ABSTRACT
Ladies and gentlemen, I should like to link the thanks that I owe you with a question that is prompted by this festive occasion. The question is: whether you, the taxpayers and elected representatives of the City of Cologne, have given this honour to a threatened species, whether you have honoured an anachronism. From the morning papers of recent months, I gather that what is called ‘reading culture’ or ‘written culture’ is threatened with extinction everywhere on the planet. As someone who lives from writing, and therefore from reading, this frightening news cannot leave me indifferent. But you too, as citizens of a city which is not only the home of Heinrich Böll but also of the WDR,1 the largest media establishment on the European mainland, will perhaps be concerned about such a prediction. If I am not mistaken, then a personal interest coincides here with a public one, a local with a universal interest.
