Willy Brandt

"It gives me great pleasure to congratulate you on your elevation to the high office of Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany. You have already done much for your people, as governing Mayor of Berlin and as Foreign Minister and Vice Chancellor. The admiration and respect you have won throughout the world in these earlier capacities promises much for the discharge of the even greater and more challenging duties you have now assumed. I think you are aware of the confidence you have won throughout the world in years."

"Brandt’s first Government Declaration promised a social programme appropriate for what he termed a new participatory democracy. But, though innovative in many respects, his strategy was to expand and consolidate rather than to introduce radical reforms of basic institutional arrangements. In any case, there was no political incentive to do so, since the existing welfare system was popular and had contributed to the economic prosperity that was so evident to the electorate. Social expenditure in the Brandt years broke loose from economic growth rates, rising from one quarter to a third of GDP, the Federal Republic becoming one of the top social spenders in the OECD. This hyperactivity, after the years of careful planning and management during the Grand Coalition, may be explained as a response of the SPD to their long absence from being senior partners in the government. For the first time in the history of the republic they were now in that position and wished to legitimise themselves in the eyes of the electorate as a sound and progressive alternative to the Union parties."

"Auch wenn zwei Staaten in Deutschland existieren, sind sie doch füreinander nicht Ausland; ihre Beziehungen zueinander können nur von besonderer Art sein."

"Wir sind keine Erwählten, wir sind Gewählte. Deshalb suchen wir das Gespräch mit allen, die sich um diese Demokratie bemühen."

"[...] ich habe es noch in diesem Sommer erneut zu Papier gebracht: Berlin wird leben, und die Mauer wird fallen."

"Wir wollen mehr Demokratie wagen."

"In our modern world, mass hunger, economic stagnation, environmental catastrophe, political instability, and terrorism cannot be quarantined within national borders."