Schiller Conference in Essen Calls on Germany to Join the New Silk Road

The Schiller Institute, on Friday, October 21, convened an all-day symposium in Essen, Germany on Prospects for Germany in the New Silk Road. The event, attended by over 120 participants from the scientific, industrial and diplomatic communities, featured speakers from Germany, France, China and Ethiopia, all focused on the opportunities for economic and scientific progress, based on participation in the One Belt, One Road program, initiated by China’s President Xi Jinping, and based on decades of effort by the Schiller Institute to promote a “new paradigm” of relations among nation-states throughout the globe, based on the common aims of mankind, including advances in all frontier areas of science.

The conference was keynoted by Schiller Institute founder and President Helga Zepp-LaRouche, who focused on the urgent need for Germany to become fully engaged in the One Belt, One Road projects that have already transformed the economic and political landscape of Eurasia. She emphasized that the benefits for Germany and Europe would extend beyond the obvious economic advances, and would go a long way to defeating the drive for war against Russia and China that has recently reached a danger point, beyond anything seen since the time of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.

President and founder of the Schiller Institute, Helga Zepp-LaRouche, delivering her keynote address.

Zepp-LaRouche’s presentation featured a detailed review of the progress on implementation of the New Silk Road and the Maritime Silk Road, the two cornerstones of the OBOR project.

A number of other prestigious figures from the diplomatic and scientific community also spoke during the panel sessions. The speakers included two Chinese officials, including Zhang Junhui, representing the Chinese Ambassador to Germany; and Professor Shi Ze of the Chinese Institute for International Studies, who is also the director of the Chinese Center for Shanghai Cooperation Organization Studies. M.M. Haile, the Consul General of Ethiopia in Frankfurt spoke, as well as French Presidential candidate Jacques Cheminade of the Solidarity and Progress Party. A number of prominent German scientists and industrialists also spoke during the panels, including Prof. Dr. Reinhold Meisinger, professor of mechanical engineering at Nuremburg University and a leading world expert on maglev high-speed transportation; Willi Pusch, who is a leading proponent of a Bonn-Rhine Meinz tunnel project; Dieter Ameling, former President of the German Steel Federation and the Chairman of the Steel Institute VDEh; and Prof. Dr. Reinhart Poprawe of the Fraunhofer Institute for Laser Technology in Frankfurt.

The conference, which was also attended by American economist and statesman Lyndon LaRouche, was animated by a profound sense of optimism about the future prospects for Germany and Eurasia if the Federal Republic is fully integrated into the One Belt, One Road vision. During the panel with Prof. Dr. Poprawe, an extensive dialogue was conducted on the relationship between classical music and culture and the promotion of scientific discovery and innovation.