Eureka College events mark 20th anniversary
of the fall of the Berlin Wall

Ceremony in Reagan Peace Garden with wall section

A defining time in world history was remembered locally at “The Fall of the Wall: Eureka College Celebrates the 20th Anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall” on Nov. 9. Events included a ceremony at the Ronald W. Reagan Peace Garden, which includes a section of the wall; a dinner; and a symposium with panelists who discussed the collapse of communism in former Eastern Bloc nations. Eureka College is among several colleges and universities in the United States to have a section of the wall.

The 4 p.m. ceremony was free and open to the public. It featured flags of the more than 20 countries that became democracies at the end of the Cold War. It also featured special speakers, including Gen. Paul X. Kelley, who was Commandant of the U.S. Marines from 1983 to 1987 during the Reagan administration, and Hans-Ulrich von Schroeter, deputy director of the German Information Center USA, German Embassy, Washington, D.C.

The ceremony offered “a rare opportunity to honor those who helped achieve the ultimate victory for the ideals of individual freedom in the struggle against government-forced oppression that defined the Cold War,” said John Morris, director of the Ronald W. Reagan Society at Eureka College.  

“Eureka College is honored to use its unique role as the steward of the leadership lessons of alumnus Ronald Reagan to call attention to this anniversary of the end of the Cold War, which had defined the world for generations of people," Morris said. Reagan graduated from Eureka College in 1932.

A 7:30 p.m. symposium in the Cerf Center featured panelists discussing events surrounding the collapse of communism.

Eureka College received a 5-foot-by 4-foot section of the Berlin Wall as a gift from the Federal Republic of Germany in 2000 when the college dedicated the peace garden. The garden was built with a gift from Peorians Anne and the late David Vaughan. It commemorates President Reagan’s speech at the college’s commencement in 1982 that proposed the elimination of a class of nuclear weapons. Some historians mark the speech as the beginning of the end of the Cold War. Reagan’s 1987 speech at the Brandenburg Gate in West Berlin included the now-famous statement to former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.”

For more information contact Morris at (309) 467-6313 or jmorris@eureka.edu.  

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