Presse- und Informationsamt der Bundesregierung
Translation of advance text
Speech by Dr Angela Merkel, Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, on the occasion of the 368th Harvard University Commencement
on May 30, 2019
in Cambridge, MA
President Bacow
Fellows of the Corporation
Members of the Board of Overseers
Members of the Alumni Board
Members of the Faculty
Proud Parents and Graduates!
Today is a day of joy. It’s your day. Many congratulations! I’m delighted to be here today and would like to
tell you about some of my own experiences.
This ceremony marks the end of an intensive and probably also hard chapter in your lives. Now the door to a
new life is opening. That’s exciting and inspiring.
The German writer Hermann Hesse had some wonderful words for such a situation in life. I’d like to quote him
and continue in my native language:
Hermann Hesse wrote: “In all beginnings dwells a magic force for guarding us and helping us to live.”
These words by Hermann Hesse inspired me when I completed my physics degree at the age of 24. That was back
in 1978. The world was divided into East and West and it was in the grips of the Cold War. I grew up in East
Germany, in the GDR, the part of my country which was not free at that time, in a dictatorship.
People were oppressed and under state surveillance. Political dissidents were persecuted. The GDR Government
was afraid that the people would flee to freedom. That’s why it built the Berlin Wall. It was made of
concrete and steel. Anyone caught trying to overcome it was arrested or shot dead. This Wall which bisected
Berlin divided a people, and it divided families. My family was also divided.







