Kissinger to present elder Bush with award in Berlin
Henry Kissinger will honor former U.S. President George H.W. Bush for his commitment to Germany amid the fall of the Berlin Wall and reunification.
By Agencies |
BERLIN: The Henry A. Kissinger Prize is bestowed annually by the American Academy in Berlin to an American or European deemed to have made an extraordinary contribution to trans-Atlantic relations.
Last year the first year the prize was awarded and the honoree was Helmut Schmidt, the chancellor of West Germany from 1974-1982.
Kissinger, who was born in Germany and served as U.S. Secretary of State under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, said in a statement that he was ``profoundly moved'' that the elder Bush will get the award.
``No one outside Germany did more to assist Germany in the critical period when the wall fell (in 1989) and unification became a possibility,'' Kissinger said.
Richard Holbrooke, who served as U.S. Ambassador to Germany from 1993-1994, will introduce Kissinger and Bush at the award ceremony at the American Academy's grounds, on the shores of Wannsee lake in Berlin.
Holbrooke told The Associated Press that Bush, who was U.S. president from 1989-1993, lobbied for Germany's reunification against the wishes of his counterparts in Britain and France.
``There is no one who Germans are more appreciative of than President Bush,'' Holbrooke said.
Bush is in Berlin to celebrate the official opening of the new U.S. Embassy on Friday. The new embassy marks a return to its historic location on Pariser Platz, home to the Brandenburg Gate, where it stood until World War II.
``There is something so perfectly symmetrical about the opening of the embassy and President Bush receiving this award,'' Holbrooke said.
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