„Yes, I want to carry you till old age, and you shall say that I am merciful.“ Dear guests, dear colleagues! That was a choral by Neithard Bethke, with text by Jochen Klepper. The merciful time is upon us, announced by the touching music, which uplifts our spirits and keeps us from frailties – at least as long as we sit still and listen to the melodies. A contribution from our experienced soloist ensembles to wish you a peaceful Christmas festival.

Yes, I want to carry you. The choral focuses on Neithard Bethkes’ inner faith in God – as a sceptical scientist I can only wonder at such innocence and naivety. The music carries us. Apart from that this statement, put into the mouth of a fictitious God, is obviously an empty promise. This God is not merciful and does not carry you: he lets you fall – you can count only on this.

“I thank you great God” the poor souls who jumped out of the burning World Trade Center in New York must have cried – guided safely by eagle’s wings and landing on hard ground only then to be carried away. “God with us” was the motto of the German and the French grenadiers, who cut each other down in the trenches of Verdun in the advent period of 1916. “God bless America” – and the bombs fell on Dresden, Hiroshima and Bagdad. At the start of this advent a mother killed her five children, nearby to us. The Lübeck newspaper gave a detailed report – God be thanked for a sensational topic, welcome excitement for voyeurs and copycats, – and one of the most resourceful pastors of our time and a beneficiary of the quota for women said in Lübeck: “God is with us in despair and need, with his love and solidarity”. He didn’t show much solidarity with the two fathers and the five children as he brought the deed about or let it happen.

The boundless grace of the church does not end with such exhibitions; her apostles are waiting with a further generous promise: Whoever is supposedly abandoned by God or feels he has missed out in this vale of tears will be richly compensated after death, with help from the child from Bethlehem’s stable. So be joyful about every blow of fate and make your life holy from now on, pay church taxes, obey the state, sacrifice your best – your freedom – let yourself be exploited by parents, children and employers, be faithful to a dishonourable partner for life and miss out on thousands of things which are fun – celibacy comes first to my mind, the victims of which wish for an overflow of nectar and ambrosia in the distant future, some of them perhaps featuring a pretty altar boy. But truly, I say to you: every ascetic who abstains from the satisfaction of elementary needs down here to achieve a premier seat in heaven will decay to dust like all others, and no God needs to redeem the promises of the bishop speaker Ms Wartenberg-Potters. There is also nothing left of the terrorists from 11 September, and after their last flight they cannot have an even night of passion with one of the ten promised virgins.

How does the little child, Jesus of Nazareth, who was born two thousand years ago, help us – our salvation, a son given? Truly, this child also does not assist us. In his name there has been so much mischief done and so many crimes committed as never before in world history: think about the crusades, the inquisition, the thirty years war and many other wars, the missionaries and slave trade in Africa, the burning of so many voluptuous blondes at the stake, and with good reason, the ban on basic scientific research through many ages. People steered medical history backwards, Christianity became the motor of evil, the “force that always wants good, and only achieves evil”. And in murder Christians developed into the most successful of any religion. At the moment religious fanatics from another belief are trying to overtake the church, and our politicians leave them in our country wanting for nothing and even finance their crimes.

Is the child Jesus responsible? Nonsense. Millions of virtuous people were murdered before and after the “birth of Christ”, but precisely this legendary figure never walked on the ground of our vales of tears. The Christ legend is only a hypothesis, invented by a couple of story tellers, perhaps on commission from some agitator or demagogue who wanted to destabilise the late Roman Empire. Archaeologists and historians have not been able to find any objective witnesses from those times who can substantiate just one of the Jesus episodes, whereas with every other important event in world history numerous finds have been unearthed and detailed knowledge built up. The legends of the New Testament were invented a few hundred years later since no one could verify the truth with the methods available at that time. For this reason nobody is declared a saint just after their passing, so that their contemporaries cannot blow the whistle on the rascal who has been elevated to the throne.

Many people think as I do, and even most clergymen regard the New Testament as a big fairy tale book, like A Thousand and One Nights. But they do not trust themselves to admit it, so that they do not lose their jobs, and because they do not want to deny the scaredy cats among us, who fear the cold of the deep graveyard earth, their feeling of comfort. We don’t want to hear the truth and we close our eyes tightly against the knowledge of modern scientists, who ridicule every religion and in whose light all transcendental Christian traditions appear as outlandish cock-and-bull stories.

But why do we still celebrate Christmas today? And how can I bring you again into a peaceful advent mood? Every year at home I voluntarily put up a Christmas tree, decorate it and sing religious songs with my family and today with you: We should always take breaks from our career zealousness and ambition to spend time with our nearest and dearest and not neglect or forget them. Once a year we retreat, find time for peace and reflection, and appreciate how lucky we are to have found a focus in our families and our company, to be friends with good people, private and in other domains. Christmas offers the best opportunity to discover such happiness in ourselves, and we can listen peacefully to the lovely invented stories which are entwined in Christmas. We do not need to continually check their truth, we don’t do this with other fairy tales when we read them to our children. We clutch at the altruistic protagonist part and use it as an example.

People have to find a balance between the forces of egoism and altruism – the one force helps us to hold our own in the daily fight for survival, the other is characterised by selflessness, readiness to make sacrifices and protective instinct – from which our still weak children profit. A fighting spirit and a need for harmony are present in all of us, and both must flourish for us to proceed happily through life. One cannot always sing loudly, the heartfelt pianissimo also belongs to the music.

Fight for yourselves and take what you need and what you are entitled to the whole year long, but at Christmas make room for charity. And do not turn the advent period into a hectic chase and battle for presents, otherwise the spirit of advent is turned into exactly the opposite. Do not deploy your elbows at the rummage table at C&A in order to get everything done in time, do not push at every queue, and leave your fist in your trouser pocket when someone grabs the parking place in front of your nose. Do not let yourself be manipulated and coerced into consuming by Lübeck’s shops, who misuse the “name of the Lord”: already at the beginning of November Christmas songs resounded ting-a-ling, they wanted to speak to your conscience: think about the happiness of your children, don’t forget to buy mountains of presents, here they are inexpensive. Listen to me: rather give your children some of your time, give each only one or maximum two material presents and arrange with spouses and friends to forego Christmas presents (half of them we don’t use anyway and the plunder has to be returned in January). In the advent period stay at home a little more often, with coffee and gingerbread cakes, light the obligatory number of candles, decorate the tree on the holidays, sing a few songs, go for a walk, play with the children or read a nice book, perhaps this time not a thriller with ten deaths.

The world is calm, like sleeping in peaceful reverie. You hear no laughs, no weeping. It’s silent like a tree. Heavenly peace is allaying all discord. There’s just sacred love. This is a time for praying. Hear me, o God above!

Lübeck, 2007

Christmas speech

I feel that the last year has passed more quickly than all of the other years before. It seems to me as if the carols at our last feast have just faded away and we are already coming together again to celebrate Christmas. Why do people have the impression that time passes so quickly? The reason is the fact that so many things have happened since last Christmas that we never really have managed to reflect upon all of them. Thomas Mann made this phenomenon a main subject in one of his novels, The Magic Mountain. In this book he describes a character having the impression that time is dragging on because there is nothing happening in his life. But later, when the character is looking back on his life, he thinks that it has come to an end far too quickly. However, the opposite applies for people who have had many experiences in their lives. In retrospect, they feel that their lives were longer (as long as the whole novel of The Magic Mountain, which takes at least half a year to be read entirely).

In 2005 so many milestones have been set at EUROIMMUN that we will not forget this period too fast. 2005 has been a very successful year throughout. It was also a year which allowed us to profit from the fruits of our work from previous years.

After five years of construction work we moved into our fine new building 5, we finished the extensions in Groß Grönau, created a new technical infrastructure on the Seekamp site i.e. made a fundamental improvement of the electric power supply and established a new heating system, warm and cold water and waste water system – all of which will be the basis for further expansion of our company.

In cooperation with EUROIMMUN electronic engineers and computer scientists the construction department has developed several complicated and sensational machines and devices, among them for example the automated systems for the BIOCHIP production, which are admired by professionals coming from all over the world, an ingenious fully automated optical evaluation system (EUROLINEScan) for Westernblots, which has increased our turnover by millions, and a completely novel illumination device invented by EUROIMMUN for our fluorescence microscope. In terms of the reagents, we have significantly developed our product range. Wherever we present our diagnostic products, we receive many complements and much appreciation for our state-of-the-art product range and for the productivity of our company. By turning our company into a stock corporation and to economic success, our net equity has increased significantly and, in terms of finances, we have therefore reached safe waters.

Many of my dreams have come true. One of them was particularly important to me: the reconstruction of the main building in Rennersdorf, the third building after the spinning hall and the annexe.

We have knocked down and rebuilt a large part of the main building, preserving its time-honoured walls. A week ago we had our topping-out ceremony. The building was built in 1839 – the cloth manufacturer Benjamin Wiedemann had fulfilled his dream to build a nice little manufactory for glaze and wool spinning by taking up a state loan of 1300 Reichsmark. In 1935 the property was then bought by my grandfather Paul Stöcker with the money of my grandmother, which amounted to 26,000 Mark, as far as I know. My grandfather had already spent his own money on his numerous inventions. His manufactory started with small-scale spinning of harvest binding twine.

From 1945 my father continued the manufactory, after returning from the war. He also had a dream. He wanted to start a large-scale production of coarse yarn. He invented a knot crimper which allowed to recycle the ends of binding twine. This twine was considered as waste material in agriculture because it was hardly usable for spinning due to its many knots. The machine invented by my father tore the knots with its two crimpers thus producing the best raw material available in former GDR times – sisal of pre-war quality – when raw material was hard to come by. Thus, Stöcker’s harvest binding twine was the most tear-proof twine you could get in the GDR. The farmers queued up at our manufactory after the war during harvest time and also spoilt us a bit whenever times were bad. We then bought a 72-head spinning machine with all connected teasels and drawing frames. Because of the risk involved in this purchase, my elder relatives declared my father to be crazy. But my father now delivered binding twine all over the country and was able provide best quality. He was even forced to reveal the secret of his knot crimper, which was then copied several times in Karl-Marx-Stadt. The coarse yarn manufactory existed until 1960.

After we had left the country for Upper Franconia in the Federal Republic of Germany, the manufactory was confiscated and included into a textile factory in Olbersdorf. Until 1990 the manufactory in Rennersdorf was nationally owned producing industrial textiles. With some diplomatic skill we were able to repurchase the property from the government for a price which had by then amounted to 175,000 DM. But our investments into the building in the meantime have now already amounted to a double of the purchase price.

The fact that EUROIMMUN now has a subsidiary in Rennersdorf and these buildings have been renovated to offer a workplace for a hundred employees has again a lot to do with dreams. As a child I picked raspberries on the path behind the main building. In summer there were enough to fill several jars. There I dreamed of a large raspberry plantation in Western Germany, where we planned to move to participate in the big economic miracle.

When we came there in 1960, having lost our former social status and without a word of welcome by anyone, the only thing left were the dreams of our former home. At that time I was convinced that I would never see it again in my whole life. But finally first the children, later also their parents, were allowed to visit their relatives in the GDR, in most cases when a member of the family had passed away. Whenever we went there I realised how much the buildings were decaying. One day, in 1966, I was told off after having looked around too curiously during a visit of relatives. After this, I went to my path behind the main building and could only dream of a remote future when that lovely little spot called Kreppel, where I had spent my childhood, would be restored as it was due.

After the wall had come down I sometimes woke up from my sleep, daydreaming about a freshly renovated manufactory surrounded by green trees, contrary to the real situation, for example around 1990 when it was only surrounded by coal heaps und the buildings were just an inch from being sacrificed to the wrecking ball.

We were very lucky that at exactly the right stage, EUROIMMUN had reached a development status which allowed us to get involved in a project encompassing the property. Firstly, we had to expand anyway and needed more space; secondly, we had the confidence of several national banks and thirdly, there was always some profit left to be invested somewhere to avoid taxation. We also used government investment grants, but these did not represent a decisive factor.

As we have always been engaged in renovation work since the founding of our company, we have therefore become more experienced with every project. We have undertaken and successfully completed one construction measure after the other. With all this work we are taking good care to guarantee that all EUROIMMUN employees enjoy their jobs and are not dreading to come to work every day where, after all, they spend a third of their lives. In the past I often suffered from nightmares where I saw the construction work completely differing from my plans and having bad quality. Now these nightmares appear more rarely. Apparently, reality is reflected in my subconscious mind telling me that we are able to meet high architectural requirements – at first by our own efforts, now predominantly with the assistance of professionals from the construction industry.

Our company history has shown that dreams can become reality. This is what distinguishes dreams from illusions, such as socialism or communism, for the attempted realisation of which we had to pay a high price in the past: socialism as it exists in reality was different from what Karl Marx had imagined. It only created ruins, and our Kreppel is the best example. The socialistic planned economy could nothing but suffocate dreams. Planned economy ignored the power of dreams. The date of 17th June 1953, when a big national uprising took place in the GDR, is a symbol for all this. It would have been better to keep this holiday in June than to swap it for the holiday of the German Unification.

In Rennersdorf a ruin has been brought back to life – the national hymn „Risen from the ruins“ which was played at first in the GDR and which was then cancelled, could now well be reintroduced since no one is allowed or willing to sing the other hymn  “Germany above all”. Thanks to a dream, and only because so many people put their diligence, effort and craftsmanship in it, we were able to raise this time-honoured building in Rennersdorf from the ruins.

I wish you all that many of your dreams also come true. If someone, may it be political ideologists, the church, malicious spouses, chauvinists or capitalistic exploiters, wilfully tries to destroy your dreams, get rid of them! Hold fast to your dreams and some day many of them will come true.