Helmut Kohl's request, even before saying goodbye, took me completely by surprise: "Tell me about your family..." It was the first time I had met him, in the guesthouse near the Chancellery in Bonn. If, at thirty years of age, I hadn't been too intimidated by the giant who was unifying Germany in those months, he would have seemed a truly unusual man, whose passion for power was built also on curiosity for people. I soon had to understand, in the amazing years I spent in Germany, how the people and the governments are equally decisive in the turning points of history.

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