The first part of West Germany I really got to know well was Rheinland-Pfalz (The Rhine Palatinate). In 1974 I spent most of a summer studying at the University of Trier through Georgetown University. It was a memorable, thrilling time as Watergate drew to an end and I made friendships that lasted for some time. Helmut Kohl led the state. Willy Brandt led the nation. The former finished what the latter began: German reunification.
Helmut Kohl served as chancellor for 16 pivotal years. My sympathies at the time were with the Social Democrats, and still are somewhat. But Kohl accomplished things that no Social Democrat could have done. He was able to convince Washington that a united Germany would be a good thing. Margaret Thatcher and several others heads of state did not think so at all. The link details these events:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/global-opinions/wp/2017/06/19/helmut-kohl-helped-save-the-west/?utm_term=.72dfcdab1268
I watched the Pershing missile deployment closely, since after 1983 I was in the US Army Reserve Component. My Battle Dress Uniform (BDU) was designed for Central Europe. Towards the end of the decade I not only met US Senator Jeff Bingaman( D-NM) at a Town Hall meeting, but he asked me a question about it. Although a chaplain, I kept up my reading, and gave a cogent reply. New Mexico is small enough where those sorts of interactions can happen.
Imagine that Kohl had not been in office, or that Washington listened to Thatcher. There might still be two German states. Or there could have been millions of refugees heads westward from Dresden, Leipzig, and East Berlin (or, Berlin-GDR as it was officially known). Either way Germany would not be the economic powerhouse that it is now. Angela Merkel might still be a scientist, and someone else would have been South Carolina's leading international trading partner.
Vielen Dank, Herr Kanzler Kohl!
No comments:
Post a Comment