Gen. Lucius D. Clay and Joseph Rueffert never met but they share something in common, post-World War II Berlin, Germany. Gen. Clay engineered the unprecedented 1948-49 Berlin Airlift that saved West Berliners from Soviet-planned starvation. Rueffert was an East German guard who escaped to the West during the 1961 Soviet construction of the Berlin Wall.
Gen. Clay’s grandson Chuck Clay and Joseph Rueffert’s son Hans Rueffert shared the stage at the 2014 Legislative Policy Forum discussion, “Fall of the Berlin Wall: The 25th Anniversary.” They were introduced by Tom Harrold.
This video begins with a segment from the 2003 Unification Conference that brought former U.S. President George H.W. Bush, former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl to Atlanta for a discussion moderated by Tom Brokaw. Harold organized the Unification Conference.
