Helmut Josef Michael Kohl was a German politician who served as Chancellor of Germany from 1982 to 1998 and Leader of the Christian Democratic Union from 1973 to 1998.
75 Facts About Helmut Kohl
2.
Helmut Kohl earned a PhD in history at Heidelberg University in 1958, and worked as a business executive before becoming a full-time politician.
3.
Helmut Kohl was elected as the youngest member of the Parliament of Rhineland-Palatinate in 1959 and from 1969 to 1976 was minister president of the Rhineland-Palatinate state.
4.
Helmut Kohl was a central figure in the eastern enlargement of the EU, and his government led the effort to push for international recognition of Croatia, Slovenia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina when the states declared independence.
5.
Helmut Kohl played an instrumental role in resolving the Bosnian War.
6.
Helmut Kohl received the 1988 Charlemagne Prize and was named Honorary Citizen of Europe by the European Council in 1998.
7.
Helmut Kohl was the third child of Hans Kohl, a Bavarian army veteran and civil servant, and his wife, Cacilie.
8.
Helmut Kohl's family was conservative and Catholic, and remained loyal to the Catholic Centre Party before and after 1933.
9.
At the age of ten, Helmut Kohl was obliged, like most children in Germany at the time, to join the Deutsches Jungvolk, a section of the Hitler Youth.
10.
Aged 15, on 20 April 1945, Helmut Kohl was sworn into the Hitler Youth by leader Artur Axmann at Berchtesgaden, just days before the end of the war, as membership was mandatory for all boys of his age.
11.
Helmut Kohl was drafted for military service in 1945; he was not involved in any combat, a fact he later referred to as the "mercy of late birth".
12.
Helmut Kohl attended the Ruprecht Elementary School, and continued at the Max-Planck-Gymnasium.
13.
In 1951, Helmut Kohl switched to Heidelberg University, where he studied history and political science.
14.
Helmut Kohl was the first in his family to attend university.
15.
In 1958, Helmut Kohl received his doctorate degree in history for his dissertation Die politische Entwicklung in der Pfalz und das Wiedererstehen der Parteien nach 1945, under the supervision of the historian Walther Peter Fuchs.
16.
In 1946, Helmut Kohl joined the recently founded CDU, becoming a full member once he turned 18 in 1948.
17.
In 1947, Helmut Kohl was one of the co-founders of the Junge Union-branch in Ludwigshafen, the CDU youth organisation.
18.
In 1953, Helmut Kohl joined the board of the Palatinate branch of the CDU.
19.
In 1954, Helmut Kohl became vice-chair of the Junge Union in Rhineland-Palatinate, being a member of the board until 1961.
20.
In January 1955, Helmut Kohl ran for a seat on the board of the Rhineland-Palatinate CDU, losing just narrowly to the state's Minister of Family Affairs, Franz-Josef Wuermeling.
21.
Helmut Kohl was still able to take up a seat on the board, being sent there by his local party branch as a delegate.
22.
In early 1959, Helmut Kohl was elected chairman of the Ludwigshafen district branch of the CDU, as well as candidate for the upcoming state elections.
23.
On 19 April 1959, Helmut Kohl was elected as the youngest member of the state diet, the Landtag of Rhineland-Palatinate.
24.
In March 1966, Helmut Kohl was elected as chairman of the party in Rhineland-Palatinate, while Altmeier ran for minister-president in the state elections in 1967, agreeing to hand the post over to Helmut Kohl after two years, halfway into the legislative period.
25.
Helmut Kohl was elected minister-president of Rhineland-Palatinate on 19 May 1969, as the successor to Peter Altmeier.
26.
Just a few days after his election as minister-president, Helmut Kohl became vice-chair of the federal CDU party.
27.
Helmut Kohl's government abolished school corporal punishment and the parochial school, topics that had been controversial with the conservative wing of his party.
28.
Helmut Kohl finalised a territorial reform of the state, standardising codes of law and re-aligning districts, an act that he had already pursued under Altmeier's tenure, taking the chairmanship of the Landtag's committee on the reform.
29.
Helmut Kohl moved up into the federal board of the CDU in 1964.
30.
Nevertheless, when Kiesinger stepped down as party chairman in 1971, Helmut Kohl was a candidate for his succession.
31.
Helmut Kohl was unsuccessful, losing the vote to Barzel 344 to 174.
32.
Helmut Kohl received the support of his party and remained in office, not least due to the lauded work of Kurt Biedenkopf, whom Helmut Kohl had brought in as Secretary General of the CDU.
33.
When chancellor Brandt stepped down in May 1974 following the unravelling of the Guillaume Affair, Helmut Kohl urged his party to restrain from Schadenfreude and not to use the position of their political opponent for "cheap polemics".
34.
In June 1975, Helmut Kohl was re-elected as party chairman, achieving a result of 98.44 per cent.
35.
Helmut Kohl hoped to draw away right-wing voters from the FDP towards the CSU and went as far as having private meetings with industrialists in North Rhine-Westphalia.
36.
Helmut Kohl himself remained silent during these tensions, which some interpreted as a lack of leadership, while others such as future president Karl Carstens praised him for seeking a consensus at the centre of the party.
37.
Helmut Kohl remained as leader of the opposition, under the third Schmidt cabinet.
38.
The second Helmut Kohl cabinet pushed through several controversial plans, including the stationing of NATO midrange missiles, against major opposition from the peace movement.
39.
On 22 September 1984, Kohl met the French president Francois Mitterrand at Verdun, where the Battle of Verdun between France and Germany had taken place during World War I Together, they commemorated the deaths of both World Wars.
40.
Helmut Kohl's chancellorship presided over a number of innovative policy measures.
41.
Helmut Kohl's doctor recommended immediate surgery, but Kohl refused to miss the convention and attended while wearing a catheter and with his doctor by his side, whom he introduced as his new speech writer.
42.
Spath, who did not stand for the position of chairman after support for Helmut Kohl became apparent, was punished by his party, failing to be elected as vice-chairman with just 357 of 731 votes.
43.
On 18 May 1990, Helmut Kohl signed an economic and social union treaty with East Germany.
44.
Together with Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher, Helmut Kohl was able to resolve talks with the former Allies of World War II to allow German reunification.
45.
Helmut Kohl received assurances from Gorbachev that a reunified Germany would be able to choose which international alliance it wanted to join, although Kohl made no secret that he wanted the reunified Germany to inherit West Germany's seats at NATO and the EC.
46.
In 1993, Helmut Kohl confirmed, via treaty with the Czech Republic, that Germany would no longer bring forward territorial claims as to the pre-1945 ethnic German Sudetenland.
47.
In foreign politics, Helmut Kohl was more successful, for instance getting Frankfurt am Main as the seat for the European Central Bank.
48.
In 1997, Helmut Kohl received the Vision for Europe Award for his efforts in the unification of Europe.
49.
Helmut Kohl was defeated by a large margin in the 1998 federal elections by the Minister-President of Lower Saxony, Gerhard Schroder.
50.
Helmut Kohl immediately resigned as CDU leader and largely retired from politics.
51.
Helmut Kohl remained a member of the Bundestag until he decided not to run for reelection in the 2002 election.
52.
In 2002, Helmut Kohl left the Bundestag and officially retired from politics.
53.
In late February 2008, Helmut Kohl suffered a stroke in combination with a fall which caused serious head injuries and required his hospitalisation, after which he was reported to be using a wheelchair due to partial paralysis and having difficulty speaking.
54.
Helmut Kohl remained in intensive care since, marrying his 43-year-old partner, Maike Richter, on 8 May 2008, while still in hospital.
55.
Helmut Kohl was reportedly in "critical condition" in June 2015, following intestinal surgery following a hip-replacement procedure.
56.
Helmut Kohl published the book Aus Sorge um Europa outlining these criticisms of Merkel and was widely quoted in the press as saying, "Die macht mir mein Europa kaputt".
57.
On 19 April 2016, Helmut Kohl was visited in his Oggersheim residence by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.
58.
Helmut Kohl was committed to European integration, maintaining close relations with the French President Francois Mitterrand.
59.
Helmut Kohl had a strained relationship with British Prime Minister and fellow conservative Margaret Thatcher, although Kohl did allow her secret access to his plans on reunification in March 1990, in order to allay the concerns she shared with Mitterrand.
60.
When Helmut Kohl died, left wing newspaper TAZ presented a title page showing a flower set typical for funerals, with a pear and the caption flourishing landscapes, Helmut Kohl's prediction for the future of East Germany after reunification.
61.
In small circles Helmut Kohl was fascinating and a perfect host; the larger the crowd, the vaguer, weaker and paler he appeared.
62.
Helmut Kohl was a true people's person and loved to be in company of others.
63.
Helmut Kohl knew that all these people were the basis of his political power and that he needed their loyalty and personal affection.
64.
Helmut Kohl could be rude to subordinates and assistants, and confront political adversaries.
65.
On 27 June 1960, Helmut Kohl married Hannelore Renner, after he had already asked for her hand in marriage in 1953, delaying the ceremony until he was financially stable.
66.
Hannelore Helmut Kohl had studied languages and spoke fluent French and English; during her husband's political career, she was an important adviser to him, especially on world affairs.
67.
Helmut Kohl was a steadfast advocate of German reunification even before it seemed feasible, and of NATO and Germany's alliance with the United States.
68.
Walter Helmut Kohl worked as a financial analyst with Morgan Stanley in New York City and later founded a consulting firm with his father in 1999.
69.
Peter Helmut Kohl worked as an investment banker in London for many years.
70.
Walter Helmut Kohl was formerly married to the business administration academic Christine Volkmann and they have a son, Johannes Volkmann; he is married to the Korean-born Kyung-Sook Helmut Kohl nee Hwang.
71.
Jochen Arntz criticised Maike Richter in the Suddeutsche Zeitung in 2012 for building a "wall" around Helmut Kohl and controlling him; as a result he had become estranged from many former friends disliked by his new wife.
72.
Helmut Kohl received numerous awards and accolades, as well as honorary titles such as doctorates and citizenships.
73.
In 1996, Helmut Kohl received the Prince of Asturias Award in International Cooperation from Felipe of Spain.
74.
In 1998, Helmut Kohl was named Honorary Citizen of Europe by the European heads of state or government for his extraordinary work for European integration and cooperation, an honour previously only bestowed on Jean Monnet.
75.
Helmut Kohl was interred in the Cathedral Chapter Cemetery in Speyer, directly adjacent to the Konrad Adenauer Park and a few hundred metres to the northwest of the cathedral.