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On the 20th anniversary of German reunification, the German element of NATO’s Air Command at Ramstein held its annual reception Oct. 5 at the Landstuhl Stadthalle. Lt. Gen. Friedrich Ploeger, the deputy commander of NATO’s Air Command Ramstein, and Col. Harry H. Schnell, senior German officer, welcomed more than 300 German and international guests from civilian and military institutions.
Gen. Roger A. Brady, commander of U.S. Air Forces in Europe and commander of the NATO Air Command, was among the many guests. General Ploeger thanked the mayor of Landstuhl, Klaus Grumer, for making the premises available for the reception.
With their presence, the Kaiserslautern deputy mayor, Dr. Susanne Wimmer-Leonhardt, as well as members of the Rhineland-Palatinate state parliament Marlies Kohnle-Gros and Dr. Walter Altherr, they demonstrated their solidarity with the armed forces. On behalf of all former staff of the command, the host welcomed his pre-predecessor, retired Lt. Gen. Horst Martin.
The final tunes of the famous song “One Moment in Time” had just faded when General Ploeger started his address on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of German reunification.
“No other music could better describe the opportunity Ger-many had in 1989-1990,” he said, alternating between German and English, referring to the people in the former German Democratic Republic who had seized the right moment starting out from the east to “kick down” the wall. Wise foreign politics ensured that German unity was achieved peacefully, considering neighboring states’ interests and firmly embedded within NATO. General Ploeger also described his reunification experience.
“I’ll never forget Christmas Day 1989, when I crossed the border to Eastern Germany for the first time. What a special moment, when I walked through the gap in the border fortifications, shook hands with the completely overwhelmed border guard in his guard house and entered a territory for which I actually would have needed highest ministerial approval,” he said.
General Ploeger said the vision of ‘unity and constitutionality and freedom’ —
quoted in the German National Anthem — had become real on Oct. 3, 1990, “reunited in freedom and in peace with all our neighbors. We Germans have never had greater happiness in our history.”
This year, a lot of imagination was put into “dressing up” the Stadthalle to accommodate the reception. Staff of the Dahner Felsenland association of communities offered guests of 21 NATO nations some impressions of the eventful regional history and presented leisure activities in the southern Palatinate, while the chefs of the “Deutsches Haus Ramstein” served local and international specialties. The Saarland Police Big Band, conducted by Rainer Dietrich, provided the music at this year’s annual reception.
