Mannheim

"I can only advise every young person: Learn languages! This is also why I like to think back to my student days, which began in Cambridge and Bristol and later took me to Paris and Montpellier. Academic learning, and of course a joyful student life, are valuable factors that I also enjoyed during my semesters in Munich, Tübingen, Heidelberg and Mannheim. But the semesters abroad in England and France also made possible the so important immersion in the native languages. It is pleasing that today's students almost obligatorily incorporate semesters abroad into their academic training. In my day and even decades later, this was still not a matter of course."

"If something was non-negotiable in the Signa empire, it was the rents of the Signa-owned Galeria buildings. In Frankfurt, they were about 25 percent of sales, even in B-cities like Mannheim they were so high at 19 percent that the business could not be profitable. A total of around 200 million euros in rents for the 18 buildings thus flowed annually to Signa. Some of the buildings will not turn a profit, says a top manager from Galeria. Especially since the department stores had to cover not only the rent but also all operating costs and repairs to the roof and building, meaning façade, roof, and windows, themselves. Rip-off contracts, known in the industry under the euphemism of triple-net leases."