Ordensverleihung Walter Sommers
Terre Haute, IN, 6.8.2016
Sehr geehrter Herr, dear Mr. Sommers,
sehr geehrte Frau, dear Mrs. Sommers,
Nancy and Ron,
family and friends,
dear guests,
It is a great pleasure and honor for me to join you on this joyful occasion today. I am happy that our
honorary consul from Indianapolis, Sven Schumacher, could also arrange to participate.
Mr. Sommers, you will be surprised, but our birthdays are only 2 days apart. I was born on Dec 27.
Let’s forget for the moment about the 33 years that lie in between. I am doing my best to catch up.
We have gathered here today to present you with the order of merit of the Federal Republic of
Germany. President Gauck has awarded you this high distinction for your outstanding contribution
to German-American relations and better understanding. Let me explain this in greater detail.
According to reports about your life you grew up a happy boy in a Jewish-German, or should I say
German-Jewish family in Frankfurt. The early 20th century was in a historic context a pretty good
period for Jewish life in Germany. We know how difficult it was in the centuries before. Lately, I
have studied a lot about Martin Luther’s anti-Semitism as an expression of his individual beliefs and
as a prevailing atmosphere throughout the middle ages into the modern era. But, this relatively good
life in Germany that you briefly enjoyed came to an abrupt end with the election of Hitler and his
Nazi party in 1933. National Socialism did not only lead the world into WW II. It also produced the
worst catastrophy that the Jewish people ever experienced. We know this as the Shoah or the
Holocaust.
Walter, your parents, you and your sister Lore, had the necessary means and the luck to get out of
Germany by January 1939, roughly two months after pogrom night or Kristallnacht. And you found
your new home in the U. S.. Your family and friends do, of course, all know this story. But I need to
mention it here. Not, that this part of your life constitutes the reason why you receive your award.
No. We just have to keep it in mind in order to understand the dimension of your personal
contribution to making the world a better place.
For decades you had shut Germany out of your life. A rethinking apparently only set in after
retirement, when you were already in your seventies. The first visit to your place of birth seems to
have been a crucial factor in this slow process of rapprochement (coming closer again). And this later
phase, which has to be seen against your youth trauma and former distance from all things German,
constitutes the basis of the award presented to you.
As a docent, with the authority of your personal life experience, you have for the past 20 years or so
engaged yourself in talking about Jewish history in Germany and Europe. You have promoted a
realistic, non-defamatory image of my country. You have presented the long-standing commitment
of the Federal Republic of Germany to become and act as a reliable and responsible democracy,
respecting and implementing human rights. In cooperation with the Fritz Bauer Institut you have
even contributed financially to the project “Sie wohnten nebenan”, which was implemented in
Frankfurt schools.
Through your voluntary work of roughly two decades you have reached many people who were
interested in Germany. You have invested time and energy in telling people that beyond the 12 years
of the Nazi terror regime there lies a rich history, in which Jews played an essential role. Without
them, German arts and sciences would be much poorer. You have put present day German politics in
context and contributed to the knowledge about my country. It seems that in this process you also
redefined your own relationship with Germany.
Mr. Sommers, I am honored to meet you and I thank you for everything you have done in favor of
German-American relations.
Let us now proceed to the presentation.