We cannot stand alone. With 80 million people in this world of today, you cannot, when you just stand on your own, achieve much even though you may be economically strong.

Trying to keep a society together, trying to keep the older and the younger people together, trying to keep those who live in rural areas together with those who live in cities is one of the most important and most noble tasks of politicians these days.

The fact that people have hijacked it is certainly not something that fills me with great joy. We have to find new ways of addressing people, new ways of getting into contact with people.

We cannot allow employers in Germany to pay hourly wages of 50 cents and shift the remainder of the burden to the taxpayer. After all, we want to create jobs, not open a self-service shop for resourceful employers.

Look forward to the future and look forward to the unknown. Nothing stays the same and people change. One day that hurt and pain will be a distant memory.

I don't carry any early childhood trauma around with me, if that's what you're hinting at. The story of the bicycles - and there were three of them which were stolen from me - I've dealt with it well.

History has often showed us the strength of the forces that are unleashed by the yearning for freedom. It moved people to overcome their fears and openly confront dictators such as in East Germany and Eastern Europe about 22 years ago... The yearning for freedom cannot be contained by walls for long. It was this yearning that brought down the Iron Curtain that divided Germany and Europe, and indeed the world, into two blocs.