Press Release from the German Embassy

*** German Embassy Press Release 57/09, April 28, 2009***

Freedom Without Walls — US Students to Commemorate the 20th Anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall with Support from German Embassy

The Berlin Wall came down on November 9, 1989, signaling the end of the Cold War and the beginning of a new era in transatlantic relations and European unity.

Twenty years later, in the fall of 2009, students at more than 25 US universities will celebrate the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall by organizing Campus Weeks with financial and organizational support from the German Embassy in Washington DC.

German Ambassador Klaus Scharioth announced today the colleges and universites that were selected to partner with the Embassy and Germany’s Consulates General across the country in Washington DC on April 28, 2008.

The Campus Weeks are a component of Germany’s Freedom Without Walls campaign, an effort to reach out to the generation that was born around the time the wall came down.

Ambassador Scharioth explained that reaching today’s university students is critical if the memory and the inspiration of the fall of the wall is to be preserved. “Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the vestiges of the wall remind us that freedom is precious,” he said. “We are proud to support a new generation of future leaders in their effort to discover and to share what the fall of the wall means to them,” he continued.

The Freedom Without Walls Campus Weeks will include public speaking competitions and an art competition involving replicas of the Berlin Wall to be located across the country.

The German Embassy has created a website with information about the historic anniversary at www.Germany.info/withoutwalls, as well as a Freedom Without Walls page on Facebook. The Germany.info website contains comprehensive information about the history of Germany’s division and reunification, and it will document the Campus Weeks using online video and photos.

The Freedom Without Walls campaign is generously supported by Air Berlin (www.airberlin.com) and by the Max Kade Foundation, Inc.

The Goethe-Institut USA (http://www.goethe.de/ins/us/lp/enindex.htm) and the Wende Museum in Los Angeles (www.wendemuseum.org) provide support in kind for the German Embassy’s Freedom Without Walls campaign.

Attachment — List of Colleges and Universities participating in the Freedom Without Walls Campus Weeks 2009

Amherst College

Boston College

Bowdoin College

Brown University

California State University Long Beach

Canisius College, Buffalo

Chapman University, LA

University of Cincinnati

Columbia University

Cornell University

Duke University

University of Florida

University of South Florida

George Mason University

Georgetown University

Johns Hopkins University

University of Massachusetts — Amherst

University of Michigan

Middlebury College

University of Missouri-St. Louis

University of Oregon

Rice University

University of St. Thomas

UCLA — to be confirmed

Vanderbilt University

University of Virginia

Wartburg College

Washington University

Westminster College