Moving memories

It's now 15 years since Germany was re-united. But it is in a way like yesterday. I personally feel very lucky that this happened in my lifetime. Looking at TV programmes the last two evening I got the feeling that only if you have lived in that period and in particular had personal memories of the DDR, of the Berlin Wall, of all the suffering of the polulation in the DDR - then you really understand the importance of what happened. This revolution - and that is what it was - was created by a combination of very well organised citizens and very clever and skilled leaders. Not the East German leaders - they had no choice. But the leaders elsewhere. I still remember very clearly my own participation in one of the famous Monday demonstrations in the centre of Leipzig, when people shouted: Wir sind das Volk! I was there. Fantastic.

Later on I was in the European Commission personally involved in some of the concrete work of uniting Germany and in particular of making the ex-DDR a full part of the EU - almost from one day to the other. It was really history in the making.

May clever citizens and skilled leaders produce similar revolutions also in the future!