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