Helmut Schmidt - Country Quotes

4 Sourced Quotes

View all Helmut Schmidt Quotes

[Intelligence services] are poor pigs suffering from two mental illnesses: The one disease is because they never get public recognition for what they actually do. This is inevitable, as they have to work in secret. This deformes the soul. The other disease bases on the fact that they have the tendency to believe they understood the national interests of their own country much better than their own government. This latter disease is the reason that I do not trust them.

Helmut Schmidt

The more direct decisions by all the people, all the more ungovernable is the country!

Helmut Schmidt

With a democratic society, the concept of multiculturalism is difficult to reconcile. Maybe in a very long term. But if you ask, where multicultural societies have so far worked, you can get very quickly to the conclusion that they only work there peacefully where there is a strong authoritarian state there. So, it was a mistake that we picked up at the beginning of the 60's guest workers from foreign cultures into the country.

Helmut Schmidt

If we continue on for decades as before, then I have to be pessimistic about our country.

Helmut Schmidt