Between February and December 1916, an estimated 60 million shells were fired in the battle.
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Merkel, whose country took in more than one million refugees in 2015, said the challenges of the 21st century “can only be overcome together”.
Hollande praised the city of Verdun as “the capital of peace”.
It was not until 1984 that the neighbours carried out a joint ceremony to mark the Verdun battle, another step towards ending decades of residual hostility. About 25 per cent failed to explode, meaning that housing and farming in the battlefield area are still banned. Hollande said earlier this week discussions would focus on Europe’s future, including the migrant crisis, security and the rise of populist movements.
The ceremony in Douaumont was also to be attended by European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and the president of the European Parliament, Martin Schulz.
Angela Merkel and Francois Hollande began the day by laying a wreath at the German military cemetery of Consenvoye in north-eastern France in memory of the soldiers who lost their lives in the battle.
4,000 French and German schoolchildren took part in a performance choreographed by German filmmaker Volker Schloendorff and meant to symbolise the battle.
Memorials to veterans in a Los Angeles neighborhood and a town in Kentucky, as well as a Civil War veterans cemetery in Virginia, were damaged as the nation prepares to mark Memorial Day, officials said.
Later in the day, some 3,400 French and German children were to give a presentation at an global ceremony held at the Douaumont ossuary, where the remains of 130,000 soldiers from both sides are buried.
Sharing an umbrella, they walked between rows of black crosses inscribed with the names of the German dead stretching down the hill where 11,000 soldiers are buried.
This file photo taken on September 22, 1984 in Douamont, near Verdun shows French President Francois Mitterrand (L) and German Chancellor Helmut Kohl holding hands as they listen to French and German National’s anthems during the reconciliation ceremony in tribute of French and German soldiers killed during First and Second World War. The museum, which reopened in February, immerses visitors in the “hell of Verdun” through soldiers’ belongings, documents and photos, and from its new rooftop, they can observe the battlefield.
Verdun has become a common place of remembrance because “it’s a place of massive death equivalent for the French and the Germans”, Prost added.
“Mitterrand’s gesture with Helmut Kohl, the hands that reached out and found each other, that’s the symbol of reconciliation”, he told French radio this week.
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Later they stood at attention as the French and German national anthems were played beside the Douaumont Ossuary, a memorial to 130,000 unidentified troops from both sides of the conflict, in northeast France.
