Helmut Kohl

Helmut Kohl
Bundeskanzler Dr. phil. Dr. h. c. mult. Kohl in 1986
Chancellor of Germany
In office 1 October 1982 – 27 October 1998
President	Karl Carstens Richard von Weizsäcker Roman Herzog
Vice-Chancellor	Hans-Dietrich Genscher Jürgen Möllemann Klaus Kinkel
Preceded by	Helmut Schmidt
Succeeded by	Gerhard Schröder
Leader of the Christian Democratic Union
In office 12 June 1973 – 7 November 1998
Preceded by	Rainer Barzel
Succeeded by	Wolfgang Schäuble
Leader of the Opposition
In office 13 December 1976 – 1 October 1982
Chancellor	Helmut Schmidt
Preceded by	Karl Carstens
Succeeded by	Herbert Wehner
Leader of the CDU/CSU group in the Bundestag
In office 13 December 1976 – 4 October 1982
Chief Whip	Philipp Jenninger
First Deputy	Friedrich Zimmermann
Preceded by	Karl Carstens
Succeeded by	Alfred Dregger
Minister-President of Rhineland-Palatinate
In office 19 May 1969 – 2 December 1976
Deputy	Otto Meyer
Preceded by	Peter Altmeier
Succeeded by	Bernhard Vogel
Born	3 April 1930(1930-04-03) Ludwigshafen, Bavaria, German Reich
Died	16 June 2017 (aged 87) Ludwigshafen, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany
Resting place	Cathedral Chapter Cemetery, Speyer
Political party	Christian Democratic Union (1946–2017)
Spouse(s)	∞ 1960 Hannelore Renner (1933–2001) ∞ 2008 Maike Richter
Children	Walter and Peter
Alma mater	Heidelberg University
Occupation	Politician, historian, executive

Helmut Josef Michael Kohl (3 April 1930 – 16 June 2017) was a German politician, the leader of the liberal Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU) from 1973 to 1998, Chancellor of West Germany 1982–1990 and of the partially reunited Germany 1990–1998 (16 years, 5,870 days, and thus 10 days longer than Angela Merkel).

Life

Kohl was born in Ludwigshafen am Rhein (at the time part of Bavaria, now in Rhineland-Palatinate) Germany, the third child of Cäcilie, née Schnur (1890–1979) and her husband Hans Kohl (1887–1975) from Greußenheim in Lower Franconia, an officer of the Reichswehr and civil servant. His family was conservative and Roman Catholic, and remained loyal to the Catholic Centre Party before and after 1933. His older brother died in the Second World War as a teenage soldier. Helmut Kohl served as a conscript for the Hitler Youth. In the last weeks of the war, Kohl was also drafted to the SS-Nebelabteilung Obersalzberg in Berchtesgaden and sworn in by Reichsjugendführer (Reich Youth Leader) Arthur Axmann, but the 15-year-old Helmut Kohl was not, as far as historians have ascertained, involved in any combat.

Kohl attended the Ruprecht elementary school, and continued at the Max-Planck-Gymnasium. In 1946, he joined the recently founded CDU. In 1947, he was one of the co-founders of the Junge Union-branch in Ludwigshafen. After graduating in 1950 with Abitur, he began to study law in Frankfurt am Main. In 1951, he switched to the University of Heidelberg where he majored in History and Political Science. In 1953, he joined the board of the Rhineland-Palatinate branch of the CDU. In 1954, he became vice-chair of the Junge Union in Rhineland-Palatinate. In 1955, he returned to the board of the Rhineland-Palatinate branch of the CDU.

Kohl is considered the father of the anti-German European currency (Euro), he therefore, and because of other harmful activities (import of hundreds of thousands of Soviet Jews to Germany) is rejected by German patriots.

Germany's policy to encourage immigration by ex-Soviet Jews began in 1991 at the behest of then-Chancellor Helmut Kohl, who said Germany needed to show the world that it had been transformed from the National Socialist days of Judenrein, or "cleansing of Jews." Since then, Germany's Jewish community, which numbered about 600,000 before the National Socialists came to power, has increased from allegedly 30,000 (very likely a much higher number) in 1991 to nearly allegedly 200,000 in 2005, with another 50,000 in the pipeline who are exempt from the new regulations.

The chancellors Gerhard Schröder (SPD) and Angela Merkel have continued the mass immigration of various groups, at the same time forfeiting German rights and freedoms to the European Union in Brussels.

Eastern Germany

Told by the World War II Allies in 1990 that they would not consent to the reunification of Germany unless his and other German parties abandoned their claim to the stolen eastern provinces and agreed to the communist-imposed eastern border (the Oder–Neisse line) with Poland, Kohl complied. This was seen by patriots as a betrayal of Germany. Six years earlier he had quietly assured the communists that the Bonn government were dropping its claims to its occupied eastern provinces.

Family

Marriages

Helmut Kohl had been married to the qualified interpreter Hannelore, née Renner, since 1960. The two sons Walter (b. 1963) and Peter (b. 1965) come from the marriage. Kohl found a new partner in the economist Maike Richter, whom he married on 8 May 2008. The family residence remained Oggersheim during Kohl's chancellorship and afterwards.

Hannelore Kohl

Hannelore Renner was born in Berlin on 7 March 1933, the daughter of a senior engineer from the Palatinate. She grew up in Leipzig until the end of the war. She was raped at the age of 12 by Soviet soldiers, a biography from 2011 has revealed. Hannelore and her mother were attacked by a Red Army troops after the defeat of Germany in May 1945. She told author Herbert Schwan how she was "dumped like a sack of potatoes out of first floor window" after her ordeal. She never fully recovered from damage to her back and was traumatized for the rest of her life by the sexual assault. She was henceforth haunted, as she told Schwan, by the "smell of male sweat, garlic, alcohol and even the sound of spoken Russian."

In 1988, she received the Order of Merit of the State of Rhineland-Palatinate for her commitment as President of the “CNS Board of Trustees” for accident victims with damage to the central nervous system. Having suffered from a painful light allergy for several years, she took her own life in July 2001.

Honours (excerpt)

• In 1958, Kohl earned his PhD in history at Heidelberg University
• In 1988, Kohl and François Mitterrand received the Karlspreis for his contribution to Franco-German friendship and European Union.
• In 1996, Kohl received the Prince of Asturias Award in International Cooperation
• In 1996, he was made honorary doctor of the Catholic University of Louvain.
• In 1996, Kohl received an award for his humanitarian achievements from the Jewish organisation B'nai B'rith.
• In 1996, Kohl received a Doctor of Humanities Honoris Causa from the Ateneo de Manila University in the Philippines, a Jesuit run institution.
• On 11 December 1998, the European Council awarded him the title Honorary Citizen of Europe, a title which only Jean Monnet had received before.
• In 1998, he received an honorary doctor of laws degree (Dr. jur. h. c.) from Brandeis University in Massachusetts.
• In 1998, he was only the second person to be awarded the Grand Cross in Special Design (in besonderer Ausführung) of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, the other being Konrad Adenauer.
  • In 2023, Angela Merkel was the third person to receive the Grand Cross in Special Design of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany
• In 1999, Kohl received Presidential Medal of Freedom from U.S. President Bill Clinton.
• Kohl is honorary citizen of both Frankfurt am Main and Berlin. On 2 September 2005, he was made an honorary citizen of his home town, Ludwigshafen.
• In 2007, he received the Gold Medal of the Jean Monnet Foundation for Europe for his contribution to the unity of Europe.
• On 16 May 2011, Kohl received the Henry A. Kissinger Prize at the American Academy in Berlin
  • for his "singularly extraordinary role in German reunification and laying the foundation for a lasting democratic peace in the new millennium".

B'nai B'rith

Helmut Kohl (1996), Angela Merkel (2008) and various other European political leaders have received the "Europe Award of Merit-Medaille" from B'nai B'rith for their semitophile activities. Although German patriots rightfully consider the acceptance of this Jewish-nationalist award as a disgrace for the Fatherland, in no way does the fact of beeing awarded mean that the recipient is Jewish or member of B'nai B'rith. Many world leaders have received the highest B'nai B'rith Award, the "Presidential Gold Medal", including John F. Kennedy, George H. W. Bush, Stephen Harper, former Austrian chancellor Franz Vranitzky, Australian Prime Minister John Howard and former U.S. presidents Harry S. Truman, Gerald R. Ford and Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Further reading

• John C. Kornblum: Helmut Kohl – The German Chancellor Who Wished for Too Much, 2017 (Archive)
• Helmut Kohl and François Mitterrand: leaders in reconciliation
• European ceremony to commemorate the life and work of Helmut Kohl, Strasbourg, 2017 (Archive)