Bundeskanzler helmut kohl biography

Explore the helmut kohl transcripts

The Helmut Kohl Transcripts on the Wilson Center Digital Archive features hundreds of conversations between German Chancellor Helmut Kohl and world leaders that constitute an important scholarly resource for exploring international diplomacy in the first post-Cold War decade.

Because of Kohl's wide ranging contacts with leaders from all parts of the globe and the many candid conversations recorded in his papers, the Kohl Transcripts is a tremendous resource for the study of global affairs in the 1990s. These papers, now freely and easily accessible, provide a detailed view of some of the most pressing and notable developments from this period: the Gulf War, the Balkan Wars, the Middle East peace process, diplomacy with Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin, NATO enlargement, and European integration, among other global issues and challenges. From the perspective of the 2022 Zeitenwende, the Kohl papers also cast new light on the beginnings, successes, and failures of Germany’s efforts to take on greater international responsibility. 

Although more than 30 years have elapsed since the end of the Cold War, access to diplomatic documents and high-level foreign policy documentation from the 1990s remains limited in most countries. The History and Public Policy Program at the Wilson Center is publishing the Kohl materials as part of a major effort to document, primarily through the release of non-American sources, the post-Cold War era and to promote new research and teaching on the international history of the 1990s and 2000s. 

Kohl’s papers depict the first chancellor of unified Germany as a master of personal diplomacy and a shrewd international negotiator and institution builder.[1] His statecraft went beyond traditional diplomacy and formal meetings characterized by rigid protocols and suits and ties. He believed overly formal and tra

The Higher Regional Court of Cologne on Tuesday banned further passages of a book containing revelations about late German chancellor Helmut Kohl.

The ruling is the latest twist in an ongoing legal dispute involving Kohl's second wife Maike Kohl-Richter and the politician's autobiographical ghostwriter Heribert Schwan.

What the ruling said

The court said it had established a duty of confidentiality between Kohl and Schwan. 

Witnesses such as Kohl's son Walter, who is on bad terms with Kohl-Richter, had said in previous proceedings that there had been no written confidentiality agreement with Schwan.

However, the court said it assumed that confidentiality was implied because Schwan had worked for Kohl.

It said this stretched not only to the reproduction of any statements made by Kohl but also to the author's own evaluations of the former chancellor.

Schwan told the DPA news agency he was disappointed by the decision, and that he would not have agreed to the ghostwriting task if he had been asked to keep things confidential. 

Schwann added that, from a journalistic point of view, it was "inconceivable" that even passages that do not relate to statements by Helmut Kohl, but rather to assessments of him, had been banned.

How did the court case arise?

The legal dispute has dragged on for years and relates to the book "Vermächtnis — die Kohl-Protokolle" ("Legacy — the Kohl Transcripts"). 

Schwan had recorded long accounts from Kohl about his political life on tape to tell the conservative Christian Democrat leader's story in the successive volumes of his multi-volume autobiography "Errinerungen" (Memoirs). 

However, before he wrote the last book in the series, Schwan and Kohl fell out. 

Schwan said their working relationship broke down after Kohl remarried, and Maike Kohl-Richter took greater control of her new husband's affairs.

The writer&nbs

Helmut Josef Michael Kohl (3 April 1930 – 16 June 2017) was a Germanpolitician of the CDU party. He was the last Chancellor of West Germany, and he stayed in office after reunification as the first Chancellor of a united Germany.

From 1969 to 1976, he was the Minister President of the state of Rhineland-Palatinate and from 1982 to 1998, Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany. Kohl helped to arrange the process of German reunification and participated considerably in the European unity process. A pro-EU conservative, he was often compared to Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, two other leaders with similar views in the 1980s. In 1998, he retired as Chancellor, as the SPD won the election. His replacement was Gerhard Schröeder.

His involvement with the CDU donation affair, and in particular offences against party law is open to question.

Kohl died on the morning of 16 June 2017, in his hometown of Ludwigshafen, aged 87.

References

Notes

1. ↑From 1 October 1982 to 2 October 1990, Helmut Kohl was Federal Chancellor of West Germany only. From 3 October 1990 until 27 October 1998, he was Federal Chancellor of the reunified Germany.

Economic recovery

Helmut Kohl (CDU) was Federal Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany for 16 years. Many people remember him as the “Chancellor of Unity” because it was during his term in office that West and East Germany were reunified.

Helmut Kohl came to power in 1982 following a constructive vote of no confidence. The FDP/SPD coalition had fallen apart and the FDP Members of the Bundestag plus the CDU and CSU Members of the Bundestag voted him in as Chancellor. It was the first change in government and chancellor in the history of West Germany that did not come about as the result of elections.

During the early elections to the Bundestag in March 1983, voters confirmed the coalition comprising the CDU/CSU and the FDP in office. Since those elections the Green Party has also been represented in the Bundestag.

In its first years in government, Helmut Kohl’s coalition introduced tax reforms to ensure that the people of Germany had more money in their pockets.

It also reduced the country’s national debt. The result was strong economic recovery. This sound economic basis was to make it easier to tackle the enormous task of redeveloping the former eastern federal states after 1989.

The introduction of parental leave and the Child and Youth Services Act were hugely significant for families. In 1994 Helmut Kohl’s government introduced long-term nursing care insurance, on the basis of which those requiring long-term nursing care and their relatives are entitled to financial assistance.

As regards foreign policy, Helmut Kohl continued the policy of détente with the Eastern bloc countries and deepened transatlantic relations in the 1980s.

German reunification

The new Secretary-General of the Communist Party in the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, introduced a policy of reform in his country. It will always be associated with two terms: “Glasnost” (openness) and “Perestroika” (renewal). It was not long before people in E