Congratulations, Germany!

On July 1, 1990, Germany was reunified - forty five years to the day from the date upon which it was divided by the Allies after the war's end. Today is the twentieth anniversary when the Berlin Wall - the physical manifestation of that division - was opened by the East German authorities. Today on the radio, I listed to an (East) German political dissident speaking about what it was like to have a wall put up in the middle of his hometown. I cannot imagine such a thing here. It would be awful. A couple things strike me.

Forty-five is close to forty - the biblical number of waiting, exile, and penance.

Twenty is the number of years that elapsed between the Treaty of Versailles, that ended World War I, and the invasion of Poland, that sparked the firestorm of World War II.

I am not sure what any of it means, except that it makes me happy. It is fitting that a people ought to be free of foreign domination and united in the governance of their choice. I wonder whether modern Austria would like to be united with Germany, whether the feeling is reciprocal, if it would be plausible given the modern history. A lot of bad things have happened in modern history, and Germany has been at the heart of some of the worst of those things. The reunification of Germany, though, is a very good thing.

Herzlichen Glückwunsch, deutsche Freunde!