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A Personal History of Canada-Germany

Document Cited in Related
Vincent
Date01 September 2008
AuthorPaul Dubois
Published date01 September 2008
DOI10.1177/002070200806300304
Subject MatterCanada-Germany RelationEssays in Honour of Robert Spencer
Paul Dubois was ambassador to the Federal Republic of Germany from 2004 through sum-
mer 2008. He joined the Department of External Affairs in 1973 and has held several posi-
tions in Europe, including minister and deputy permanent representative to the United
Nations in Geneva from 1990-94,ambassador to Austria, and permanent representative to
the United Nations and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe from
1997-2001. In Ottawa, he served as director general, western Europe bureau from 1994-97
and was assistant deputy minister, Europe, from 2001-04.
For almost three decades, I have had the privilege of observing the political,
economic, social, and cultural changes in Germany. It was a period that was
characterized by such terms as
Mittelstreckenraketen
(medium-range mis-
siles), “SS20s,” Pershing missiles, and the stationing of nuclear weapons on
German soil. All this was accompanied by the NATO debate on the
Dop-
pelbeschluss
, the double-track decision put forward and championed by Hel-
mut Schmidt. I was well acquainted with the pioneers of the peace
movement and closely associated with the emergence of the pacifist and en-
vironmental trends that led to the creation of the Green party in Germany.
These are the historical moments that fundamentally shaped and changed
the
Bonner Republik
. Of course all this happened against the backdrop of the
| International Journal | Summer 2008 | 541 |
Paul Dubois
A personal history
of Canada-Germany

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