German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Poland's Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki pay their respects at the International Monument to the Victims of Fascism in the former Nazi-German concentration Auschwitz II-Birkenau on December 6, 2019 in Oswiecim, Poland | Omar Marques/Getty Images Merkel warns of rising intolerance on first Auschwitz visit The chancellor stressed German responsibility for Nazi crimes on her first visit to the former death camp.

BERLIN — On her first visit to the former Nazi death camp Auschwitz-Birkenau, German Chancellor Angela Merkel warned of attacks on democratic values, rising racism and historical revisionism.

"For me it is anything but easy to stand here in front of you. I am filled with deep shame in the face of the barbaric crimes that were committed here by Germans," Merkel said in a speech after touring the site together with Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki.

Prior to her visit, Merkel had announced a €60 million donation — of which half comes from the German federal government and half from the country's regional governments — to the upkeep of the former concentration camp, where more than 1 million people were murdered during World War II. Most victims were Jewish.

While stressing German responsibility for Nazi crimes, as she has done throughout her 14 years as chancellor, Merkel also warned of growing anti-Semitism and historical revisionism nearly 75 years on from the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau.

"What we are experiencing of late is an alarming level of racism," she said. "Increasing intolerance, a wave of hate crimes. We are witnessing and experiencing an attack on the fundamental values of liberal democracy and a dangerous historical revisionism that serves a hostility that is directed against specific groups."

Anti-Semitic hate crimes are on the rise throughout Europe; an armed attack on a German synagogue on Yom Kippur sent shockwaves through the country. Earlier this year, a study found Holocaust revisionism to be rampant in the EU's eastern member states. Poland in particular has been accused of revisionism.

Merkel is only the third German chancellor to visit Auschwitz-Birkenau, following in the footsteps of fellow Christian Democrat Helmut Kohl and Social Democrat Helmut Schmidt.

In her speech, she emphasized German culpability and described the crimes committed at Auschwitz as "an integral part of our national identity," a sharp rebuke to far-right German politicians who have sought to play down the significance of the Holocaust and Germany's culture of remembrance.

"It was a German extermination camp, operated by Germans and I place value on stressing this fact," she said in her speech. "We Germans owe this to the victims and we owe it to ourselves."