BERLIN — On the 80th anniversary of Adolf Hitler’s rise to power, Chancellor Angela Merkel urged Germans to always fight for their principles and not fall into the complacency that enabled the Nazi dictator to seize control.

Speaking Wednesday at the opening of an exhibit at the Topography of Terror memorial documenting Hitler’s election, Merkel said German academics and students happily joined the Nazis only a few months later in burning books deemed subversive.