Reunited and It Feels So Good: A Look at the 25th Anniversary of German Reunification

By Kaitlyn Troilo

In order to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the unification of East and West Germany, Catholic University’s German Studies Program and Department of Modern Languages and Literature helped to host a panel discussion on Germany in the past, present and future. The featured panelists were the former German Secretary of State in the 1990s, Markus Meckel, Jack Janes from the American Institute for Contemporary German Studies at Johns Hopkins University and Catholic University’s very own Arpad von Kilmo from the Department of History.

The discussion featured Germany’s path to unification, how Germans from the East and West responded to that path and the influx of immigrants seeking asylum inside Germany’s borders today. It not only provided free t-shirts, journals and pens but more importantly illustrated the minority movements of the people that made unity of East and West Germany diplomatic and free from civil war.

Students with to connections to Germany were drawn to the event, namely Kevin Kuchler, a freshman who has many family members with ties to Germany and even visited Germany in a foreign exchange program last year. “It makes me feel a little bit more optimistic about politics and freedom and no blood was necessary for revolution,” said Kuchler.

This pride and optimism was shared not only among the students but was shared among the panelists.

Mr. Meckel, who started the Social Democratic Party in East Germany which was a catalyst for unification, expressed his pride for how far Germany has come and illustrated what it was like in East Germany during that time. “I never thought that I could experience democracy; I never thought I could experience German unity,” said Meckel. “Now it could be that change is possible.”

While qualifying that there is still more ground to cover on the economic empowerment of East Germany and the social and cultural barriers that exist between the two, all the panelists mentioned just how far Germany has come and will come within the next few years because of the challenge of the refugee crisis.

Professor Janes stood with Angela Merkel, the current Chancellor of Germany, in that, “Germany can do this, but we are not going to do this alone.”

Professor Janes suggests that the commemoration of this unification is being used to help in the spirit of European Unity in this extensive refugee crisis; where many European nations are closing their borders Germany is using this unification week to address this refugee problem, not alone, but together with all the other European countries.

Janes ended the discussion on an optimistic note by commending Germany on its diversity and hard work over coming an extremely dark part of history with saying, “Given what they have to work with, I think they’re in pretty good shape.”