Germany’s experience with reunification offers sobering but valuable lessons for the Korean Peninsula, speakers said Thursday at a roundtable in Seoul hosted by The Korea Times, emphasizing the need for careful preparation, sustained engagement and a willingness to bear long-term costs. Georg Schmidt, Germany’s ambassador to South Korea, and Kim Hyo-joon, former chairman of BMW Group Korea, said that although the political circumstances surrounding Germany’s reunification in 1990 differ markedly from those confronting the Korean Peninsula today, the costs of continued division — including the risk of armed conflict — must be weighed against the formidable economic and social burdens that reunification would entail. Kim said that reunification with North Korea remains a long-term objective for South Korea, but warned against abrupt political change or unrealistic expectations driven by emotion rather than feasibility. “This is a matter of timing,” he said during the event at the German ambassador’s residence. “Eventually we want reunification, because there is clear syn