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Ladies and Gentlemen, when one is invited to speak at occasions like this, convention requires beginning with a familiar sentence: "It is a great pleasure and a distinct honour to join you this evening."
But I will not say it that way. Because I did not come here merely because this is an important gathering. I came because of a rather unusual convergence of three things: The city where we meet, the moment in which we meet, and the subject I was asked to address.
Berlin, the place where perhaps the greatest geopolitical transformation of our lifetime became reality. And not only because a wall fell. But because, after the wall fell, a leader emerged with the courage to understand what history demanded next. Helmut Kohl did not see German reunification as an administrative challenge. He saw it as a geopolitical necessity. Against caution. Against skepticism. Against the conventional wisdom of the time. He decided that Germany should become one country again. History proved him right.
The search for a new 'Helmut Kohl'-moment
