Speech by Federal President Joachim Gauck following the swearing-in ceremony in the German Bundestag on 23 March 2012 in Berlin: "My fellow citizens, let me ask you this: what should it be like, this country of ours, this country our children and grandchildren are to call 'our country'?"
Joachim Gauck was born in Rostock in 1940. After gaining his Abitur, the higher education entrance qualification, he studied theology. From 1965 to 1990 he was in the service of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Mecklenburg, working as a pastor for many years.
