 |
| German President Joachim Gauck |
"The Englishman loves freedom like his respectable wife, he possesses her, and if he doesn’t handle her with excessive tenderness, still, he knows how to defend her in a crisis like a man… and woe to the redcoated strapling who breaks into her holy bedroom – whether as a gallant or as a scoundrel. The Frenchman loves his freedom like his chosen bride. He glows for her, he flames, he throws himself at her feet… The German loves his freedom like his old Grandmother."
-Heinrich Heine
Germany's President Joachim Gauck opened the Munich Security Conference with a call for more German engagement in international affairs, including, when necessary, military interventions. His remarks were echoed by Germany's defense minister Ursula von der Leyen and Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
An overwhelming majority of German citizens oppose sending troops abroad.
Gauck, who was born in 1940, is a former East German pastor and lifelong anti-Communist activist who witnessed the deportation of his father to a Soviet Gulag. (He has described his parents as "tacit supporters of the Nazis.") His political sermons echoing the civil rights movement in the United States contributed to the collapse of the East German Communist state. The German edition of The Black Book of Communism includes a chapter by Gauck.
Read more.
(0201 Wn M09) Munich Security Conference... by tvnportal
Related: Ukraine Opposition Leaders Vow to Continue Struggle at Munich Security Conference
