A Huntsville couple have presented a piece of history to the German Patriot Office.
Retired Col. Jon and Pam Stieglitz gave a framed segment of the Berlin Wall to the seven-member office June 12 at the office’s location in Redstone Gateway. The couple were in Germany when the wall came down in November 1989, marking the unification of East and West Germany.
“Here’s to the unification of your country and our partnership to them,” Jon said in a toast during a ceremony attended by staff and family members. He first saw the wall in 1964 as a lieutenant during the couple’s first tour in Germany. They returned in the 1980s when he was assigned to the Embassy in Bonn. Pam worked as a calligrapher at the Embassy.
When the wall came down, they walked through the Brandenburg Gate, a symbol of German division during the Cold War. They were last in Germany in 1990.
“We obviously gathered pieces of the wall,” Jon, 84, said. “They sat in my garage 30, 34 years.”
The Hampton Cove resident started giving them out to people who helped win the Cold War. Pam, 83, learned of the German Patriot Office’s interest through friends she met while swimming. The couple have three children and seven grandchildren.
“It’s a great honor for us to have you with us,” Lt. Col. Siegfried Domabyl, director of the German Patriot Office, said. “And that you provide such a piece of history to us.”
The office supports the German Patriot missile system program and works together with the Army’s Program Executive Office for Missiles and Space. Germany has been one of the Patriot partner nations since 1986.
With seven people, they are the largest office for the Patriot user nations, according to Domabyl. They include five German Air Force members. Another officer and a civilian belong to the German Liaison Office for Defense Materiel USA Canada.
“And for the German Patriot program, our office is very important because we are the link between the U.S. government and every German entity who is responsible for this program – also our ministry of defense, for example, the German program manager and the Air Force Command,” Domabyl said.
“We will have the system in service until at least 2048. And currently we are doing a lot of upgrade programs with the weapon system,” he said.
Five of the seven members of the office are accompanied in the local community with their families.
“And we are feeling very welcome with the Huntsville community,” Domabyl said.
The other Patriot partner nations in their building at Redstone Gateway include Switzerland, Sweden, the Netherlands, Japan, Romania, Israel, Poland, South Korea and Taiwan. Bahrain is expected to move into the building. Partners located elsewhere in Huntsville include Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar and United Arab Emirates.
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