Knut Abraham, CDU Member of the Bundestag, who became a colleague of the MEP in Bonn and Brussels in 1986 as a trainee, and who had been involved in an increasing number of tasks over time, told us about his personal relationship with Otto von Habsburg. He led the EP election campaign, directed the work of the German youth branch of the Pan-European Movement, worked as Otto’s assistant in Pöcking, and knew well the members of the inner circle who played an important role in the period – Bernd Posselt, Eva Demmerle, Stephan Baier – and, of course, family members. Abraham, whom Regina referrred to as “Viking”, negotiated the details of Zita’s funeral in 1989 and did the background work behind Walburga at the Pan-European Picnic. Knut Abraham recalled the later period with many anecdotes – we are considering interviewing him for our oral history series in the near future.
During his visit to Budapest, the CDU politician, who served as a high-ranking diplomat in several places, most recently in Warsaw, met with Gergely Gulyás, Minister of the Prime Minister’s Office, Krisztina Varju, Deputy State Secretary at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Tamás Sulyok, President of the Constitutional Court of Hungary. He and the latter have a long-standing acquaintance, having first met in 1989 at a meeting of the Pan-European Union in Passau. In addition to reminiscing nostalgic memories, the dinner was a good opportunity to discuss Hungarian and German constitutional court practice and further possibilities for improving bilateral relations.
