Zitat des Tages von Helmut Kohl:
As a child, I personally didn't really get to know any Jews. I was eight years old when the Night of Broken Glass happened. And Ludwigshafen was purely a workers' city, so we didn't have a very big Jewish community. What I did know about the Jews, I heard from my mother. My mother was very much pro-Jewish.
For me it is completely clear that our air bases in Germany would be available to the Americans.
In German history, we don't have many reasons to be proud.
In a democracy, if you don't get the votes, nothing else is possible, no matter how wonderful your dreams.
I have been underestimated for decades. I have done very well that way.
I experienced Nazism as a child. Like many of my generation, I was motivated by the desire to prevent another war at any price.
We were united not only by political respect for each other, but also by deep mutual sympathy as people.
German and European unification are two sides of the same coin.
Where there is no will, no rules or laws can help.
You didn't just pay lip service to the goal of overcoming the division of Europe and Germany... Rather, you put yourself at the forefront of those who encouraged us on the way to unity.
Political life is like this - elections go back and forth. Representative democracy can only be successful if one sits down and says, 'That's it. I will connect myself,' - as I did - 'connect my existence to a political project.' Then you automatically have in your party a lot of people who say, 'If that fails, so do I'.
The army is under orders to defend every place.
Germany is our fatherland; Europe is our future.
Peace must be more than the absence of war.
We Germans have learned from history. We are a peace-loving, freedom-loving people. There is only one place for us in the world: at the side of the free nations.
When people come to write about my period of office, I would be very happy if they say that I made a contribution to finding the happy medium again for the Germans.
The Christian Democrats always made you feel like the poor relation.
I have every reason, despite the resentment and exasperation, to be proud. I have nothing better to be proud of than being proud of German unity.
Two decisions have damaged the stability both of the euro and of Europe: the premature admission of Greece to the euro area and the breach and subsequent weakening of the stability and growth pact.
Solitary decisions, no matter how well-founded they may appear to individuals, must belong to the past - along with national, unilateralist action.
If one has no compass, when one doesn't know where one stands and where one wants to go, one can deduce that one has no leadership or interest in shaping events.
We all need Europe, not just those of us in Europe. And we Germans need Europe more than the others. Germany is the country with the longest border, the most neighbours, and is, by population and economic strength, the number one in Europe.
I like everything that makes you fat.
The most important rule of the new Europe is: There must never again be violence in Europe.
People in Tel Aviv can not imagine, but in 1990, here in Leipzig or Dresden, whoever wanted to buy a car had to wait 14 years. The East Germans worked like people in the West, but the fruits of their labor were harvested by a criminal regime.