Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid)

Meeting date: Wednesday, October 28, 2020

Official Report 1038KB pdf

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Reunification of Germany (30th Anniversary)

The final item of business is a members’ business debate on motion S5M-22911, in the name of Colin Beattie, on the 30th anniversary of German reunification. The debate will be concluded without any question being put.

Motion debated,

That the Parliament celebrates that 2020 marks the 30th anniversary of German reunification, which took place on 3 October 1990; remembers all those who were instrumental in bringing about the fall of the Berlin Wall, a wall that divided Europe, on 9 November 1989, and acknowledges that this event marked the end of the Cold War; supports the notion of further peace in Europe; values international cooperation, especially with Scotland's neighbours in Europe; believes that these global partnerships are extremely important, especially now in a modern, globalised society where international cooperation is imperative to an interconnected world; believes that national challenges, such as those that have been presented by the COVID-19 pandemic, can be eased when working together with other countries to solve problems; extends Scotland’s well wishes and friendship to all those who are commemorating the reunification of Germany, the fall of the Berlin Wall and celebrating continued peace and prosperity across Europe, and sends is best wishes to the people of Germany on this occasion.

17:41  

I am delighted to have the opportunity to debate such an important topic, commemorating an event that brought unity and peace to our continent 30 years ago and changed Europe for the better.

I am the convener of the cross-party group on Germany. It is an honour to be a member of a group that highlights the importance of our close relationship and co-operation with Germany as well as discussing that country’s rich culture and history. I am pleased to lead the debate today and to provide an opportunity for us all to appreciate how far our democracy in Europe has come in the past 30 years.

The reunification of the Federal Republic of Germany with the German Democratic Republic on 3 October 1990 was a momentous event that will now seem a distant memory for some, given the strength and stability that we currently see there and the unity that we are now used to across Europe. Few of us, however, have forgotten the tumultuous and chaotic precursor to that event: the fall of the Berlin wall on 9 November 1989.

As we do with most historic events, we like to place neat timelines and precise fixed dates around our European history. It makes it much more presentable and palatable, yet there was nothing neat or precise about the demise of the GDR and perhaps the biggest shift in European geopolitics in recent times.

The wall became a symbol not only of the divided Germany but of the battle between communism and capitalism. It became a focus on two different, starkly divided, regimes. The GDR seemed monolithic and secure—it was supported by the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. It seemed that that division of Europe would last for ever.

As late as January 1989, the East German leader, Erich Honecker, said that the wall would still exist in 50 or even 100 years. However, events happening elsewhere indicated that the so-called “iron curtain” was crumbling. In May 1989, Hungarian border guards began to remove fortifications from the border with Austria. What followed was nothing less than amazing.

Those of us who are old enough can remember the startling television news reports from that time. To see columns of East German Trabant motor cars wheezing their way across fields and country roads in Hungary was incredible. No one knew what was really happening. The expectation was that the communist authorities would intervene. Perhaps, remembering what had happened in Prague in 1968, we even thought that Soviet Russia would intervene militarily.

All of that was perhaps even more surreal for me. I was living and working in Bangkok at the time and was seeing it from a distance and through multiple perspectives. It was difficult to comprehend what was happening and unbelievable to watch communist structures falling apart. The power of individual citizens working together was prevailing over the Soviet dictatorship. That was happening everywhere in eastern Europe, but nowhere more so than in hard-line East Germany.

Hungary opened its borders and thousands poured over into the west. Nearly 6,000 East Germans who presented themselves at the West German embassy in Prague were allowed to leave for the west. By October, the GDR leader, Erich Honecker, had quit and, by November, it was estimated that between 500,000 and 1 million people were demonstrating in Alexanderplatz—one of the largest demonstrations in the history of East Germany.

Soon after, the Berlin wall symbolically fell, the crossings opened and East Germans were free to travel to the west. Families who had faced a literal wall being built between them were reunited after decades. Thousands flooded over the border into West Berlin. Subsequently, of course, the Berlin wall was literally demolished, piece by piece, as democracy prevailed. As political events hurtled out of control in East Germany, it took many months for the conclusion to be reached that artificially perpetuating a divided Germany was in no one’s interest. On 3 October 1990, just over 30 years ago, and after some 40 years of division, Germany was reunited.

It must be difficult now to understand how it felt when the division of Germany ended. For me, it was a continuation of the democratic process in Europe; for Germany, it was the beginning of the huge task of rebuilding East Germany. The economy in the GDR was on the verge of collapse, with a crumbling infrastructure, outdated factories and high unemployment. I remember that, in the early days, a figure of €100 billion was allocated to the work that was required. In fact, the investment amounted to almost €2 trillion over the 20 years following reunification. All of that went into reshaping the infrastructure in East Germany.

It was a time for courage among European leaders, and particularly among West German leaders, who had to conceive a new future for this new land. The fall of the Berlin wall and the reunification of Germany was, essentially, the final nail in the coffin of the cold war, and other Warsaw pact countries followed very quickly in throwing off the yoke of Communist dictatorship. Germany showed the way.

The end of the cold war ushered in a new era of peace and economic growth across Europe, especially for those countries in the European Union. Indeed, joining the European Union became the gold standard for the emerging democracies, and they have prospered hugely as a result.

We live in a globally interconnected world, where co-operation and joint action on the huge challenges that face us are essential. Scotland wishes to play its part in this fast-moving partnership-driven world. International co-operation is essential in this new world of ours. Germany’s contribution to Europe has been massive, and the economic success of Germany since reunification has been notable. The country has made impressive social developments and has become a key player in international co-operation through its roles in the European Union, NATO and the United Nations. In Angela Merkel, it has an excellent role model of a leader, and it has been at the forefront of difficult international issues that have required cross-country co-operation. On matters such as the refugee crisis, terrorism and global climate change, Germany’s contribution to our global society is remarkable.

We should reflect on the progress that has been made in the 30 years of co-operation that resulted from the events that we are remembering this evening. Therefore, let me extend my personal well wishes, my well wishes as convener of the cross-party group on Germany and what I believe are the well wishes of all Scots to the people of Germany on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the reunification of Germany following the fall of the Berlin wall. I look forward to continued peace and prosperity across Europe and to a closer Scottish and German friendship over the coming years.

17:48  

I thank Colin Beattie for submitting this motion for debate, and I recognise his excellent convenership of the cross-party group on Germany. That group has a meeting this evening, starting at 6 o’clock, and I beg your indulgence, Presiding Officer, as I would like to leave shortly before then, because Colin Beattie has asked me to convene in his place so that he can stay and listen to all the speeches in this debate and join us later.

Many members know about my long-standing connections with Germany and with the German language, which I studied first at school. My first visit to Germany was at the age of 16, to the Ruhrgebiet and the Friesian islands, and I subsequently worked in Wilhelmshaven, in the hospitality industry—waitressing and cleaning, as it was known then. I am qualified to teach the German language—well, I was; I am probably a bit rusty now—after studying it at the University of Strathclyde and the University of Birmingham, and I eventually worked for a German oil-drilling company in Aberdeen, where the working languages were English and German.

Thinking back, I must have been working at the drilling company at the time of the fall of the wall and the very quick reunification. I honestly cannot remember there being much celebration at the time, but maybe that was because everything happened so very quickly, and people were in a state of shock.

Nonetheless, the process showed that, whether nations are coming together or going their separate ways, things can be done quickly and easily where all parties act in good faith. In this case, it was helped by the fact that West Germany has had strong post-war leaders. Since reunification, Germany has had only three leaders: Helmut Kohl, who was in office from 1982 to 1998 and supervised the reunification; Gerhard Schröder; and Angela Merkel—or Mutti Merkel, as she is known—who has been in office since 2005 but is shortly to retire. She comes from the east, which has been helpful in giving her a strong sense of leadership in bringing East and West Germany together. As we know, that has not been easy, but she has made many bold decisions—helped, as I said, by the fact that she comes from the east.

Germany has always had strong support from the west—who can ever forget the “Ich bin ein Berliner” speech by John F Kennedy? In more recent times, with the Scottish Government and devolution, Scotland has built strong links with Germany. In 2018, Fiona Hyslop opened the Germany innovation and investment hub, and in June that year the First Minister led a delegation of 12 Scottish companies with the aim of growing exports to Germany, which are currently worth around £2 billion. Looking inward, I note that there are 155 German companies in Scotland, which currently employ around 18,000 people.

Although I have visited Germany many times over the decades, until recently I had not visited Berlin—what an omission. It is a wonderful, vibrant, international, safe city. I have learned a lot about the history of not only Berlin itself but the wall, and I look forward to making more, longer visits in the future.

I will finish by mentioning the work of an artist from north-east Scotland, Sandy Cheyne, who lives in Newtonhill in my constituency. He was living and working as a teacher in Berlin at the time of the wall, and he captured its fall in some wonderful paintings, which were displayed in the Rendezvous gallery in Aberdeen 30 years on. He described that time as “the most exciting period” of his life, and few would disagree.

17:53  

Presiding Officer,

“The German people, conscious of their responsibility before God and mankind,

Inspired by the determination to promote world peace as an equal partner in a united Europe”.

Those words are from the preamble to the basic law of the Federal Republic of Germany, which was born from the ashes of the second world war. I think that it is fair to say that Germany has worked hard to live up to its stated aspiration, and it has largely succeeded in spite of a lengthy and painful division into east and west.

The regime in East Germany acted in many ways like the one that preceded it, telling people what to believe, what to think and what to say. I will offer a single illustration, if I may, of that in action. The mother of a friend of mine grew up in East Germany. She wanted to become a doctor but was told that she could only become a nurse. Why? She was not told why at the time. Was it a lack of academic grades, ability or interest? No. It was simply because, as a young girl one summer, she had attended a Christian children’s camp and was thereby tarred for life. In East Germany, myriad files that were kept on people’s lives held details of similar cases. I think that Angela Merkel herself, who of course came from a minister’s family, was told by her mother that, as a Christian, she would simply have to be much better at what she did than other people in order to succeed.

We must always beware of such a suffocating state system arising at any time in any country, including our own. People losing their jobs because of what they believe, think or say—does that sound familiar? I remember being in East Berlin when the wall still stood; I remember the empty shelves in the shops and the mood of the people there and then. Colin Beattie spoke of the euphoria when that symbol of division came down.

However, the whole wall did not come down, because part remains as a reminder of the past. We should be wary of mindless destruction of remnants of the past—of symbols that should be kept to remind us of our own fallibility. That original euphoria gave way to quiet determination, which was needed by the German people over the years of work on reunification.

Not everything in former East Germany was bad—communities and families can often thrive in difficult circumstances—and, indeed, not everything in West Germany was without its faults. Following reunification, there have been points of disagreement.

A few years after the events of the fall of the wall and reunification, I was with a friend, Henry, on a walking trip on the East German-Czech border. Henry is a proud Markkleeberger— I hasten to add that Markkleeberg is near to, but not part of, Leipzig; in Edinburgh, the term “Leither” will explain the distinction to a Scots audience. He parked the car, only to be immediately reprimanded by a fellow East German for parking in the wrong place. “Blöder Wessi!”—translated, that is “Stupid West German!”—the stranger added, noticing the West German number plate on the car. Henry replied very politely but with a most German response, noting that there was no sign prohibiting parking. He added, with feeling, “Und im übrigens bin ich kein blöder Wessi!”—“And I’m not a stupid West German!”.

Fraught relations sometimes came to the fore in the time following reunification. Sometimes it was somewhat humorous, as in that case. However, there were also many difficulties in the real sense that the German people, on both sides of the former border, succeeded in overcoming. At the end of the day, their determination, hard work, commitment, planning and—indeed—humour have won the day.

To quote Psalm 133:1:

“Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!”

17:58  

I, too, congratulate Colin Beattie on securing this important debate. I am sure that, if Covid-19 were not with us, the celebrations marking such an historic occasion would have been a joy to behold.

I studied German in high school and took part in a student exchange. When I was 15, the German kids came over to the Renfrew region of Strathclyde Regional Council, as it then was. When I was 16, we went over to the Kreis Herford region in West Germany. As well as attending school for three days in the region, we spent the second week in West Berlin and also went on a day visit into East Berlin.

We had a tour of the Reichstag and it was remarkable to see die Mauer—the wall—out of a window only metres away from the building that used to be the seat of the German Parliament. Looking over the wall into no-man’s-land and seeing the other wall on the eastern side is an image that will stay with me for the rest of my life, as will being informed that there was no doubt that somebody was watching us from the other side, because of where we were standing. Whether that was true or not, it was a nice wee story to be told, and it was akin to being in a spy movie.

The visit to communist East Berlin was one of the most surreal journeys in my life. We used the underground, passing through dimly lit stations that had not seen any investment in decades. It was like a scene from a spy movie. We were informed of the dos and don’ts in East Berlin and it seemed quite harsh. That memory stayed with me as a 16-year-old boy from Port Glasgow: I felt a genuine sense of sorrow for the people of East Germany but also hope for them.

The politics of the 1980s and 1990s certainly shaped my life, living through the cold war with the daily update of the west versus the east, which always painted a picture of oppression and fear about the east. When a state takes to shooting its own people as they are trying to escape to a better life, it is no wonder that such a picture was painted. Colin Beattie also touched on the cold war. When, as an MSP, I go into schools, a question that is always posed concerns how I got involved in politics and what stimulated my political thoughts. When I talk about the cold war, I feel as though I am giving a history lesson to many younger people now—indeed, I am, because it was many years ago.

I am thankful that it was many years ago and that things have moved on. I remember watching the images on television of the rallies leading up to the night when the wall came down and genuinely shedding a tear of joy. Even then, I knew that it would never be easy reconnecting 18 million people overnight and there would be many challenges ahead. However, if any country could do it, it would be the former West Germany, once again becoming a unified German nation.

At university, I studied at the Fachhochschule in Dortmund and I thoroughly enjoyed the experience, but one of the things that I took from my time there in 1995 was talking to German students about how they felt that reunification had developed and what their thoughts were about the future. Something that struck me was the hope that people from the western part of Germany had about the east and their aspirations for the people from the east.

I am sorry that I cannot participate in the whole of this very interesting debate. I was in Germany in 1990 when the wall came down as one of the soldiers who were based out there. Stuart McMillan talks about tears of joy. Would he accept that it was quite a moving experience for us, having been on the front line, as it were, of the cold war, to open the gates of our barracks and welcome in the East Germans and look after them until their country could take them back after the wall had come down? Will he pay tribute, as I often do, to all my fellow soldiers for the welcome that was given to those people in what were probably the most difficult times they had faced?

I absolutely agree with Edward Mountain and I genuinely pay tribute to those soldiers and to everyone who was involved at that time in trying to make the transition, which was clearly going to be a momentous activity in world history, as easy as possible.

I admire what Germany has undertaken and its actions in recent years in accepting more than 1 million refugees. That is a lesson for all Governments about humanitarianism. After reunification, I remember that some people were fretting because of history. However, even as a 16-year-old boy and right through until now, I have taken the position that reunification was not about looking back and going back; it was about bringing people together and, to use a phrase from today’s politics, building back better. Germany did that and I am proud of what the German people have achieved.

The second half of Colin Beattie’s motion is absolutely accurate and indicates the interdependencies of the global economy. With every nation facing Covid-19, how we all act together to try to deal with it is extremely important. I want to pay tribute to Germany’s activities on that.

I have one more very brief point, if you will allow me, Presiding Officer. One of the Berlin stickers on my pipe box states, “Berlin ist ganz toll”, which means, “Berlin is really great”. Actually, I believe that Deutschland ist ganz toll. Well done to Germany for delivering hope, ambition and security and for what it has achieved since the fall of the wall and reunification.

18:05  

I am pleased to take part in the debate, in part because I am a member of the cross-party group on Germany—although I note that my membership is marked somewhat rather more by my sentiment than by my presence—but also because I have German heritage on my mother’s side.

It is remarkable that German reunification took place only 30 years ago, because we take for granted so much of what Germany is today, which stands in contrast with where Germany was 30 years ago. As Colin Beattie remarked, we view Germany as something of a rock of Europe, as an example of good governance and stable Government, and as a progressive nation. However, at the time, many people viewed German reunification with suspicion and even outright hostility. Apparently, Margaret Thatcher would go round with a map of the boundaries of pre-war Germany in her handbag in order to warn of the threat. George H W Bush was at the forefront of overcoming such sentiments and ensuring that reunification happened.

We also take for granted just how much progress has been made since reunification. I first came to remark on those issues when I first visited Berlin in 1994, as a student taking part in the European Youth Parliament. I had the great privilege of debating in the Reichstag building, which has been mentioned. In 1994, it was remarkable just how visible the wall still was. Sections of the wall were still present and, where the wall was not there, it was still possible to see where it had been. Even if the wall could not be seen, people still knew very well when they were in the former East Berlin and when they were not. When I revisited Berlin in 2002, visitors could not tell which part of Berlin they were in. The progress that had been made on buildings and on people’s livelihoods was remarkable.

Colin Beattie’s motion is right to mark not just the historical event of reunification and the progress that has been made, but the lessons for us for the future. In my view, the lessons are threefold. First, reunification was as much a human and popular process as a political one. In many ways, the events that led to reunification began with a picnic that was held in Sopron, just over the border in Hungary, where thousands of people from East Germany, after the Hungarian border had become liberalised, took the opportunity to meet for a picnic. In the subsequent weeks and months, tens of thousands of East Germans moved, having taken their cue from that picnic. Reunification became an inevitability not because of political will, but because of popular will and popular movement of people—in spirit and opinion, and in person.

Secondly, there was the effort of reunification. It took €2 trillion over 20 years, and even today the fiscal transfers continue. In the former East Germany, almost a quarter of public spending comes from revenues that consist of fiscal transfers from the west to the east. That happens because of a common recognition and a collective will to ensure that German reunification is a success, not just as an historical fact but on an on-going basis. Indeed, 90 per cent of Germans view reunification as a good thing.

Finally, because of federation, Germany is a strong federal republic, with a strong basic law, and its Parliament recognises both the Länder and the federal Government. The upper house consists of representatives who are appointed by the Länder.

We can learn lessons from those three things—popular will, the effort of reunification and strong federation. At a time when our politics is marked by exceptionalism, withdrawal and creating new borders, we can all learn lessons from the bringing down of borders and acting in the collective interest.

Before I bring in Mr Gibson, we will hear from Mr Corry.

18:10  

Dan Johnson made some very interesting points. I was very fortunate to live and work in Germany in 1980-81, when I was serving with the Black Watch. At that time the wall was up and everything was very much divided between east and west. I was greatly struck by the difficulties. Members who know Berlin will probably know that in East Berlin there was a massive tall tower with a round edge and that at certain times of day, when the sun shone on it, it showed a picture of a crucifix. In those days, the East German police insisted that it be covered with hessian at those times in order not to shine Christianity over East Berlin.

Daniel Johnson’s main point was about the success of reunification. A lot of that success was down to the parity of the deutschmark in both countries. That was something that Chancellor Kohl made a real play of sorting out. It was a big gamble, but it worked.

I was fortunate also to serve in the Balkans in Bosnia, and I was involved in the question of currency implications. We used the German reunification model to ensure that we created a new currency in Bosnia. We used the marka as the new currency and linked it to the deutschmark at one-for-one parity. That was also very successful. Many things stemmed from German reunification that worked not just in Germany, but in the Balkans.

Thank you, Mr Corry. I should explain that Mr Corry had wanted to intervene on Mr Johnson to make that point, but members cannot intervene on members who are making their speech remotely because that causes difficulties.

Thank you, Presiding Officer.

Hold on a minute, Mr Gibson.

Freiheit!

We are into chaos.

I will sit down until I am called.

I now call the last of our speakers in this debate, Mr Kenneth Gibson.

18:12  

As long as I am not the least.

I congratulate my colleague, Colin Beattie, for securing debating time this evening. Sadly, I will have to add a note of disagreement with Maurice Corry’s comments. Replacing the ostmark one for one with the deutschmark, when the East German economy was only about 30 per cent to 40 per cent as productive as the West German economy, meant that there was mass unemployment in the east because, in effect, they were paying the same wages for far inferior products and lower levels of productivity. That has led to some of the continued social problems that persist in the east of Germany. That was a catastrophic decision by the west that has not benefited the east in the long term.

On 9 November 1989, the Berlin wall, which seemed in my youth to be immovable, fell. For 28 years, the “anti-fascist protection barrier”, as it was ludicrously called by the so-called German Democratic Republic, had separated the people of Germany, Europe and the world. Less than a year after its fall, east and west became one. As former Chancellor Willy Brandt put it in his legendary comment,

“Now what belongs together can finally grow together”.

Despite taking only 339 days to complete, reunification was not without difficulties and had to overcome numerous hurdles. Let us not forget that Mrs Thatcher’s UK Tory Government of the day was a fierce opponent of reunification—as Daniel Johnson suggested. According to the memoirs of the late Chancellor Helmut Kohl, he never forgot the hostility that he faced at a European meeting in December 1989 after unveiling his 10-point plan for reunification. Mrs Thatcher told astonished heads of state during dinner that

“We beat the Germans twice, and now they’re back”.

Despite those reactionary views, we now regard 3 October 1990 as a successful and astonishingly peaceful coming together of a once-divided German nation, which liberated 18 million Ossies from the stagnation that was imposed by the Socialist Unity Party—that is, the communist party—or SED. For those who want to see what it was like in the old DDR, “The Lives of Others”, “Deutschland 83” and “Goodbye Lenin” are well worth watching. The anniversary of Germany unification is rightly a cause for celebration in Germany, Scotland and the rest of the world.

We must also remember those who fell victim to the paranoia of the SED. According to the Berlin wall memorial, at least 140 people were killed along the 96-mile-long Berlin wall by East German border guards between 1961 and 1989. More than 1,100 people died trying to escape East Germany, and innumerable others perished as a result of the suffering and despair that the wall brought to their personal lives.

The wall has now been gone for longer than it existed, and although the physical markers of division have disappeared, some disparities persist. Länder in the former West Germany continue to be considerably more prosperous than those in the former East Germany , where wages are lower and ordinary households own less than half the wealth, on average, that is accumulated by households in the west.

A recent study by the Berlin Institute for Population and Development found that half of all Germans still believe that there are more differences between easterners and westerners than there are commonalities. Although that shows that the healing of painful separation has not yet been fully completed, the peaceful co-operation between states from the former eastern bloc and from the west gives us cause for optimism. Since the end of the cold war, many former Warsaw pact states have embraced democracy and the mixed economy, and have subsequently joined the European Union, as a result of which there has been more movement between European nations during the 21st century than ever before. It is a little-known fact that Chancellor Brandt predicted that development, and referred to all parts of Europe, not just Germany, growing together once the cold war ended.

We must also remember, however, that the fall of the Berlin wall did not end the presence of physical barriers in Europe. In recent years, we have seen the rise of people who put up new walls. In the summer of 2015, Hungary, which was, as we have heard, instrumental in the fall of the Berlin wall, erected a razor-wire fence on its border with Serbia to keep out refugees. More than 20 years after the Belfast agreement was signed, more than 100 so-called peace walls still separate neighbourhoods across Northern Ireland as an enduring legacy of sectarian conflict. The once-unthinkable erection of physical barriers between Northern Ireland and the Republic is a realistic possibility, sadly.

Our celebration of the 30th anniversary of German reunification comes with a responsibility. The process that began with reunification is not yet ended. We must all strive to keep the spirit of 1990 alive by ensuring peaceful co-operation between all European countries without the presence of walls separating the nations of Europe.

18:17  

I congratulate my colleague Colin Beattie on securing this evening’s debate, and I thank him for his work on the cross-party group on Germany, of which he is convener. This Parliament shares an important relationship with Germany, which I value hugely, not least in a personal capacity, as my Uncle Knut was standing on the wall in 1989 with many others as it was finally demolished piece by piece.

As Colin Beattie rightly said, the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989 did not just bring about the reunification of Germany. The heroic actions of many brave German citizens helped to bring an end to the cold war, leading to the reunification of a continent.

I stand here to respond to the motion today, not simply to mark that anniversary but to offer a reflection on Germany’s reunification and what it means for Scotland’s role in Europe and the world 30 years on. There are many lessons that we can draw from the process of reunification and the integration of the modern German state into the EU, not least on the value of international dialogue and the importance of international agreements being embedded within a strong, fair, rules-based European and international order.

As Colin Beattie told us, reunification changed Europe for the better. Not only has Germany achieved its own peace, which we must never take for granted; since reunification, Germany has been central in promoting peace and prosperity across Europe and internationally. As Daniel Johnson said, we view Germany as the rock of Europe.

In our interconnected world today, it has never been more important to uphold our internationalist values and the principles and operation of international law. Scotland will always champion those values and principles.

I cannot pretend, like Colin Beattie, that I am old enough to really remember the fall of the Berlin wall, but I asked my cousin, who was born in Berlin, about what she remembered about the wall. This is what she told me:

“It was a huge release of emotion when the wall came down. The wall represented oppression, division and hate but, confusingly, almost an element of security. Many people - Westerners - were frightened about suddenly being without a boundary, afraid the East Germans would pour into the west, full of resentment and need. Thankfully, those were the minority, though, and most people were full of joy. There was an electric optimism in the air.”

She continued:

“It is important to note that my family was on the west side, which says a lot about how I experienced the wall. I was born into that division and my experience was going through check points where men with guns would circle your car and maybe make your parent get out to open and unpack the boot so that they could examine all your belongings before allowing you to pass. It was all threat and intimidation. As a kid, I was genuinely very afraid of the uniforms and the aggressive manner. I still get anxious around military uniform and any sort of weaponry now.

Crucially, we were allowed to pass so that we could travel to Scotland to visit family. We never experienced any of the desperation that so many East Germans lived with or the life-risking attempts that they would make to try and cross over for better opportunities or to try and see family from whom they had been separated.”

As we have heard today, it was very much a tale of two cities with two polarised experiences. Colin Beattie told us that the wall became the focus of two different regimes. We should remember that in terms of how it was for the people who lived there and who experienced it. Gordon Lindhurst illustrated that with the example of his friend’s mother, who attempted to become a doctor and was blocked from doing so.

As we stand here faced with the danger of no deal or a bare-bones deal and the harmful barriers that that will entail, it is more important than ever that we look to our shared history for guidance. Three decades ago, courageous Germans made a stand and brought down the wall, toppling that barrier to co-operation, inclusion and solidarity—values that I am proud that Scotland shares with our German friends and family. As Kenny Gibson told us, peaceful co-operation can give us cause for optimism. As committed supporters of the EU, we will continue to strengthen the bonds between Scotland and our European friends in order that, together, we can truly tackle the collective challenges that we face.

Scotland’s bilateral relationship with Germany continues to grow, helped by the work of the Scottish Government’s Germany hub in Berlin. Maureen Watt extolled the virtues of visiting Berlin, which I am keen to do when we are able to do so again. That bilateral relationship includes promoting bilateral discussion and mutual support in priority areas such as climate change and low-carbon growth, economic development and renewable energy, and health and education.

We are also enthusiastic about the wider relations and collaborations between Scotland and Germany across politics, civil society, and business. It was powerful to hear from Stuart McMillan about his experiences of visiting Berlin and being shown no-man’s-land. He described it as a scene from a spy movie and told of how he felt a genuine sense of sorrow but also one of hope; that has been a common theme of most of this evening’s contributions.

Moving forward to the current day, our relations with Germany include the recent memorandum of understanding between the German wind energy cluster, WAB, and the Scottish DeepWind offshore wind cluster, which has great potential for bringing about mutual benefits in that key technology for our common green transition. We know that by working with Germany and its 16 states in key areas such as green technologies and health, resilience and wellbeing we can find solutions to the challenges that we face more quickly and effectively.

This Government is proud of the relations that we have built with German states in key policy areas, such as in the area of hydrogen with Hamburg, Bavaria, and North-Rhine Westphalia; our climate work with Baden-Württemberg as members of the Under2 Coalition; and our work with—I will pronounce this properly, Presiding Officer—Rhineland-Palatinate in education and culture. We will continue to strengthen those relations as we mark the final months of Germany’s EU Council presidency, despite the hurdles put in our way by events outwith our control and shaped by doctrines that really do belong in the past. However, as Colin Beattie told us, democracy must prevail.

I place on record my thanks to the outgoing German consul general, Barbara Quick. Her tireless work in promoting and strengthening the bonds between our two countries during her short tenure was greatly appreciated. Although the consulate’s annual Edinburgh celebration of German unity day sadly had to be cancelled this year due to the pandemic, I am pleased that we are nonetheless able to mark the occasion in Parliament. I congratulate Colin Beattie once again on securing this vital members’ business debate and thank all members for their contributions.

I wish our German friends and my German family a happy—albeit somewhat belated—German unity day. I am pleased to say that this Government and this Parliament will continue to stand together with Germany and our European neighbours in the months and years ahead.

Vielen Dank an Alle. Dieses Treffen ist abgeschlossen.

Meeting closed at 18:24.