Meet the New York Times Bureau Manager Who Witnessed the Fall of the Berlin Wall<br />9, 2017<br />"We did a lot of traveling that year, after the wall came down — all over East Germany," Mr. Schmemann added.<br />"And he’s been an absolute stalwart of The Times’s coverage of Germany — the go-to person for every correspondent<br />who’s lived or worked there." "He transcended the traditional role of the bureau manager," Mr. Cowell added.<br />Thus began a furious night of reporting for both Mr. Schmemann<br />and Mr. Homola, who returned to East Berlin in the early hours of Nov. 10 to find his children and his mother fast asleep.<br />In those days, foreign correspondents who wanted to work in East Germany were assigned an interpreter by the East German government.<br />Victor Homola, who for years had worked with The Times as an East German interpreter, was standing outside the room.
