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stage the chief of British protocol gave the sign that time was up, but the Queen waved him off. She was so enthusiastic—apparently I had pushed the right button. Not only did she talk shop with me far beyond the scheduled time on this day, but on further encounters she resumed talk on the subject of horses right away. She usually merely shook hands with the others, but to me she said, “Let us talk about horses.” I was no longer just any ambassador, but the horse lover. My colleagues were quite jealous.

      By the way, Zara Phillips did win the individual gold medal at that tournament in Aachen in 2006, and the silver medal with her team. For this, British television viewers voted her “BBC Sports Personality of the Year.” So my briefing from Michael Mronz had been “golden.”

      I recount this anecdote because it shows how even insignificant gestures can make a huge difference in how a single conversation can build trust or generate resentment—important in many spheres of life but especially in diplomacy. Nothing can be accomplished in that field without trust.

      HIGHLY SENSITIVE POLITICAL GESTURES

      As a young diplomat in the office of Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher, I learned how highly political, and even dangerous, questions of protocol can be. It was November 1982. After a motion of no confidence, Chancellor Helmut Schmidt had stepped down and, on October 4, 1982, Helmut Kohl had been elected federal chancellor. In Germany everyone was talking about the Free Democratic Party’s (FDP’s) switch—or as some called it, betrayal—from a coalition with the Social Democratic Party (SPD) to one with the Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union (CDU/CSU). Foreign Minister Genscher—along with Otto Graf Lambsdorff—was considered one of the powerbrokers behind this momentous transition, and remained in office afterward. The same year, I was transferred to Genscher’s ministerial office, where my first task was to accompany the foreign minister to Oslo and to plan this trip meticulously.

      There were not many exciting bilateral issues between Germany and Norway at that time, making it an uneventful visit with a neighbor. King Olaf would receive Genscher, and there would be talks with the Norwegian foreign minister, interviews, and declarations. A wreath-laying ceremony was included in the schedule: Pretty much the standard itinerary.

      A few days beforehand, Genscher asked for some details: Where am I laying a wreath? “Where everyone does,” I responded, “At the tomb of the unknown soldier. Three Bundeswehr soldiers will carry the wreath. Everything has been arranged.” That is what had been conveyed to me from Oslo, and I accepted it without verification.

      Three days later in Oslo, we were driven to Akershus Fortress, above the city. A stone slab on the ground there reads, “To the victims of the National Socialist dictatorship.” So much for the tomb of the unknown soldier! We got out of the car to cameras and many journalists. The wreath was ceremoniously laid down.

      Then a German reporter approached Genscher, held a microphone in his face, and opened the interview with the sentence, “You just laid down a wreath at the monument against the Nazi occupation. No German has ever done this before. I would like to compare this moment with Brandt’s genuflection in Warsaw.”

      Genscher, as always, came up with an answer immediately, said something about reconciliation policy, and got back in the car. There he upbraided me: “Was that the tomb of the unknown soldier? Really? Or the monument for Nazi victims? Before making such a political gesture I need to consult with Kohl first. Kohl and the CDU will accuse me of seeking the spotlight and making policy on my own!”

      I was crestfallen. For me a wreath-laying ceremony was a wreath-laying ceremony. That such an event stood for policy was something that had not occurred to me before.

      So, I learned my lesson. Protocol is important, and details are important—often cloaking sensitive political or historical relationships. Who remembers the case of Bitburg, where Helmut Kohl invited Ronald Reagan to lay a wreath at a cemetery where members of the Nazi elite “Waffen-SS” soldiers were buried? It caused an outcry in the media and preventable tension in German-American relations.

      EVERY STEP YOU TAKE: THE WORLD IS WATCHING

      A colleague of mine had a similar mishap with a wreath-laying ceremony, on the occasion of Genscher’s visit to Tehran in July 1983. In contrast to the United States, Germany had never severed diplomatic relations with Iran after the Ayatollah Khomeini’s revolution. Now Genscher was one of the first European ministers to travel to Tehran. That alone was regarded with some suspicion, especially by the United States.

      The Iranian protocol had suggested a visit to a gigantic cemetery in southern Tehran, where the minister would lay down a wreath—an established procedure: In Washington, one goes to Arlington National Cemetery, and in Moscow, to Novodevichy Cemetery. So far, so good.

      The German advance party had paid less attention to the host’s proposal to also visit the “Pond of Blood,” which features fountains spraying red-colored water. The pond itself was bizarre enough, but my colleagues had overlooked the fact that the path to the pond led over a mosaic of the American flag embedded in the ground. So, everyone who walks to the monument treads on the U.S. flag—a sign of total contempt. Genscher recognized the danger at the last second, took a path that went around the flag, and thus avoided becoming the subject of a compromising photograph. Afterward there was quite a commotion. What would have happened if he had not noticed in time? How would Washington have reacted? Even before the trip, the Americans had hardly been enthusiastic about the idea.

      MINOR GESTURES, MAJOR EFFECTS

      Small gestures can make a big difference—positively or negatively. West German Chancellor Willy Brandt falling to his knees at the wall of the Warsaw Ghetto in 1970, performed at the spur of the moment, was a gesture of tremendous symbolic importance and thus a historical event included in every German history book. It became the symbol of the new German Ostpolitik and, as such, a visual milestone along the path to the reunification of Germany years later.

      Diplomatic rituals and gestures thus have great potential as a signal of harmony, but also as an occasion for conflicts and division.

      But sometimes the center stage is less important symbolically than the seemingly profane tasks going on around it. A case in point: a train journey in 1989 turned out to be one of the most impressive moments in my life as a diplomat.

      EVERYDAY DIPLOMACY CAN CHANGE LIVES

      Late September 1989: Thousands of East Germans had already fled to the West via Hungary, across the Hungarian-Austrian border. When it was rumored that the East German head of state, Erich Honecker, would soon close the border between the German Democratic Republic (GDR) and Czechoslovakia, more and more desperate East Germans fled to the West German embassy in Prague, seeking asylum while they still could. The embassy was soon overcrowded. Thousands of people made the best of the tight space and few sanitary facilities. The Red Cross set up a soup kitchen to provide for their essential needs. The weather was quite cool for the season, and most people had to spend the night in tents outdoors. Rain had turned the garden into a sea of mud. Pregnant women and small children were housed in the boiler rooms of the embassy, where it was warmer. The conditions were unbearable. But the refugees persisted.

      At the diplomatic level there were difficult negotiations about solutions for the refugees. Foreign Minister Genscher wanted to spare them a stopover in the GDR and let them go directly from Prague to the Federal Republic; Oskar Fischer, the East German foreign minister, demanded that the refugees be returned to the GDR transitionally. The United States, Great Britain, and France supported Genscher, and at some stage Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze, too, accepted a compromise.

      And so on the morning of September 30, it was settled: Chartered trains were to take the refugees across the territory of East Germany into the Federal Republic. Genscher traveled to Prague and spoke to the crowd that evening from the balcony of Lobkowicz Palace, uttering the most famous half sentence in all of German history: “We have come to you in order to inform you that today, your departure …” The rest was drowned out by cheers.

      Next, East German trains were brought to Prague. The refugees boarded their assigned cars and headed back to the GDR, where they were stripped of East German citizenship before emigrating

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