Since I came an adult - for more than 45 years - Marcus Aurelius has been my great idol.

My education has been pro-England. I have been an England-minded citizen of Hamburg, and I am still in a way English-minded, but I have been disappointed by the Brits over the years.

I remember the youth movement in 1968. It started on American university campuses as a protest against the Vietnam war, then came to Paris, Frankfurt and Berlin. Within a year, you had an uprising of youth against their elders.

When I became a soldier, I was drafted in 1937, and instead of being released two years later, I had to stay on because the war had started in the meantime. I was a soldier for more than eight years, as long a time as I was Chancellor.

You know you haven't stopped talking since I came here? You must have been vaccinated with a phonograph needle!

Dad said that he was prouder of me than he'd ever been when I came out.