Helmut Schmidt

Nothing is more important than pastoral care for people in need. [...] For me, nothing is less important than theology.

im Gespräch mit Hans Küng über den Weltethos, 2007, YouTube, 2007

Did it have to come to this? The paradox is that when Europe was less united, it was in many ways more independent. The leaders who ruled in the early stages of integration had all been formed in a world before the global hegemony of the United States, when the major European states were themselves imperial powers, whose foreign policies were self-determined. These were people who had lived through the disasters of the Second World War, but were not crushed by them. This was true not just of a figure like De Gaulle, but of Adenauer and Mollet, of Eden and Heath, all of whom were quite prepared to ignore or defy America if their ambitions demanded it. Monnet, who did not accept their national assumptions, and never clashed with the US, still shared their sense of a future in which Europeans could settle their own affairs, in another fashion. Down into the 1970s, something of this spirit lived on even in Giscard and Schmidt, as Carter discovered. But with the neo-liberal turn of the 1980s, and the arrival in power in the 1990s of a postwar generation, it faded. The new economic doctrines cast doubt on the state as a political agent, and the new leaders had never known anything except the Pax Americana. The traditional springs of autonomy were gone.

Perry Anderson, "Depicting Europe", London Review of Books (20 September 2007), 2007

If we continue on for decades as before, then I have to be pessimistic about our country.

in conversation with the authors of the series of documentaries "Der Fall Deutschland", statcion Phoenix, 12. February 2006, phoenix.de, 2006

The multicultural society is an illusion of intellectuals.

Die Zeit, nr. 18/2004, 22. April 2004, 2004

Do we want also to be world champion in moaning?

''in "Because Germany has to change" DIE ZEIT 22/2003 22. Mai 2003, 2003

The snail's pace is the normal pace of any democracy.

DIE ZEIT, 19. Oktober 2003, zeit.de, 2003

Today, the most important is to learn to understand other people. And not only their music, but also their philosophy, their attitude, their behavior. Only then will nations can get along with each other.

Weggefährten - Erinnerungen und Reflexionen, Siedler-Verlag Berlin 1996, p. 58, ,, 1996

It is an irony of history that the public sector union, my union, in which I am a member for over 50 years, that imagines that the public service should be the pacemaker in the wage increase. One must be crazy.

speech "The catch-up process of the East has gone to end in 1996 - What to do?" at the 10. May 2004 for the "Erfurt Dialogues", thueringen.de, 1996

What troubles me is that we will see in Germany no approximation of the East German income to the West German income anymore, because productivity stays so far behind.

speech "The catch-up process of the East has gone to end in 1996 - What to do?" at the 10. May 2004 for the "Erfurt Dialogues", thueringen.de, 1996

It is true that the politician at the moment of his actions or if he explains his actions and justifies them cannot provide at the same time also great philosophy. But if he acts without philosophical and ethical foundations, he is in danger of making mistakes. He is in danger to sink into opportunism. He is even in danger of being a charlatan.

Weggefährten - Erinnerungen und Reflexionen, Siedler-Verlag Berlin 1996, S. 156, ,, 1996

In the basic questions, one have to be naive. And I think that the problems of the world and of humanity cannot be solved without idealism. However, I also believe that one should be realistic and pragmatic at the same time.

Weggefährten - Erinnerungen und Reflexionen, Siedler-Verlag Berlin 1996, S. 54, ,, 1996

The more direct decisions by all the people, all the more ungovernable is the country!

Handeln für Deutschland: Wege aus der Krise, Rowohlt, 1993, p. 136, ,, 1993

I think that the idea that a modern society would be able to establish itself as a multicultural society, with as many cultural groups as possible is absurd. One cannot make out of Germany with at least a thousand years of history since Otto I subsequently make a crucible.

Frankfurter Rundschau, 12. September 1992, S. 8, zitiert in konservativ.de und linksnet.de, 1992

Helmut Schmidt continues to speak of a sense of duty, predictability, feasibility, firmness [...] These are secondary virtues. Simply put precise:.. So you can also run a concentration camp with them.

Oskar Lafontaine on 15. July 1982 in STERN to the discussion about the NATO Double-Track Decision (here: shortend citation of BILD), 1982

It seems to me that the German people can - pointedly - tolerate 5 percent price increase better than 5 percent unemployment.

Interview with Helmut Schmidt on the 27. July 1972 in Bonn, partly printed in the Süddeutsche Zeitung of 28. July 1972 (nr. 171), p. 8, 1972