Garden City Middle Schoolers March in Steuben Day Parade

Pictured here with members of West Point’s German Language Club and German and Austrian “exchange cadets,” sixth, seventh, and eighth grade German students from Garden City Middle School recently participated in the 52nd Annual German-American Steuben Parade in New York City. They marched up Fifth Avenue to 86th Street to celebrate the birthday of the parade’s namesake Friedrich Wilhelm, Baron von Steuben, a Prussian General who served under George Washington during the Revolutionary War and helped his troops achieve victory. In addition to the role of Baron von Steuben, the parade commemorates the many contributions of immigrants of Germanic birth in the development of the United States of America. The end point of the parade at 86th Street and the Yorkville area is also significant because it housed many German-American establishments, including restaurants, cafes, and dance halls until the latter part of the last century.

This year, four Grand Marshals led the parade: Congressman Michael McMahon, Fox 5 TV reporter Linda Schmidt, A & P Chairman Christian Haub, and Parade Co-founder Ted Dengler. Among the many participants was the German Language Club of the Military Academy of West Point, which has a strong link to General von Steuben. There were also twenty-five groups from Germany, including German brass and marching bands, carnival groups, clubs and organizations and regional dancing groups in Tracht, as well as children from German schools, and floats representing, among other things, the 20th anniversary of the opening of the Berlin Wall.

On August 13, l961, a wall was erected dividing Berlin into two parts. The Western sector, occupied since the end of World War II by the Allied Powers, was off limits to people living in Soviet-controlled East Berlin. Commuter travel, personal visits, and escape to the West were brought to a halt. East Berliners became captives of a communist regime, with oppressive economic and political conditions. In spite of barbed wire, which was eventually replaced by a concrete wall, a mined “death strip,” and armed guards, some 5,000 people made it to the West. During a visit to West Berlin in 1987, President Ronald Reagan challenged the Soviet leader: “Mr. Gorbachov, tear down this wall!” Citizens of Eastern Europe mobilized, the bloodless revolution began, and on November 9, 1989, the wall was opened. Twenty-eight years of oppression thus came to an end. The Steuben Parade float representing this special anniversary bore the sign: “Freedom without Walls.”