This house once stood in another country

Last night, I was pleased to attend the German Unity Day reception and honored to be received by Consul General of the Federal Republic of Germany in New York, David Gill.

For more than thirty years, the Day of German Unity has been celebrated as a national holiday, commemorating the historic reunification of the German people.

The Oscar-nominated German filmmaker Wim Wenders was recently asked whether today’s Berlin resembles the city depicted in his film ‘Wings of Desire,’ which was shot just two years before the fall of the Berlin Wall.

He shared this remarkable story: There is a nice old building in my neighborhood, on Brunnenstrasse (formerly part of East Berlin), on which it is written, in huge letters:

“This house once stood in another country!”

Which is great, he went on to say, “because it reminds all of us that we now live in a new country, since East Germany does not exist anymore, and West Germany does not exist anymore either”.

Although history often records the reunification of East and West Germany, I believe, as Wenders does, that when the Berlin Wall fell over 30 years ago, a new country was born, and a divided people were reunified. While it has taken time for the German people to fully grasp this reality, they do now and their journey offers valuable lessons for us all.

Einen schönen Tag der Deutschen Einheit!