One does not throw out dirty water as long as one doesnt have any clea — Konrad Adenauer

"I wish that an English statesman might once have spoken of us as Western Europeans."

"The Soviet Government and the Soviet people should not lend themselves to co-operating in the conversion into a concentration camp of part of a large neighbouring country against the will of its inhabitants."

"A reformation of relations between the Soviet people and the German people is not possible along the lines pursued by the authorities of the Soviet zone of Germany. The Germans in that zone have come to hate and despise those who violate them in so inhuman a manner. And they must be having similar feelings towards those who support that system. The closing of the border is an unprecedented admission of bankruptcy. It shows that the people who are compelled to live in that part of Germany can be prevented only by the use of physical force from leaving that paradise of workers and farmers. There is but one possibility of placing relations between the Soviet and German peoples on a new foundation: the German people must be given back the right, denied to no people on earth, to form, through a free and uninfluenced expression of their will, a government which would then be truly entitled to speak, act and decide on behalf of the whole German nation."

"I see the significance of the Marshall Plan in the fact that probably for the first time in history a victorious country held out its hand so that the vanquished might rise again."

"In view of the fact that God limited the intelligence of man, it seems unfair that he did not also limit his stupidity."

"We will never forget. If it takes us five or ten or twenty years, we will never rest until we get our revenge."