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Seminar
KOR-GER Knowledge Sharing Seminar

On December 1st, the HSF research interns Nastassja Amling and Mieke Krupp were the invited speakers at the KOR-GER Knowledge Sharing Seminar organized by the South-North Korea Exchanges And Cooperation Support Association (SONOSA) to share their experience on post-reunification in Germany and its impact on the German society.

South Korea and Germany have been working closely together, to be exact marking 140 years of diplomatic relations in 2023. The two nations have been tackling global challenges, such as climate change. But also in terms of history, the two countries share similar experiences of a painful division. Before the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9th 1989, Germany was divided by an impassable inner border for 40 years. This year, 33 years have passed since the official reunification in 1990. Unfortunately, until today, the Korean Peninsula is still divided, surpassing 77 years of division. Still, Koreans have not yet given up the dream of reunification and on its way towards peace, South Korea often uses the example of a reunified Germany as inspiration. Also, HSF Korea has supported the process of reconciliation on the Korean Peninsula sharing the German experiences of division and unification and discussing its implications

 

On December 1st, SONOSA organized the KOR-GER Knowledge Sharing Seminar,  an initiative of Ms. Hwa Soon Nam, General Director of the Humanitarian Development Coorperation  Dept., at the L’Escape Hotel, to establish a place for communication, and listen to the thoughts of young people living on the Korean Peninsula and in Germany on peace and reunification. The speakers Nastassja Amling and Mieke Krupp, both research interns at the HSF, were invited to present cooperation cases of Germany and humanitarian aid projects and share their thoughts and personal experience on post-reunification in Germany. At the roundtable, all participants had the chance to interact and discuss the definition of peace, the necessity of reunification and their personal feelings about a unified Germany and a divided Korean Peninsula. Towards the end, Ms. Amling and Ms. Krupp were interviewed on whether young people born after reunification feel differences in their perception of East and West Germany, as both are part of the “Generation Einheit”, the generation that grew up in a unified Germany.