I did that all the more, if I may say so, because I was aware of the fact that there is an inclination to go to extremes in German people, and in the German character generally.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I can't say I'm thankful about being German because I sometimes experience it as a huge burden. But it is an integral part of me and I wouldn't want to escape it. I have accepted it.
Because of my flamboyant lifestyle, because of me being German, the way I am, I am the easiest person to sell as a villain. I'm the perfect target.
Not unless I do all these ancient and Italian or French or Baroque in the beginnning, I do German.
You cannot stoke the fires of prejudice against German people and then not find that somewhere, sometime down the road it doesn't discharge.
As a German citizen, as a German professor, and as a political person, I hold it to be not only my right but also my moral duty to take part in the shaping of our German destiny, to expose and oppose obvious wrongs.
I'm far more relaxed with German. I'm a control freak. I like to know exactly who's saying and doing what.
I felt no need to write a German-bashing play.
I know what Germans are. They are a funny people. They are always choosing someone to lead them in a direction which they do not want to go.
Sure, I acted in films in the Third Reich, entertainment films, which distracted countless people inside and outside Germany from daily life during war.
Being German, I think we don't really express a lot of things.