20th Anniversary of German Unity - German Community at NATO Air Command Ramstein Hosts Annual Reception

  • Published
  • By Manfred Reudenbach
  • Headquarters NATO Allied Air Command Ramstein
RAMSTEIN AIR BASE, Germany --  On the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the German reunification, the German Element of NATO's Air Command at Ramstein Air Base held their annual reception at the Landstuhl Stadthalle Oct. 5. Lt. Gen. Friedrich Ploeger, the Deputy Commander of NATO's Air Command Ramstein, and Col. Harry H. Schnell, Senior German Officer, were pleased to welcome 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 distinguished guests of the evening. General Ploeger thanked the mayor of Landstuhl, Klaus Grumer, for again making available the premises 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 demonstrated their solidarity with the armed forces. On behalf of all former staff of the command, the host welcomed his pre-predecessor, Lt. Gen. (ret.) 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 Germany had in 1989/1990," he said in his speech, alternating in German and English. He referred to the fact that the people in the former German Democratic Republic had seized the right moment starting out from the east to literally "kick down" the wall. Wise foreign politics ensured that the German unity was achieved peacefully, considering neighboring states' interests and firmly embedded within NATO.

With very personal words General Ploeger 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." According to General Ploeger, the vision of 'unity and constitutionality and freedom' - quoted in the German National Anthem - had become real on 3 Oct. 1990, "reunited in freedom and in peace with all our neighbors. We Germans have never had greater happiness in our history."

This year again, 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 supremely conducted by Rainer Dietrich provided the musical backdrop at the 2010 German annual reception.