History shows us a lot of things. It shows why the Lord's Prayer includes the supplication: "And lead us not into temptation." In my day, dissertations were still written by hand, or drummed out with a typewriter. In the past, you had to round up the literature, find the books and find the passages. Nowadays you click on Wikipedia or Google and you have everything you need. This probably makes it more difficult to resist temptation.

We are facing a whole collection of crisis-like developments that we have to watch closely. But we also have to be careful what we point to as crisis indicators.

I want to see religious instruction and sermons held in German in the mosques. The ideal, in my view, would be for imams to be trained in Germany and to speak our language, just as the Roman Catholic Church now holds mass in German and gave up Latin long ago.

Politics means competition, especially in senior positions. If you don't know that, you're not especially suited to politics.

As for the role of France and Germany: French politics is often more self-confident then German politics due to the catastrophe in the first half of the last century. If Berlin and Paris don't agree, then it is difficult to make progress in Europe.

Most of the mosques were built in our cities in recent years because Turkish citizens in those neighborhoods feel a growing need for places to pray.

Reliability is the precondition for trust.