Germany's Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder will become the country's first leader to attend a commemoration of the 1944 D-Day landings in June after being invited by France.
Ten years ago Paris did not ask Chancellor Helmut Kohl to the high-profile 50th anniversary. But President Jacques Chirac's invitation marks a gesture of reconciliation.
"Mr Chirac invited the chancellor before Christmas," a Berlin government spokesman said, adding that Mr Schroeder - the first chancellor to young to remember World War II - had immediately accepted.
"He's very pleased to have been invited."
This year's anniversary comes shortly after Mr Schroeder's 60th birthday. Born on April 7, 1944, he was just two month's old when the landings took place.
A spokeswoman for Mr Chirac said all other guests invited to the commemoration had been informed.
The move is seen as the strongest symbol yet of the growing ties between two of the European Union's largest and wealthiest states.
On June 6, 1944, the Allies opened a daring campaign against Nazi Germany on the beaches of Normandy in northwestern France, finally relieving pressure on Soviet forces battling in the east.
American, British and Canadian-led troops stormed ashore at dawn from a flotilla of ships, backed by airborne landings. Thousands died on the beaches but the invasion hastened the end for Hitler's armies, already reeling before the Soviet onslaught.