Horst Koehler

After a Polish Pope, whose country was first to be invaded by the Germans in World War Two, we now have someone from the generation drafted at the close of the war.

Germany must be a country which generates political ideas and leadership, which is capable of compromise, which is sovereign and yet knows that it needs its partners on both sides of the Atlantic.

If we know where we want to go, then even a stony road is bearable.

Political differences will always generate a healthy debate, but over time the dialogue has become more hateful and at times violent.

Shaft was a pop culture figure along t he lines of, I guess, Dirty Harry - except that he wasn't as much of a racist. So yeah, I was always a fan.

It is characteristic of science that the full explanations are often seized in their essence by the percipient scientist long in advance of any possible proof.