To say that “ordinary people” reside in the Ruhr District, melancholy on the Lower Rhine, and the “rich and beautiful ” a few kilometres to the south in Düsseldorf may not be all that wrong, although today it is more a cliché than anything else, because the people in NRW, like people all over the world, avoid a clear and unambiguous definition.

Düsseldorf is the state capital with, on its best side, the Rhine promenade and the silhouette of the banks and office buildings, the elegant promenade and shopping street Königsallee, referred to as the “Kö”, the fairs, congresses and exhibitions. Headquarters of the state government, the Landtag, and of the Inland Revenue. At least two columns are devoted to Düsseldorf in any German encyclopedia.

For me, Heinrich Heine will always be the city’s “greatest son”. Otherwise a sophisticated mocker, a poet of divine malice – the 19th century produced no greater poet of this kind – Heine was quite sentimental when it came to his home town: “The city of Düsseldorf is very beautiful, and when one is far away and thinks of it, and happens to have been born there, one is overcome by a strange feeling. I was born there, and I feel as if I ought to go home immediately.”