This video is only available in German. Below you will find an English translation of the audio track.
Interview with Prof. Dr. Hanns H. Seidler, Chancellor of the TU Darmstadt for many years, in 2006.
“My name is Hans Seidler, I have been Chancellor of the Technical University in Darmstadt for a good 21 years, and I got to know Georg and Wilma Iggers, it must have been in the late 70s, I think, when he organized the exchange on the Buffalo side, I organized the exchange between Darmstadt and Buffalo on our side, an exchange that still exists today; and since then we have been connected not only by an acquaintance over such a long time, but also, I think, by a very intense friendship, on the basis of which I would say Wilma and Georg Iggers have become for my wife and for me something like role models, and close friends.
I think that the scientist Georg Iggers, to start with, was someone who opened up for me - I’ll call myself something of an amateur historian - a completely different perspective on history than the one I had known up to that point.
The people Wilma and Georg Iggers are for me a model of commitment, a model of courage, a model of reflection and also - at my advanced age I may also say this - a model of how to keep oneself mobile, thoughtful and active even at an advanced age, and if I may add a third component to this, then I would say, in a world that is very much centered on technical-economic rationality, these two are for me two people who are still trying to push forward the project of enlightenment, still see it as an unfinished project, and are trying against fashionable currents to maintain this project and to realize it even more. And this is what I have called courage, in our present concrete situation of globalization turning faster and faster.”