Initially, Hans was Secretary of State in the Ministry of Finance and I was Director of the Treasury. Later, our periods as the governors of our respective central banks coincided. When the ECB was established, we both became members of the Governing Council of the ECB.
It was Hans who proposed not using members’ countries of origin to determine the seating plan for the Governing Council’s meetings and instead using alphabetical order to decide who sits next to whom. After all, the members of the Governing Council are there to represent the euro area as a whole. But maybe Hans just wanted to sit next to me.