One German's unification story

By Oh Young-jin

One subject Koreans would like to ask Germans about would be their experience with national reunification.

So I did when I recently interviewed Dr. Frank Stangenberg-Haverkamp, chairman of the Family Board of Merck, the chemical and pharmaceutical company based in Darmstadt.

I didn't expect much from him. As a matter of fact, I would be happy to find a willing listener who would sympathize with me for having a nation still divided with guns pointed at each other.

I was delighted to be proven wrong, because he helped me get partially re-convinced that, however difficult it may be, we should be reunified.

I am one of a growing number of unification skeptics, scared by the anticipated costs and confusion reunification is sure to bring, and satisfied with the status quo.

Thus, we spent a significant part of our time talking about this political issue, deviating from our intended topics of business.

His story has the power of experience.

"I always believed that we should be reunited," he said.

The date of Aug. 13, 1961 was etched in his mind because East Germany started to erect the Berlin Wall to stop a manpower drain and restrict East-West travel.

Then, he talked about a boy defector who was left bleeding to death at the wall while on his westward escape.

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"He was 17 or 18. He was shot and fell, but he was still alive. It was only five or six meters between him and the safety of the West," he remembered. "But Americans, British and French, were standing there, preventing West German police from pulling him over." More than 2,000 died while escaping out of the East.

Obviously, it was an experience that hardened his eagerness for reunification.

Ironically, he shared this story when I told him that I lost my brotherly affinity for North Korea four years ago when it torpedoed our naval ship, killing 46 sailors. The fourth anniversary of the sinking of frigate Cheonan is today.

Stangenberg-Haverkamp figured France or Britain didn't want the Germanys to reunite, nor did the German Socialist Party.

He said that Chancellor Helmut Kohl sold unification to U.S. President Ronald Reagan, assuring him that he didn't have to worry about the costs.

I didn't ask him whether he had any regrets.

"We did balance the costs with the national budget," he said. "Though we are at the end of it, we are still suffering."

He observed some former West German cities are completely dilapidated, while some eastern cities are prosperous, thanks to a great deal of money poured into them. "That's a good start," he said.

I am sure not many Koreans would agree with him, which partially explains why, despite the government's new agenda-setting effort, national unification is being pushed down the list of people's priorities.

He said that he was surprised to see the level of indoctrination among people when he visited the North a few years ago.

He also witnessed the level of poverty there.

"Unification would cost you a lot of standard of living because of the enormous economic gap between the two Koreas," he predicted.

"One nation, one people, you should be reunited and take responsibility," he said.

I might be mistaken, if I suggest his remarks sounded like they were aimed more at himself than they were at me.

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