Fall of the Wall gave us all hope

Berlin is the city where I found that what seemed to be firmly entrenched military empires could be changed. My first visit to Berlin was in 1988, which was before the Berlin Wall came down.

The city was divided into Western and communist sections, and I was there to help run a European Financial Services Conference.

The opening speech was by the mayor of Berlin, who welcomed us all to the "centre of Europe", a description of Berlin which I could not understand at the time.

I was born in the 1950s and grew up in the 1960s and 1970s when the Iron Curtain divided Europe totally.

There was the West, which I knew about and visited, and the communist East which I only knew from spy movies and John Le Carre novels. As far as I was concerned, the East was almost as remote as Central Asia. It was frightening, full of secret policemen, and nothing to do with the politics of the emerging European Community, which I had been involved with for some years in Britain.

I had no idea that the collapse of communism was about to happen. As far as I was concerned when I visited Berlin, I was on the edge of a civilisation, peering over into a totally different world.

But I was proved wrong by the vision of people like the mayor, who recognised the historic reality built up over centuries that Central and Eastern Europe were an integral part of Europe with populations that shared the same values, despite the communist governments they had to endure for decades.

It was a valuable lesson that good things can happen in international politics, and that nothing need be forever. For millions like myself, the events in Berlin 20 years ago were a profound example of how things can change, which is a fantastic legacy that the Germans have left the world.

In fine form

That European Financial Services Conference in Berlin was also memorable for the gala dinner at which former British prime minister Edward Heath gave the address. He was on great form and although in Margaret Thatcher's Britain he did not have much political space, when talking about Europe he was on his home territory as the political father of Britain's entry to the European Community.

After a very good speech about the European vision, Heath sat down and was mobbed by the several hundred delegates, all of whom wanted the chance to exchange some banter (some fairly rude) with the great man.

As a result Heath become increasingly angry, and was about to storm off in a huff, so I was asked to sit with him and fend off the more aggressive of the delegates.

Heath took one look at me and gruffly inquired who I was and what had I been doing before. I said that I had been working in the UAE for a few years, and Heath asked after His Highness Shaikh Shakhbout Bin Sultan Al Nahyan, the former ruler of Abu Dhabi.

I was astonished to be discussing Shaikh Shakhbout, whom I had visited a few times in the mid-1980s, so was able to say that he was well. It turned out that Heath had met Shaikh Shakhbout when he was a junior foreign office minister, so on the basis of this fragile link he welcomed me to sit beside him, and share a bottle of superior whiskey.

Much, much later, the last of his admirers in the now-empty hall were three German students. They wanted his views on how Europe would go forward, and Heath flowered in front of their obvious admiration, and he gained my respect as he gently debated with them the various possibilities they put forward, such as setting up a neutral corridor from Sweden, through East Germany to Austria and Greece.

I was impressed by the clarity of Heath's vision of the impending collapse of communism, and the tact with which he discussed it with the students (in stark contract to his gruff treatment of the ruder delegates).

However, after the students departed, I was left in an empty hall with an ex-prime minister and an empty bottle — not an easy situation, since Heath had lapsed into vague murmurings. When I helped him to his feet I found that he was also very heavy indeed, and well beyond my strength.

Confusion resulted. After several trials and tribulations, we got to the lobby, where I spotted his security man, and thankfully handed him over and headed for bed.

What remained with me from my meetings during that conference, which was strongly reinforced afterwards when I visited Berlin once the Wall had been destroyed, was the sense of vigour and human decency that filled Berlin.

My impressions and meetings were nothing to do with Germany's past military excesses, but far more to do with its commitment to making the European Community (later Union) work, and its determination to help its neighbours in the former Eastern Europe.

So as Germany wrestles with its present troubles, and celebrates its 20 years of reunification, I remember the three students who charmed an irascible British prime minister with their youthful hope. That is the Germany that I cherish.