Ehmke (with Brandt) We won. That was our great mistake, Willy. Defeat is the only thing that this party understands. Defeat is a testimony to high ideals. Defeat makes no demands. Victory means you have to do something - and doing something always involves dissent and compromise and making mistakes.

Brandt Even you seem to have abandoned me.

Ehmke I'm reorganising the Post Office. The job you gave me. You sacked me, if you remember, Willy.

Brandt I saw a boy watching me the other day. In the crowd on a station somewhere. Fifteen, sixteen. Very solemn and unsmiling. Some kind of cap on his head, like an old-fashioned student's cap. I couldn't take my eyes off him. He just gazed back at me. Gazed and gazed, and never a smile. He didn't like what he saw.

Ehmke Don't worry about the radicals.

Brandt I watched him. He watched me. Until we vanished from each other's sight again.

Guillaume Shall I send Uli out for a packet of cigarettes, Chief? - He's trying to give up smoking, on top of everything else.

Brandt That operation, Horst . . .

Ehmke Operations are like everything else, Willy. They sometimes go wrong.

Brandt I thought I was going to die. I came round in the middle. I couldn't breathe . . . Solve everything, wouldn't it. Helmut would take over. Uncle would come back into the party leadership. Genscher would become Foreign Minister, and be kissed by the television lights and changed into a prince.

Guillaume - He nearly died again in Israel, in that helicopter on top of Masada. A sudden gust of wind, and it slides away like a fallen leaf. Stops at the very edge of the drop. Uli shouts 'Everybody out!' And the Chief just sits there, not moving, looking down into the Dead Sea valley four hundred metres below.

Brandt It's waiting so quiedy and patiently, the earth down there. Smiling, arms outstretched, like a mother waiting for her child to run to her . . . I don't fear death. Only the agonising struggle to breathe until death comes, only the long fall . . . Only opening my eyes in some bleak hospital ward and finding Herbert Wehner praying over me.

Guillaume (with Kretschmann) Let me go, Arno. Let me go home. You don't need me any more. What more do you want to know?

Kretschmann Whether the treaties are going to be implemented. Whether Willy is going to survive long enough to make sure they are. You're closer to him than ever before, Günter! You practically live in his dispatch-case!

Guillaume I could give Christel back her life. I could explain to Pierre.

Kretschmann No more official cars, Günter! No more private train. No more upturned adoring faces. No more respectful attention from me at our little lunches. No more grateful appreciation from Mischa. No more sweet quiet Sundays, cruising out to the airport with Pierre. Or is it Willy you're worrying about?