It is indeed a great honour for me to speak here in Halle ahead of the tenth anniversary of the death of Hans-Dietrich Genscher. I will speak about something Genscher did better than anyone else, namely diplomacy in times of crisis.

As Foreign Minister, I would also have liked to follow in Hans-Dietrich Genscher’s footsteps in this very place.

He visited the Leopoldina incognito in mid-July 1990 to learn more about the Academy without any pomp and circumstance. Perhaps we can do this on another occasion, although I must say that I appreciated the very warm and friendly welcome here.

Genscher then negotiated the funding of the Academy.

And to my mind, the Leopoldina seems to have been very successful, as we can still meet here 36 years later.

Ladies and gentlemen, residents of Halle, and above all, dear students,

As we gather here today in this beautiful ballroom, our country’s geopolitical environment is in uproar.

These turbulent times are also very much on my mind as a Minister, citizen, father and grandfather.

We are living at a time when Germany’s voice is needed in the world, a time when we are taking on responsibility, not only because we want to, but because we must.

And because we firmly believe that we can play a part in moving the world in a positive direction through all that defines this country. How we do this is a question that occupies politicians every day.

However, it is a question that is not only answered by the political sphere, but also by you. By us.

After all, the question of how we interact with our neighbours, partners, friends and opponents around the world has become an everyday one.

I mean this in very concrete terms. Foreign policy has a direct impact on domestic policy. In recent weeks in particular, this can be seen more clearly than ever before.

We see images of crises that seem a long way away. And yet in our day-to-day lives, we realise that these crises affect us in very tangible ways.

We need to discuss this connection between foreign policy and our everyday lives and to listen to each other. And we need to do this more and better than has been the case so far.

Why? Because many things are more complicated than can be described on Instagram in ninety seconds. And yet we have to try – including on Instagram – as it concerns our credibility as politicians. Trust and reliability are the currencies of policies – both foreign and domestic.

Hans-Dietrich Genscher was someone who developed this skill to perfection. He had his very own view of the globe. To be precise, of his globe.

He had one in his office. That may not be unusual for a Foreign Minister. In Genscher’s case, however, the globe was part of diplomacy. Before welcoming a guest from abroad, he first turned the globe so that his guest’s country was at the front.

This was to show that he wanted to see things as Foreign Minister from the other person’s perspective and — the next crucial step – to take this perspective seriously. He wanted to show his willingness to change his perspective.

Hans-Dietrich Genscher often had to do so in his own life. One perspective of his generation came from the war.

He experienced the final weeks and months of the Second World War as a young anti-aircraft auxiliary and Wehrmacht soldier, after which he was taken prisoner of war.

After the war, it was his generation who built up a country that was not sovereign. There was peace, but the country lay in ruins and was divided into occupation zones. Soon it would be brutally divided along ideological lines.

For Genscher, this was a contrast to his generation’s attitude towards life. After a childhood in National Socialism and a youth which ended in the war, he now wanted to finally pursue liberal ideas.

Before the Wall was built, he decided to go to the West, where he would become one of this country’s most influential politicians. He always kept his perspective as a native of Halle, though.

For him, being a “German” always meant an identity based on both East and West Germany. He was one of the few people who always firmly believed that the situation could be overcome.

One of a Foreign Minister’s great privileges is to attend and speak at the annual United Nations General Assembly in New York – to have the honour of representing our country there. For me, too, that was and is a great honour and responsibility.

In the eighteen years that he served as Foreign Minister, Genscher had the chance to attend the General Assembly more often than many of his counterparts. By 1990, he had addressed the international community at the UN in New York fifteen times.

And in each of these fifteen speeches, the first of which he gave in 1974, he demanded that “the German people regain their unity in free self-determination”.

Year in, year out, he called for this change, a path towards reunification of the divided country, an event that many no longer believed would ever happen.

However, for Hans-Dietrich Genscher, there could be no real freedom without reunification of the German people – neither in the West, something that people often overlook, nor in the East. And as at the start of his adult life, he did not want to accept that.

This forged a bond between him and many people in the GDR. Only through their courageous fight for freedom could this goal be achieved and our free Germany emerge. A free, united Germany. This was the prerequisite for the free Europe, in which we live today. What good fortune!

I think we should never forget that this was not written in stone. It was not guaranteed. And we have people like Hans-Dietrich Genscher to thank for the fact that it could be achieved.

We would be well-advised to keep this in mind. After all, we say that fortune favours those who work hard for it. And today we have to work very hard to preserve our good fortune.

Ladies and gentlemen,

A life in freedom is based on prerequisites, namely, peace and security. Today, both are in danger.

For the first time in generations, Europe is faced with two concurrent wars directly on its borders: a war of aggression on our own continent and a war in the Middle East.

These wars are closer to us than we often want to believe, not only because we carry photos and videos from the conflict regions around with us on our smart phones every day or can see these images on television, but from a purely geographical point of view.

We could travel from the Leopoldina to the Ukrainian border in one day, while Cyprus, an EU member that many of us primarily associate with holidays, is only a missile and drone away from the warfare in the Middle East.

I myself have visited Ukraine several times. I saw a nation fighting for its freedom. It has often been said, but I cannot reiterate it often enough, that Ukraine is defending its freedom. However, it is also defending our freedom.

This is already threatened today by Russia, specifically by activities directed against us in the hybrid sphere. And meanwhile, Ukraine is defending the dream of Europe that Hans-Dietrich Genscher had for his whole life. He was able to experience and shape this great achievement. That is why the German Government has a duty to support Ukraine.

And I was in Cyprus the week before last to show our European brothers and sisters there that they are not alone.
They can count on us, just as we could always count on our friends and partners during the Cold War.

But here in Germany, too, we are seeing how the war against Iran is changing our everyday lives. You only need to drive to the nearest petrol station. The high prices are a problem for us all. Buying petrol has become a financial burden for many people, and our economy is also struggling with this huge strain.

Iran is continuing to attack commercial tankers and has virtually closed the globally important trade route through the Strait of Hormuz. This is also an attack on the global economic system, which is based on freedom of navigation.

Tehran is terrorising the Gulf countries, Israel, Cyprus and Turkey with missiles and drones. Its attacks have killed innocent civilians who were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. That is why we organised travel for thousands of German tourists stranded in the region.

Suddenly people see that they are no longer free to go where they want on holiday. They need to limit themselves. This, too, is a completely new experience for many people. Once again, the region is in crisis.

But the security situation here in Germany has also deteriorated. We know that Iranian intelligence agencies are active in Germany and Europe.

And we must not forget that Russia and Iran work closely together. This links the two wars at our borders.

The sad result is that our freedom is being threatened in very concrete ways.

Hans-Dietrich Genscher experienced the start of this with Russia’s violent and illegal annexation of Crimea. This was contrary to his worldview. As late as 2014, he urged us to be patient with Putin.

This showed how deeply he was influenced by his hope for a European house in which Germany should serve as a mediator between East and West.

He came in for some criticism for his comments, like all of us politicians at times, because unfortunately he was wrong. The Russia that Genscher knew and wanted to trust had already been transformed by Putin into an autocratic, imperial and aggressive country.

Certainly by 2014, with the violent occupation of Crimea, this had become apparent – and since February 2022, no one can deny it. Putin is the anti-Gorbachev. Gorbachev stood for a European house based on cooperation and the joint search for peace and prosperity.

Putin tore down its pillars with brutal violence. He swept the achievements we had previously made with Russia off the table.

And yet, ladies and gentlemen, no matter how realistic we are about the Russian and Iranian regimes, Genscher had a vision of a 21^st century Europe that I do not want to abandon.

Today he would have had a vision of a Middle East with a free and peaceful Iran. I share this vision. Is it realistic that it will come true tomorrow? No, it isn’t. But does that mean that I – we – should stop striving to achieve it? Again, no, it doesn’t. What you quoted today, Professor Rockenbach, still holds true, as does what Hans-Dietrich Genscher so tirelessly did. And in this way, he is a role model for me. Always seek dialogue. Always keep trying to find common ground. I know for certain that neither conflict will be halted by weapons, but rather by words. This is our joint task – and first and foremost, it is the task of German foreign policy.

Ladies and gentlemen, I am aware that not everyone in Germany may agree with me.

Many people, even though they don't call reunification itself into question, now question how it was done. And we need to speak openly with each other about this topic.

I myself am only too aware of this, as I often visited a city in the former GDR, namely Rostock, where some of my relatives lived. We lived in Schleswig-Holstein and visited them many times. Christmas, summer holidays – I spent time in Rostock every year. And naturally, I kept up with how my relatives and their spouses and children fared after 1990.

I know that there were many great disappointments and that much of what we had hoped for ourselves, when we finally fell into each other's arms after reunification, did not always come to pass. That is why we need this discourse, why we need to talk about what went badly, what could have gone better and where we misunderstood each other. We need to share these views, and that is also one of the reasons why we have gathered here today. But it should not end here. It must go on. That is why I want to continue this discussion.

Allow me to conclude now with a little advertising for the Federal Foreign Office, aimed in particular at the students here with us today.

Become Germany’s voice in the world! Apply for the foreign service.

Believe me, we have people from all ways of life. In the year after I left school, there was certainly no plan that I would be appointed Foreign Minister one day.

Almost every degree course in the country is represented at the Federal Foreign Office.

And that is what makes us so special. We need people from all over Germany to represent our country in the world.

However, I can also assure the older people here that
the cut-off age for applying to the foreign service is in fact 50.

Luckily, they made an exception for me. I was slightly older.

In conclusion, let us all imagine Hans-Dietrich Genscher’s globe once again and that I have turned it so that Halle (Saale) is at the front. I look forward to hearing your views!