It was Ronald Reagan, my hero, who stood at the Brandenburg Gate and cried out: “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” But it was President George H.W. Bush who, two and a half years later, quietly and skillfully guided the process of German Reunification. So, today, 21 years later, we can take note of the national day of Germany, or, Tag der Deutschen Einheit. And give credit where credit is due.

West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl in 1990 wanted desperately to unite his country with the East. It had been divided since the end of World War II. But Kohl was the only other world statesman who wanted this.

The Polish Pope, John Paul II, was all for ending Communism’s iron grip, but he was not overly eager about the Germans coming together. Poland had suffered horribly at the hands of the old Germany. The Iron Lady, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, remembered the Blitz of World War II.  She was cool to the idea of Germany becoming Europe’s premier economic and political giant. France’s Francois Mitterrand was unexcited about a new next-door neighbor reunified and rejuvenated. France had been overrun three times in a hundred years by Germany. He had reason to fear.

Back in the USSR, with the Communist regime spinning out of control, party chairman Mikhail Gorbachev was dealing with the inevitable consequences of his decision in November 1989 not to shoot as demonstrators danced on the crumbling Berlin Wall.

The German Democratic Republic (DDR) was the name of the rump state created by Stalin. It was never a democratic republic. And, as became obvious once the Wall came down, it wasn’t German either.

TIME Magazine, of course, and the Nobel Peace Prize Committee would credit Gorbachev for the peaceful end of the Cold War. Well, they certainly couldn’t give credit to Ronald Reagan and George Bush! As my friend Morton Blackwell says, is there any other example of giving credit to the hostage taker for not shooting his hostages?

Actually, there is. It’s called the Stockholm Syndrome. There’s probably no better description of the mindset of Western liberalism than this bizarre situation—where the hostages began to identify psychologically with their own captors.

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We are approaching the twentieth anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall. That year, 1989, deserves to go down in history with 1648, the end of the Thirty Years’ War in Germany, 1815, the fall of Napoleon, 1914, the outbreak of the Cataclysm we know as World War I, and with 1945, the end of World War II that led to the tragic division of Europe. The Heritage Foundation this week presented an important conference on the Fall of the Wall and its meaning today.

I want to focus on just one portion of that vital conference: the Reunification of Germany.

Ambassador Klaus Scharioth. the urbane and witty diplomat assigned to Washington by the Federal Republic of Germany, paid fulsome tribute to the United States for helping his country achieve reunification. He thanked Americans for the 60 million young servicemen and women who had helped to protect Germany from Soviet aggression for forty-five years. I was stunned to hear that amazing figure. That heroic and generous contribution by America is not something we need to apologize to anyone for.

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