GERMANS

Here in Europe they're all nervous about Germany because of The Nazis. So there is misunderstanding about Germany's intentions. They don't understand the German concept of imperialism. You see for we Germans it is not a matter of taking over other nations in order to oppress them. This is what people think. But they are wrong. When Germans think of taking the leadership in Europe, we are thinking of the benefit of other peoples. We are thinking of this as a duty that we must undertake because we are best suited to undertake it. Because we can do it better than anyone else. And this is obvious from the success of our economy.

In America they think we're all Nazis. But really it's nothing to do with us. It all happened before we were born. I don't even know much about it. It's just not part of our lives.

We are willing, because we believe we ought to, to take on the leadership for the betterment of all. This is what the others do not understand. That we want to make an offering of ourselves, of our abilities, for their benefit. They ought to welcome us. Yet they resist and flop around in much talking and do nothing while Europe is a mess. Nobody knows what they are doing and things are out of order.

I know I'm German. One hundred percent pure German. No doubts about that. It doesn't matter about the dark hair. I know what I am. My mother had to get the papers. They traced you right back you know. And we got the papers. I've seen them. I'm completely German. No we don't think too much about the past. They've been shovelling that stuff at us all our lives, the concentration camps, all of that. When it comes on T.V., I just turn the channel. What's the point of looking at that. We've seen it already too many times. It's boring.

We want to build a unified group of states or even a single state that will be efficient and able to compete with Japan and with the Americans. We can do this if everyone will allow us to act as the leaders that we must be in this new Europe, and stop worrying about what is past.

Once in a bar in New York, I met an old man who was Jewish. He was in Germany before the War but he escaped to America. He wanted to tell me his life story. I didn't want to hear about it. It had nothing to do with me. He wanted to give me a gold necklace. He was a jeweler. He really wanted me to take it. I didn't want it. I didn't even know him. He only wanted to give it to me because I was German. It was important to him to show me he didn't hold it against me. But what has that got to do with me? Maybe if he had been talking to my mother, but she was just a young woman herself then. And I wasn't even born yet. So for sure it has nothing to do with me. I just wanted to get out of there. I guess it was just one of those things that happen to you in a bar in New York.

Take Poland for example. There we have a legitimate concern. The border with Poland was drawn when Germany was not in a condition to dispute it. But there are many arguments that we should have some of that land. The most significant one is that we need it. Do you know this term "Lebensraum"? Well Germany needs space to grow. And yet here are the Poles, upset about unification and about the German interest in re-opening the border question. They have all that space and they don't know how to use it so they just do nothing with it. Poland has never really been a country.

My mother comes from a village near Dachau. Have you heard of Dachau? Well she lived right there. And they didn't know what was going on in there. Normal people didn't know. My mother told me they used to see groups of prisoners in chains coming out the gates to go to work. They looked pretty bad. Some people felt sorry for them. But what could you do. A friend of my mother's even passed food through the fence. But you could get into trouble for doing that. My mother had a boyfriend who was a guard in the camp. He told her. He said, "Do you know what is going on in there? Terrible things are going on. They are killing people." But this boy was very critical about everything. He was sort of a rebel. She thought he must be a communist, so she didn't believe him. Anyway it's nothing to do with me. I wasn't even born yet. And I hardly know anything about it.

So this is the context in which you must understand the German situation in this new Europe, in the European community. In this body, this body that is Europe, each must fulfill the role to which he is best suited. We are best suited to be the head. Thus we cannot be anything but the head, for this is in our nature and in the nature also of the body as a whole. Do you understand? It is a matter of natural order.