Margaret Thatcher, growing up in a bombed and battered Britain, derived a distrust which has grown with the years not just of Germany but of all continental Europe.

There are thus great swathes of the past where understanding is more important and reputable than judgement, because the principal actors performed in line with the ideas and values of that time, not of ours.

We must admit that history is enjoyable to a large extent because it enables us to pass judgement on the past.

Margaret Thatcher was fearful of German unification because she believed that this would bring an immediate and formidable increase of economic strength to a Germany which was already the strongest economic partner in Europe.

The blockade against American natural-gas exports needs to be lifted, and the war on coal needs to be ended, so that, instead of being wasted to replace perfectly good coal-generated electricity, our natural-gas exports can be expanded even further.

War is not cheap, but it's the human cost that's the highest.

Movements such as the Pan-Germanic, Pan-Islamic, or Pan-Negro justify themselves on the basis of their common language, or their common religion, or their color. But since the undefined masses involved in these movements lack the essential and real unity of background or community of purpose, they become a grave danger to general peace.

Having been raised during the war, I know very well how childhood hampered by displacement, poverty, violence, and fear looks like.