On Oct. 3, 1990, 62 million Germans in the west were formally united with the 16 million in the east. The same day 10 years later, expatriate communities and locals in Taipei celebrated the anniversary of a unified Germany yesterday by knocking down a model of the Berlin Wall.
The ceremony took place yesterday morning at Swire European Campus -- which houses the Taipei German School (TGS), Taipei British School and Taipei French School. The idea was the brainchild of TGS Headmaster Michael Lagler.
"This wall symbolizes all the walls between all people of all nations," said Lagler in his speech.
PHOTO: GEORGE TSORNG, TAIPEI TIMES
Tearing down the model wall was not only a celebration for the the tenth birthday of a unified Germany, Lagler said, but also a reminder to people that all barriers between people and nations could be removed.
Klaus Rupprecht, director-general of the German Institute in Taipei, said although the Berlin Wall that used to separate East Germany from West Germany no longer exists, "one of the key issues in Germany is that there is still a Berlin Wall inside people's minds." He urged youngsters to help bring down the psychological barriers.
Joined by Sabine Hagemann-Unlusoy, director of the German Cultural Center, Hagler and Rupprecht then began taking down the model Berlin Wall with hammers in their hands, drawing applause and shrieks of laughter from watching students and guests. Three senior students then took over, followed by guests.
Steffen Sander, 15, was five-years-old and lived in east Berlin when the wall came down and only has vague memories of the event.
"My father went to collect a lot of pieces of the wall and sent them to our family members all over Germany," he said. "I also remember people holding parties in front of the Brandenburg Gate, but I was too small. I really didn't understand what was really going on."
David Schmaeing, 15, who then lived in Frankfurt, said he didn't remember anything about the fall of the Berlin Wall. "He lived too far from Berlin," Sander joked.
But for those who were adults at the time the unification of Germany came as a "shock."
"It was very unexpected. It was a happy occasion for everyone in Eastern Europe and also in my own country, Holland," said S.K. Schuur, representative of the Netherlands Trade and Investment Office in Taipei.
The collapse of communism in former Soviet bloc countries began in 1988 with a series of leadership changes, strikes and demonstrations in Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Poland. The pace of change picked up in May 1989 with the opening of the Iron Curtain between Austria and Hungary. In November 1989, the drama reached a climax when thousands of West Germans tore down the Berlin Wall without resistance from East German guards.
In mid-March 1990, the first free general elections were held in East Germany, culminating in the landslide victory of the then-West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl's Christian Democratic Party.
On July 1, 1990, German monetary union took place. True union came into effect on Oct. 3 of the same year.
The German Institute in Taipei also held a formal reception yesterday in downtown Taipei to celebrate the tenth birthday of a unified Germany.
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