A graduation trip at last - that was the unanimous opinion among the Year 12 students at Euregio Comprehensive School, who had to miss out on their final trip to Berlin in previous years due to the pandemic.
The first attraction on the trip was the guard who, standing in his glass shed, controlled the entrance to the BMVg grounds. The complete sealing off of the grounds with a fence lined with barbed wire and the aforementioned entrance control made an impression on the travelers. We then took the bus to the canteen, where the tour group had lunch alongside captains and officers.
In the conference room, the pupils were able to attend an interesting presentation on Germany's security policy. Ms. Mühlmeister, Captain of the Young Officers Münster, managed to arouse the interest of the participants, establish current references and motivate the pupils to make their own contributions. The conclusion was correspondingly positive; "perhaps a little long, but very interesting" commented one pupil.
The evening then began in Bonn's city center and was rewarded with dinner at Brauhaus Bönnsch.
Early in the morning on Friday, the participants went to the "House of History", where a guided tour through the cradle of the Federal Republic of Germany confronted them first with the drafting of the Basic Law by the Parliamentary Council and then with the work of the Bundesrat in the former meeting room of the body in Bonn. The excellent acoustics in the meeting room and the faithful reconstruction were used as an opportunity to bring about a decision on the topic of "maximum speed on the highway" from the perspective of prime ministers. The voting behavior and majority formation in Bundesrat decisions could also be simulated in a practical way.
The chronological exhibition of the recent history of the Federal Republic of Germany from the end of the Second World War to the present day became tangible in the interactive exhibition and aroused the pupils' interest.
On the coach on the return journey, the feedback was consistently positive: "On behalf of all the students, we would recommend this trip for future years."