now on the evening of November 9th 1989
Berliners from the east pour through the
wall that had divided them from West
Germans for 28 years within a year the
two Germany's had unified in the Cold
War in Europe had ended peacefully 30
years later what kind of lessons can a
divided nation like Korea learn from the
German experience of 1989 and 1990 well
we have a special guest in the studio
this morning dr. Bernhard Zelig ER
resident representative of the honza
zidle foundation in Seoul now
headquartered in Munich the Hans Ida
foundation is one of six nonprofit
political organizations in the Federal
Republic of Germany dr. Zeller welcome
to the program thank you for having me
now you yourself have lived both in a
divided Germany and a unified journey
Germany you lived through the fall of
the Berlin Wall on November 9th 1989
tell us where were you doing what at
that time and what do you mean for you
just a finished school and I had to
enter the army
we had a conscription arm at that time
so I experienced it as a soldier but it
was for me really great event in my life
because my family had been divided
before a unification and as a child I
grew up fortunately I would say in the
West but we visited our relatives in the
East in calmac City now chemnitz again
and certainly for us the fall of the
wall was as well unexpected is really a
blessing now 30 years later how do the
German public view or feel about the
incident I mean looking back with
reunification a good thing for people of
both East and West Germany or is there
still a gap that needs to be narrowed
well speaking from a scientific point of
view all indicators so very clearly how
much the life in the East improved and
that is social indicators like life
expectancy or how much space people have
how much they earn how much education
they receive how many doctors say all
these indicators are very very positive
most of the people see that also but
what we may be underestimated was really
the
big gap in the societies and also the
problems of societies to grow together
and so there's still a lot of people who
feel this gap and we saw it in recent
elections that sometimes also can
translate into populism on the right and
on the left and some instability which
we are not very happy about in the
moment so there's still some work to be
done to grow together as a social
community or as people together yeah
right even 30 years later but looking at
it from a Korean a perspective of course
like you said you were a divided family
yourself with between East and West
Germany but you were able to visit your
family members in the East which is a
different case during the Korean
Peninsula as a resident representative
of the Hans idyll foundation you work on
various projects to North Korea you make
frequent visits to North Korea as I'm
aware can you compare and contrast the
North Korea that you see the experience
and recently and how it was in East
Germany leading up to the reunification
there are some similarities actually
though they are more may be an emotional
field like if in the morning if you
smell the trip coal that is something
like a childhood memory from East
Germany or you have these shops in in
Pyongyang in the hotels we stay where
you can only buy with dollars and you
had similar shops that so-called
intercept in East Germany you could only
buy with George Mack with West German
Mac so there are these similarities but
the main thing is very very different
I mean time went on it's now 30 years
gone and I think there was one big
difference that in North Korea we seen
now such a huge gap of Pyongyang and a
few other cities and the countryside
with Pyongyang being relatively modern
and adopting modern technologies as much
as I can and a building boom and at the
same time a very very harsh and
difficult life in the countryside with
technologies like like plowing with
oxidants which they use some thousands
of years and there seemed to be no
progress that might be really a breaking
point and this did
not exist like this in Germany well so
Germany peacefully ended its
decades-long division in late 1989 in
early 1990 but I've been told by many
experts including yourself through our
conversations that you know we need to
avoid making direct historical analogies
between the two cases
because on the East and West Germany's
case there was never a bloody conflict
where's the Korean Peninsula in the
early 1950s we experienced a conflict
military conflict if you will between
between the two now what can the two
Koreas learn from the German example
it's very very difficult to learn from
such a distant example but one thing
which we learnt after unification first
we thought it's political difference
it's so difficult to grow together and
then we overcame that in only one year
and then we suddenly economy it's so
difficult we have unemployment problems
etc but we overcame that also and what
remains is really that the mindset of
people was very very different in only
40 years of division and though we had
frequent visits and even not a few East
Germans could visit the West once they
were over a certain age and I think that
is a point you could also look at that
this 70 years of division brought very
very different societies and then as a
consequence of that try to make as many
opportunities as possible to have people
meet each other and you know that's not
only a problem of North Korea which
makes it very very difficult to visit
but also of South Korea because visiting
North Korea is also not allowed from
here and to bring the people together to
have civilian exchanges I know it's a
taboo Heon because of the things you
said but to allow people to meet as
often as possible in third countries or
in North Korea would be I think a very
very good point and solid I as a pupil
in school we had to go to East Germany
to East Berlin at least once and I think
it was a good program and exchanges of
young people or bringing North Koreans
out to study elsewhere was maybe with
the help of your government there would
be many things which have
very important to overcome this barriers
between the minds of the people well so
people-to-people exchange is very
important you're saying in this now I'm
last but not least when you were flipped
back 30 years ago of you know what you
felt what you saw leading up to the fall
of the Berlin Wall
how close would you say the two Koreas
are to reunification if I knew that I
probably would invest in the stock
exchange no I think it's very very far
it's really the gap actually grew in the
past and I think it's not so much a
problem of what is sometimes called her
unification education I think
unification will come when there's a
free decision possible for both sides
but it's really you have to see that you
need to create the precondition and
that's not so much talking about
unification but it's more talking about
how to live peacefully together so peace
and rapport sment must come first and
that can help them to create the
condition for unification all right
Bernard Oliver resident representative
of the honza's idle foundation many
thanks for your sharing your stories and
your insights this morning thank you
