No less a personality than the Israeli author Amos Oz voiced this sentiment upon acceptance of the Heine Prize in 2008. And he added: “Heine taught us that humor and irony are the best medicine against extremism and narrow-mindedness.” When he signed his name into the Golden Book of the city, he continued: “Heine belongs to a time of miracles in Jewish-European history. Back then, Europe’s Jews streamed into the universities and academies, into ateliers and laboratories and had become a part of the “architectural team” of modern thinking. Europe was once the Promised Land for many of his ancestors, until it reared up against them.” And nevertheless, according to Oz: “Modern democracy, humanism and justice are the fruits of that great Jewish-European millennium. This is our mutual inheritance from Heinrich Heine: for me, for you all here today in this room.”

The laudatory speech was held by former German President Richard von Weizsäcker, who was awarded the Heine Prize in 1991. The award was presented by the mayor of Düsseldorf. The Heine Prize has been conferred since 1972: initially, every three years; in the meantime, every two years. Today, it carries the monetary sum of 50,000 euros and was established as the culture prize of the city of Düsseldorf to mark the 175th birthday of Heinrich Heine.