Fellow Ambassadors,

Chair of the NATO Military Committee,

Acting Deputy Secretary General,

Generals, Admirals,

Assistant Secretary Generals,

Dear friends,

A very warm welcome to you all to the Day of German Unity.

Beside me, you see a photograph taken 35 years ago.

It shows the Brandenburg Gate and the Berlin Wall, with happy people hugging each other after decades of separation. We see incredible, almost unreal, joy.

During those days, the symbol of dictatorship became the symbol of freedom.

Freedom prevailed over oppression. Courage triumphed over fear.

For me, the Day of German Unity is a day of joy, gratitude and responsibility.

Joy.

I experienced this period in Munich at the end of my studies. We admired the people protesting in East Germany and could hardly believe what we saw on television.

We felt hope, but also fear, as we knew how brutally Moscow had crushed the desire for freedom in the past in East Berlin, Budapest and Prague.

When the Wall actually fell, there was overwhelming joy. People could travel, visit one another, get to know each other, and set off into the future together.

Gratitude

Yes, it was the courageous women and men in what was then the GDR who took to the streets week after week and succeeded in tearing down the Wall by peaceful means.

And equally, it was the millions of people who rose up against the Soviet-backed regimes in Poland, Hungary and many other places. They made the fall of the Wall and the end of the enforced division of our continent possible.

We are grateful to our friends and Allies in Europe and North America who remained steadfast during the Cold War and for decades did not stop striving for a peaceful and free Europe –

and who placed their trust in the people of the new Federal Republic after the chasms forged by the world wars and Nazi terror and welcomed my country to NATO in 1955.

We are grateful for the European integration process achieved after the Second World War because our transatlantic friends were willing to guarantee lasting security for the free part of Europe through NATO.

Freedom, peace and security belong together.

The great cellist Mstislav Rostropovich gave a spontaneous concert beside the Berlin Wall the day after it fell. He did not only want to play celebratory music, but also to pay tribute to the many victims of the Cold War. He knew the price of freedom and was aware of our responsibility for it.

Responsibility

Freedom, peace and security are a great and precious responsibility that must also be met both at home and abroad today ‒ indeed, today in particular, in such challenging times.

We see this need in the many wars, crises and conflicts that we address every day in NATO and other forums.

There has been a hot war in Europe for two-and-a-half years, now. Russia is trying to strangle its neighbour Ukraine, to intimidate us and to re-establish a world order of the past, based on confrontation.

Moscow is working on a new Iron Curtain and we can well imagine where it is supposed to run.

The Moscow of 35 years ago had understood that people’s pressing desire to live in freedom, to leave oppression behind, could ultimately not be shot dead. And now? And tomorrow?

The Cold War lasted for decades – but not forever. Even if it is hard and comes at a price, once again today, we must be steadfast, determined and focused

– as Europeans, as transatlantic partners, as the West, as democracies, as countries for whom the protection of international law is important for their people and borders.

It must be very clear whose side we are and will remain on.

Perhaps Germany could have achieved unification sooner ‒ but only without freedom and security.

And the same holds true today: there can be no stable peace without freedom and security.

As German Ambassador to NATO, I am proud that my country stands firmly at the heart of the Alliance today, that it plays its part in our shared responsibility for our security, and that it reliably does its utmost to foster strength and cohesion in NATO.

And, we are providing constant and very substantial support to Ukraine to ensure that Moscow does not succeed in its attempts to create lasting strife.

At the same time, we need to be attentive and vigilant at home.

In my country, as in others, now, 35 years after the end of the Cold War, the public discourse on peace, freedom and security has changed.

Many people, understandably, feel unease about the various challenges we face in our globalized world.

It is worrying to see the growing number of those who are ready to accept the illusion of quick and simple answers and solutions and who are no longer willing to reflect more deeply on history and on the complexity of the world we live in.

We must take this very seriously and address it with great patience. Again and again we must explain our responsibility for peace, freedom and security – and that they belong together.

The very future of what „freedom“ is and means is at stake.

Those are my thoughts on the fall of the Wall 35 years ago.

It is now a very special pleasure for me to introduce tonight’s guest of honour, the current German Ambassador to France, and former State Secretary at the Federal Foreign Office and the Office of the Federal President, my friend and colleague Stephan Steinlein.

After the fall of the Wall, Foreign Minister Genscher wisely decided that German diplomacy also needed to unite without delay. From East and West respectively, Stephan and I applied to the diplomatic service as part of the first intake from the united Germany and have represented our country together since then.

Stephan, I would be delighted if you could share your thoughts with us on what the 35 years of the fall of the Wall are telling us.