Berlin Fulbright Conference

Back to Berlin after 30 Years

It had been nearly 30 years since my last visit to Berlin before arriving there last week Sunday.  The occasion this time was a 5-day conference for Fulbright scholars in Europe.  The event is hosted by the German-U.S. Fulbright Commission, but they graciously extend the invitation to Fulbrighters serving in other European countries as well.  Needless to say, I found Berlin a very different city from the one I regularly visited on business in the early 1980s. 

As a U.S. Air Force officer assigned to the Headquarters, American Forces Network - Europe in Frankfurt a.M. from 1980-1984, I often visited our affiliate station (radio/TV) in Berlin.  I always took a day or two of leave in conjunction with the visits to explore this remarkable city.  Each visit also included a passage through Checkpoint Charlie into (then) East Berlin.  I vividly recall the bleak grayness that characterized that sector of the city, behind "The Wall."  I recall, too, walking around the barren, grim region of Alexander Platz.  As it happened, on this trip, Robin and I joined several hundred other Fulbrighters staying at the sparkling high-rise Park Inn Hotel -- in Alexander Platz!  My, how the area has changed!  Like the rest of Berlin, this area is now vibrant and colorful.  I could not stop marveling at the metamorphasis.  The vast majority of Fulbrighters participating in the conference were graduate students pursuing their studies or recent college graduates serving as English Teaching Assistants; it was sobering to realize that most were infants when the Cold War ended.  Still, they seemed to appreciate the astonishing and troubling history associated with the city of Berlin and in particular with the very area surrounding our hotel. 

The seminar featured a demanding and enriching agenda, with valuable activities from morning through late evening.  Keynote speeches, panel discussions, anecdotal reflections, discussion sessions and musical performances kept us happily busy the entire time.  Each event and logistical detail was planned and conducted perfectly by the fine staff of the German-U.S. Fulbright Commission.  Special guests included Dr. Mary Ellen Schmider, Executive Director of the Fulbright Association in Washington, D.C.; Johannes Hensel, a member of the first small cadre of German Fulbrighters who traveled to the U.S. in 1953/54 (his is a remarkable story of escaping from East Germany to West Berlin, entering university, earning a Fulbright fellowship, then serving a highly successful career with 3M in worldwide postings); and Dr. Ulrich Lippman, first Executive Director of the German-U.S. Fulbright Commission (who earned his Ph.D. at Ohio University, as did I).  We also enjoyed panel discussions featuring top German government officials on topics such as the status of European integration.

Robin and I traveled from Poznań to Berlin via PolskiBus, a fairly new service providing inexpensive and comfortable travel within Poland and to destinations near Poland.  The 4-hour bus ride was quite pleasant, despite its 4:50 a.m. departure Sunday morning.  We returned via the Berlin-Warsaw Express train, which took just 2 1/2 hours, but cost more than double the bus fare.  Getting around Berlin, of course, was easy on the U-Bahns and S-Bahns. 

I'll post more photos to my Facebook page, but following are a number of representive shots:




The comfortable coach we took from Poznań to Berlin.
Heavy fog that morning prevented us from fully
enjoying the beautiful rural scenery.




















Several hundred Fulbrighters convened for the conference.
Seated in the second row, far left in the coat and tie, is
Johannes Hensel, one of the first German Fulbrighters.
In his remarks later in the conference, he cited AFN (my
former military unit in Germany) as helping him learn
English in the early 1950s.



For Sunday afternoon, conference planners arranged a menu
of cultural tours, including the one we chose to Checkpoint
Charlie and the associated museum.  Thirty years earlier, I used
to make the transit through this point into the Soviet Sector.





















Only a few sections of "The Wall" remain, preserved as a
reminder of difficult times.



German-U.S. Fulbright Commission Executive Director Dr. Rolf
Hoffmann welcomes Fulbrighters to the conference.



Conference events were enthusiastically received by all
participants.



Former Fulbrighters share their experiences with
conference participants.



















U.S. Fulbright Commission Executive Director Dr. Mary Ellen
Schmider addresses participants.



Among the outstanding features of the conference was a
"Music Gala" featuring Fulbrighters pursuing research or
training in vocal or instrumental performance.




















An appreciative audience awards a standing ovation to
Fulbrighter performers.  They included several vocalists,
flautists, pianists and even an exceptionally gifted and
creative tuba player.



Of course, there was a little time available for sightseeing.
This is the Bode Museum, one of a seemingly endless array
of magnificent architecture from many periods.




















The building that houses Germany's equivalent of the U.S.
Congress.



Naturally, we had to sample the wurst.


















Breakfast in the hotel was always a great opportunity to get
to know the extraordinary young people in Berlin for the
conference and to hear about their Fulbright experiences. 



Back on the train for the return to Poznań.  A great experience
in Berlin, that's for sure, but it's good to be "home."



Why Choose Poland?

Why Poland?

Poland holds tremendous fascination for me, and I can identify three phases in that attraction:

First Impressions

Growing up on Milwaukee’s south side in the 1950s and ‘60s, our neighborhood was almost exclusively German and Polish in terms of family names and cultural influence, with Polish the dominant presence.  My friends and classmates had names such as Wisniewski, Roszak, Michalski, Cerwinski, Braniak, Pacholczyk, Zawicki, Karshna, Wroblewski and so forth.  Their grandparents often spoke only Polish, and their parents could function in Polish and English.  Signs in stores were sometimes written in Polish.  The neighborhood Catholic churches held festivals that featured Polish foods such as kielbasa and pierogies.  It seemed very exotic and alluring.  Of course, even as a youth, I had a vague notion of the Cold War and the isolation that lay beyond the Iron Curtain.  The idea of visiting this exotic and impenetrable country was preposterous.

Incidentally, the Polish presence and influence in Milwaukee are still strong.  A couple weeks ago, I enjoyed a meal at the Polish-American Center there.  And there is an effort to restore the monument in Milwaukee to one of Poland’s favorite sons and American Revolution hero, General Tadeusz Kościuszko.  Additionally, Milwaukee boasts what is billed as the largest annual Polish Festival in the U.S.

Cold Warrior

Entering the U.S. Air Force in 1973, I first served as a navigator on C-130 Hercules cargo aircraft, then transitioned into public affairs.  From 1980-84, I was stationed in Frankfurt, just 50 miles from the Fulda Gap and the Iron Curtain that split the two Germanys.  Standing at the Wall, staring at the East German guard towers, I had the strong feeling of frustration as well as hopelessness at the apparent permanence of the dividing line separating Western from Central and Eastern Europe.  Subsequent assignments to England and the Pentagon did little to assuage that frustration, though the Solidarity movement in Poland seemed to be establishing a foothold through the mid-1980s.  Then in 1990, I was assigned to NATO’s military headquarters in Belgium to serve as head of media relations and traveling press aide to the Supreme Allied Commander Europe (General John Galvin for the first two years, then General John Shalikashvili for my final year).  The velocity of change during those three years was breathtaking: the collapse of the Soviet Union, the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact, the reunification of Germany, etc.  The most tangible manifestation of those changes for me involved the rapid development of exchanges and relationship building with counterparts in Central and Eastern Europe.  Journalists and public relations practitioners started visiting our headquarters for briefings and discussions.   I found myself traveling with the SACEUR and other top officials to Budapest, Bratislava, Prague, Zagreb and other places I could not have conceived of visiting.  In future blogs I will plan to describe some of those extraordinary experiences.

Regrettably, I was not able to travel to Poland during my assignment with NATO.   Nevertheless, the opportunities that were emerging during that remarkable period rekindled my nascent fascination with Poland, and my travels to other parts of Central and Eastern Europe only intensified the appeal the region held for me.  How amazing it would have been to have traveled to Warsaw with General Shalikashvili, who had been born in Warsaw shortly before World War II.

Invited Scholar

Following my Air Force career in 1995, I entered Ohio University’s E.W. Scripps School of Journalism, earning a doctorate and launching my academic career with the University of North Carolina at Charlotte in 1998.  Here, we have built a strong program focus on global public relations.  Based on that reputation, I received an invitation in 2005 to speak at an International Public Relations conference in Poznan, Poland.  I confess I had to look it up on the map.  The timing was perfect; I would just be finishing the 4-week course on international public relations I was teaching in London.  My wife joined me at the end of the course in London, and we made the simple flight to Poland – a simple flight I could not have imagined making during those early years in Milwaukee or as a "Cold Warrior" in Europe during the 1980s.  Robin and I were instantly smitten with Poland.  We loved the architecture, the countryside, the sights, the people, and we especially loved the spirit.  My host for the conference, Dr. Ryszard Ławniczak with the Poznan University of Economics, was supremely gracious.  The graduate students, faculty and public relations practitioners I was privileged to meet were consummate professionals.  I was bowled over by the quality of the program and of the conference.

At the end of our visit, Robin and I resolved to cultivate the new relationships we had made and to find an appropriate way to return to Poland to continue and build upon those relationships.  The Fulbright program now opens that door.

Some of the scholars and practitioners attending the International PR conference in Poznan, Poland, in 2005.  Freitag is front row, far right.  Front row, 3^rd from left, is Dr. Ryszard Ławniczak, then Dr. Larissa Grunig and Dr. James Grunig.