It's in the history books the Holocaust. It's just a phrase. And the truth is it happened yesterday. It happened to my mother. I never met my grandmothers or my grandfathers. They were all wiped up in the gas chambers of Nazi Germany.

Germany has reduced savagery to a science and this great war for the victorious peace of justice must go on until the German cancer is cut clean out of the world body.

There is a Western world. There is America. There is Great Britain and Germany and France and Russia and China and other nations. I doubt that there is one country amongst those I mentioned which has a desire to see Iran with its fundamentalist Islamic extremist government possessing nuclear weapons.

If Germany thanks to Hitler and his successors were to enslave the European nations and destroy most of the treasures of their past future historians would certainly pronounce that she had civilized Europe.

Jazz is about freedom within discipline. Usually a dictatorship like in Russia and Germany will prevent jazz from being played because it just seemed to represent freedom democracy and the United States.

Sometimes I even now feel like a stranger in my country. But I knew there would be problems because I had seen the world as a skater. And now? A lot of people in eastern Germany have lost jobs rents went up food costs went up unemployment went to 20 percent. Freedom is good but it is not easy.

There are pockets of great food in Spain but there are also pockets of very mediocre food in Spain and the same in Morocco and the same in Croatia and the same in Germany and the same in Austria.

I've published one book before and now I'm writing a book of essays and stories about life in Tokyo. And I have one book coming out in May in Germany about fitness.

In the long term Germany didn't need a finance minister who was absent during important negotiations in the European Council. But the chancellor strongly encouraged me to stay. And everything did work out for the best in the end.

In Germany I am not so famous.

I think that in a year I may retire. I cannot take my money with me when I die and I wish to enjoy it with my family while I live. I should prefer living in Germany to any other country though I am an American and am loyal to my country.

Our failure to properly deal with Germany and Japan early cost the world dearly later on. We dare not make the same mistake with China.

The rise of China as a new power is another great challenge for the US. Our failure to properly handle Germany and Japan earlier in the 20th century cost us and the world dearly. We must not make this same mistake with China.

But as environment minister I am very interested in a thriving German automobile industry because I can only pay for the rising costs of environmental protection at home and abroad if there are people in Germany with jobs and who pay taxes.

That's something I learned in art school. I studied graphic design in Germany and my professor emphasized the responsibility that designers and illustrators have towards the people they create things for.

I just went off for two months traveling around Europe on a motorcycle and pretty much turned my phone off. I did 5 000 miles with my dad. We went through Holland Germany Austria Slovenia Croatia Bosnia Montenegro Italy... and then I did Spain and France by myself.

Overcoming the Cold War required courage from the people of Central and Eastern Europe and what was then the German Democratic Republic but it also required the steadfastness of Western partner over many decades when many had long lost hope of integration of the two Germanys and Europe.

When I was a child I asked my mother what homosexuality was about and she said - and this was 100 years ago in Germany and she was very open-minded - 'It's like hair color. It's nothing. Some people are blond and some people have dark hair. It's not a subject.' This was a very healthy attitude.

Traveling to Russia and Germany and being able to see the world at a young age was really cool for me and I really liked that.