Not only did I personally have the pleasure of climbing over the Wall at Brandenburg Gate on December 31, 1989, but in Wuppertal, Germany I had been leading weekly discussions (1987 to 1990) over "current political affairs, social issues and environment" for adults from across West Germany, Poland, Romania, East Germany and other European states, i.e. as the Wall opened up in November of 1989. (Note: These discussions were held at the Elberfelder-Volkshochule or Adult Continuing Education Center.)
Finally, through my own church interests, I had been involved in the following activities related to understanding the German-German conflicts:
(1) First, in 1987 I had the opportunity to lead groups of youth from socially disturbed or Sozialbrennpunktfamilie areas of West Berlin in retreat to Western Germany. Don't forget that West Berlin was an island cocooned inside the East German Democratic [Communist] Republic.
(2) I had friends who were living in East Berlin and reporting on church and student activities from 1988 through 1991. I, myself also took several tours and made personal visits to East Berlin through these friendships. [I also met a soon-deported East German from Quedlinburg in East Berlin in May of 1987.]
(3) In November 1989, I actually had been preparing a visit to Rostock, East Germany with a university campus Christian organization right up until the very moment when the Wall came down. [Instead of going to Rostock, we Western German Christians invited the East German Christian Youth from Rostock and East Berlin to West Germany, i.e. so we were able to debrief and encourage them face-to-face that Revolutionary autumn.]
Finally, I had a front-row seat to the rise and end of the Chinese student movement in Germany between April and June 1989.
Let me explain.
For most of the period between 1986 and 1989, I lived in a student housing unit in Elberfeld, West Germany just off the campus of the Bergische University in North Rhine Westphalia. In this housing complex were Western Germans and students from dozens of other nations.
In both East and West Germany, Chinese students were studying diligently-as they often do now in the USA. Both East and West German governments competed with each other to show their support to the developing world and offered scholarships and training programs for many from all corners of Africa, Latin America and Asia.
Some of these students even went on the same study tours as I had to East and West Berlin.
Bergische University is a technical university and many Chinese students had chosen to study there. Therefore, on occasion, I was invited to eat with some of these Chinese student-neighbors of mine in their various kitchens. Some had even studied the Bible with friends of mine.
Meanwhile in late April and May 1989 Chinese students began to gather publicly on campuses in Europe and around the world gathered to support their peers in Beijing who were standing up for freedom and accelerated reform.
Moreover, some of these same students in Wuppertal occasionally came to various English courses I had offered on campus.
In short, by the end of May 1989, as a whole, Chinese students in Germany (after the time I arrived at the Technical University in North Rhine Westphalia in 1986) had become more open and fun as each year and month went by.
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