Everywhere, authority and tradition have to justify themselves in the face of questions.

I have left the federal government and the German Bundestag; I have resigned from all my positions in the Social Democratic Party of Germany.

The first thing I see is the obligation to serve peace.

One of our most noble political tasks is to open up trust.

We have to recognize that the freedom of the individual has to be protected not only from the power of the state, but even more so from economic and societal power.

War is not the quintessential emergency in which man has to prove himself, as my generation learned at its school desks in the days of the Kaiser; rather, peace is the emergency in which we all have to prove ourselves.

The time has come - and must come - for multilateral conversations about a secure peace in all of Europe.