Leaving the roundabout  

He’s big and boisterous. A real presence. Very sharp indeed. And worried about Germany. Yes, things are going pretty well for the time being. But what about the future? “Well, it’s like a house: it you don’t do any maintenance work for five years, things might still be OK. Wait for ten years, though, and you really have a problem.” So, an abject pessimist? “No, not a pessimist,” he insists, “just a realist.” So, where exactly do the problems lie? “Well, of course, we too have a huge debt crisis,” he says. “Education and training are a disaster. The tax system no better. The concerns of employers are falling on deaf ears. The politicians are in thrall to the parties and the parties are subject to the tyranny of the election schedule.” This big, boisterous and very engaging man is businessman and author Walter Kohl – my latest guest on Talking Germany.

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Walter Kohl – a man with a very sharp mind – spat out three favourites without even a second’s hesitation. The German movie Sophie Scholl – The Final Days (brilliant, harrowing), Istvan Szabó’s masterpiece Colonel Redl (also very political), and …. Forrest Gump (political, unpolitical? make up your own mind). Sorry, I’m not a fan.