGNE, Germany -- The leaders of Germany on Friday joined hundreds of mourners in one of the country's most hallowed cathedrals to honor the passengers and crew members who died when a jet smashed into a French mountainside last month.
President Joachim Gauck, once a Lutheran pastor in communist East Germany, and Chancellor Angela Merkel were among the state and national leaders who gathered in the Cologne Cathedral for the two-hour, nationally televised memorial service.
Gauck articulated many of the emotions that arose not only from the loss of life in the March 24 crash but also from the revelation in the days after the crash that the co-pilot had almost certainly been responsible for it.
"We lack words for this deed," Gauck said, noting that it gave rise to a "dreadfully oppressive burden of feelings."
"There was this unbelievable shock, this incomprehension, the sadness, which for many turned to rage and anger," he said.
There have been many memorial services in Germany, Spain and elsewhere since the crash of Germanwings Flight 9525. But the ceremony in Cologne, watched by hundreds of people on large screens outside, marked the first time in which Germany mourned as a nation.
About half the people onboard the plane were from Germany, as was the co-pilot, Andreas Lubitz. There were 150 candles burning in the cathedral Friday, one for each person on the plane, including Lubitz.
"We don't know what was going on inside the head of the co-pilot in the decisive second, in the decisive minutes," Gauck said, referring to the time in which Lubitz blocked the captain of the plane from re-entering the cockpit and set a course into the French Alps.
But, Gauck noted, "we do know that his family also lost someone they loved on March 24."
The crash has shaken confidence in Lufthansa, the parent company of Germanwings, after the airline admitted it had known since 2009 that Lubitz had a history of severe depression. The heads of both Lufthansa and Germanwings were among the 1,400 mourners in the cathedral.
Most of the mourners were relatives of victims, including many from Spain and other countries, or invited dignitaries.
The plane was bound from Barcelona, Spain, to Duesseldorf, and more than a third of the victims were from the surrounding region in western Germany, including 16 high school students and two Spanish teachers from Haltern, which is about 60 miles north of Cologne. The students were returning from an exchange program in Spain.
The ceremony included a performance by three musicians from Haltern, who played John Williams' theme from the movie Schindler's List.
Two members of the ensemble, violinist Christel Decker and pianist Peter Lauterbach, are music teachers at the high school attended by the students. The other member, violinist Daniela Hofschneider-Zoldan, is a parent with two children at the school.
Decker said after the ceremony that some of the children who died had taken part in a production of Peter Pan that the musicians had helped stage. The choice of the theme from Schindler's List had no special significance, Decker said.
"We just chose something the students could relate to," she said.
The school and residents of Haltern remain in shock, Decker said.
"We're trying to get back to normal," she said, "but it's not easy."
Also killed were two acclaimed opera singers from the Deutsche Oper in Duesseldorf. Their colleague, the Romanian soprano Luiza Fatyol, sang "Pie Jesu" by Gabriel Faure during the service.
The archbishop of Cologne, Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki, led the ecumenical service along with Annette Kurschus, head of the Lutheran Church in the region of Westphalia. She summed up the national mood, at least in part, saying, "Something incomprehensible has happened."
Representatives of the Orthodox Christian, Muslim and Jewish faiths also read short prayers, as did a young woman, identified only as Sarah, who organizers said had lost a sister in the crash. She choked back tears and was supported by others as she spoke.
Gauck thanked France for its help at the crash site, an inaccessible ravine, and for caring for relatives of the victims when they visited.
"Difficult times are when our people most pull together," he said.
Information for this article was contributed by Alison Smale of The New York Times.
A Section on 04/18/2015