study trip
3. Visit program to Germany: Reunification Study Tour of IPA Delegation

Foundation for Nature Conservation Thuringia

IPA (Institute for Peace Affairs: President - Mr. SHIN, Young-Seok) has been the longest project partner for HSS Korea in the field of "Reconciliation on the Korean Peninsula" and from the background, we have been organizing and conducting the reunification study tour in Germany in cooperation with IPA regularly since 1990 (every year until 2003 and every two years since 2005). Within this framework, this year we completed the study tour entitled, "Management of German division and unification: economy, politics and environment" in Germany from December 4-11, 2022.

A total of 6 people participated in the study tour: two civil servants in the Ministry of Reunification (retired), two researchers, a school teacher, and a lawyer. The study tour participants visited various institutions in the new and old German states, where they were able to gather diverse impressions. First of all, they visited the Berlin Wall Memorial, the Stasi Archives, the Federal Foundation for the Reappraisal of the SED Dictatorship, and the Stasi Museum, etc. in Berlin.

With Dr. Oliver Bär, District Administrator of Hof

The second destination was Leipzig, where they visited the Zeitgeschichtliches Forum Leipzig, the Nikolaikirche and the Runden Ecke. After that, they had discussions with Prof. Dr. Ralph Wrobel about social and economic conflicts after the unification and their solution measures and in the Foundation for Nature Conservation Thuringia about the Green Belt. They went on to the two former border regions, once to Hof, between West and East Germany, and then to Egerland, between Bavaria and the Czech Republic. There they inquired about the development in the border regions after unification.