The Christian Democrats always made you feel like the poor relation.

Russia is Germany's most important neighbor in the East, and it will remain so.

The future will belong to the Germans... ...when we build the House of Europe. In the next two years, we will make the process of European integration irreversible. This is a really big battle but it is worth the fight.

Everybody should know that Germany will not go it alone: there will be no restless Reich.

Peace must be more than the absence of war.

I doubt that the evil spirits of the past, under which we in Europe have already suffered more than enough this century, have been banished for ever.

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.