Quotes from Helmut Kohl

Where is Germany now and where does it want to go? It's a question being asked by our partners and allies abroad. We have to return - urgently - to our old dependability. We have to make clear for others what we stand for, where we're headed, and that we know where we belong.

Our shared historical experiences led myself and Mitterrand to the decision that we must do everything to prevent further wars.

Peace must be more than the absence of war.

I have been underestimated for decades. I've done very well that way.

If a Chancellor is trying to push something through, he must be a man of power. And if he's smart, he knows when the time is ripe. In one case - the euro - I was like a dictator... The euro is a synonym for Europe.

We all need Europe, not just those of us in Europe. And we Germans need Europe more than the others. Germany is the country with the longest border, the most neighbours, and is, by population and economic strength, the number one in Europe.

Nations with a common currency never went to war against each other. A common currency is more than the money you pay with.

I experienced Nazism as a child. Like many of my generation, I was motivated by the desire to prevent another war at any price.

I like everything that makes you fat.

People in Tel Aviv can not imagine, but in 1990, here in Leipzig or Dresden, whoever wanted to buy a car had to wait 14 years. The East Germans worked like people in the West, but the fruits of their labor were harvested by a criminal regime.

We were united not only by political respect for each other, but also by deep mutual sympathy as people.

We Germans have learned from history. We are a peace-loving, freedom-loving people. There is only one place for us in the world: at the side of the free nations.

Germany is our fatherland; Europe is our future.

When people come to write about my period of office, I would be very happy if they say that I made a contribution to finding the happy medium again for the Germans.

I don't want to give myself grades. I will leave evaluation of my achievements to history.

I knew that I could never win a referendum in Germany. We would have lost a referendum on the introduction of the euro. That's quite clear. I would have lost, and by seven to three.

As a child, I personally didn't really get to know any Jews. I was eight years old when the Night of Broken Glass happened. And Ludwigshafen was purely a workers' city, so we didn't have a very big Jewish community. What I did know about the Jews, I heard from my mother. My mother was very much pro-Jewish.

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

As a German, in view of the history of World War II and the terrible deeds of the Nazi period, I feel a special obligation to help as much as I can to develop European-Israeli relations and thus contribute to ensuring Israel's future and existence.

My parents were Christians - Catholics, but not in the close-minded sense. I remember my mother to be a very pious woman, but she was never against other religions.

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

Political life is like this - elections go back and forth. Representative democracy can only be successful if one sits down and says, 'That's it. I will connect myself,' - as I did - 'connect my existence to a political project.' Then you automatically have in your party a lot of people who say, 'If that fails, so do I'.

My childhood ended in 1942. I was 12, and for the next three years, I lived under incessant bombings. It was a life of constant fear.

It was a stroke of luck that there were about four to six leaders in power in the mid-'80s who really trusted one another and could really make things happen.