NPC in History: A piece of the Berlin Wall

A piece of the Berlin Wall rests on a shelf in the National Press Club archives. Photo: National Press Club

With the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, news accounts record where pieces of the infamous structure have ended up.  I know where one is:  On a shelf in the National Press Club’s archives.

Herein lies the tale:

Lothar de Maizier was the first and only popularly elected prime minister of East Germany when he visited with President George H.W. Bush on June 12, 1990, to talk about how to persuade the Soviet Union to accept a united Germany in NATO.

The next day, after breakfast with congressional leaders, de Maizier spoke to the Club, and I was presiding.

“The primary objective of our government is to make ourselves unnecessary,” he said. “The more efficiently we do that, the sooner all of the wishes and aspirations of our people come true.”

At the end of the talk, de Maizier presented a piece of the Berlin Wall enclosed in a glass case to the Club.  “We took that out when the wall came down,” he said. “In Berlin, we have developed a new species of animal,” he quipped.  “You know about woodpeckers. We have wallpeckers.”

This is another in a series provided by Club historian Gil Klein.  Dig down anywhere in the Club’s 111-year history, and you will find some kind of significant event in the history of the world, the nation, Washington, journalism and the Club itself.  Many of these events were caught in illustrations that tell the stories. They will be put together in a book scheduled to be published in April: “Tales of the National Press Club.”