(b. Ludwigshafen, 3 Apr. 1930) German; Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany 1982 – 98, Minister-President of the Rhineland Palatinate 1969 – 76 Kohl is one of the most underestimated and most successful of German politicians since 1871. In length of service as Chancellor by 1996 he overtook Adenauer's record of fourteen years. Yet after his failure to replace Schmidt as Chancellor in the 1976 elections Kohl's career seemed finished.

Kohl always wanted to be a politician. In 1947 he founded the JU, the youth wing of the CDU, in his home town. His doctorate from Heidelberg University was in political science. In 1959 he was elected to the parliament of the Rhineland Palatinate as its youngest member. Backed by the other JU members he was elected deputy chairman of the CDU group in 1961 and chairman two years later. From 1969 to 1976 he served as Minister-President of the Rhineland Palatinate. Meanwhile he had been building himself up within the party. He joined the federal executive in 1966, was elected deputy chairman in 1969 and chairman in 1973. With the CDU/CSU being out of office in Bonn from 1969 onwards, the prime ministers of the regions (Länder) became more important within the party. The failure of Barzel to oust the Brandt government in the 1972 election gave Kohl his chance.

The election of 1976 revealed some of Kohl's weaknesses. Clearly he was not a gifted public speaker. His lack of English was also a handicap in dealing with foreign correspondents. Schmidt could brief them in English. Kohl could not. Despite some difficulties, West Germany was doing well compared with its neighbours and the SPD could quote the foreign press to emphasize the point. But at that election Kohl did well in southern Germany, and Schmidt did not. The CDU/CSU once again overtook the SPD, increasing their percentage from 44.9 in 1972 to 48.6. The SPD percentage fell from 45.8 to 42.6. This improvement was not enough to oust Schmidt. The defection of the FDP from the Schmidt-led coalition was needed.

Kohl had good contacts within the FDP, especially with Genscher. By 1980 Genscher himself was worried about the future of his small party given the growing unpopularity of the SPD-led government trying to cope with the oil crisis. However, the process of change was halted when the CDU/CSU picked Strauss as their Chancellor candidate in 1980. Strauss was defeated and Schmidt stayed in office. The Munich conference of the SPD in April 1982 helped the FDP to decide that it was time for a change. The SPD had turned left on economic policy and defence and the FDP signalled its unhappiness with the government. Schmidt was provoked into asking for the resignations of the FDP ministers. Kohl was then elected Chancellor by the Bundestag on 1 October 1982. Yet he remained much less popular than ex-Chancellor Schmidt. Nevertheless, the elections held on 6 March 1983 vindicated the CDU/CSU. With 48.8 per cent they got their highest score since 1957; the SPD vote fell from 42.9 in 1980 to 38.2 per cent.

To the surprise of some, Kohl's government retained Genscher as Foreign Minister, ensuring continuity in external relations. This was also true of inter-German relations. In 1987 Kohl received Honecker in Bonn and gave more emphasis to the principle of German reunification than the outgoing government had done. On domestic policy, the moderates dominated and Strauss was not offered a post. Kohl benefited from the continuing divisions in the SPD and by that party's failure to produce a successor worthy of Schmidt. Kohl did however get into difficulties from time to time especially when he spoke bluntly about East Germany or the Soviet Union.

In June 1989 Kohl suffered several setbacks. His party lost ground in the European elections suffering from the new far right Republican Party campaigning on an anti-immigration policy. In regional elections too the CDU did poorly. In the same month Gorbachev visited West Germany. He was received with great enthusiasm and he too was more popular than Kohl. No one knew how rapidly Kohl's fortunes would change.

In summer 1989 the Communist leaders in Eastern Europe were losing their grip on power. In East Germany in October, Honecker was replaced by Krenz, but the crisis got worse. After the East German frontiers were opened and hundreds of thousands poured out, Kohl made his first definitive statement on 28 November. In a ten-point programme he cautiously referred to the formation of "confederative structures" involving the two German states. He was attacked inside and outside Germany for alleged nationalism and not consulting his allies. The truth was that East Germany was nearing collapse and neither Kohl nor anyone else could stop the revolution of expectations of the East German people. His plan helped to reduce panic. On 22 December Kohl and East German reform Communist leader Modrow jointly opened the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin. In February 1990 Kohl proposed a currency union of the two German states. That month in the East crowds welcomed Kohl with the message, "Helmut you are also our Chancellor". Brandt and other Social Democrats supported the East German SPD, a new party, but the doubts expressed by Lafontaine about reunification had done their work. The Alliance for Germany (mainly Christian Democrats) won a great victory on 18 March. Kohl showed remarkable skill in the negotiations leading up to the achievement of German unity on 3 October 1990.

Perhaps Kohl's greatest moment came in December 1990, when his party won the first elections to a democratic parliament of a united Germany since 1932. In the following years Kohl had to deal with the huge problems of East Germany, the massive help needed by the former Soviet Union, the Gulf War, to which Germany made a hefty financial contribution, the complicated negotiations over the widening and deepening of the EU, and the war in the former Yugoslavia. At home, he faced the political, economic, social, and security problems posed by the continuing influx of people seeking asylum in Germany. Kohl was attacked from all sides and it was no mean achievement for him to get re-elected in October 1994.

Under Kohl, Germany was the driving force for the expansion and greater integration of the European Union, and he was prepared to involve Germany in an emerging Europe federation.

A political leader in the Federal Republic of Germany, Helmut Kohl (born 1930) became chancellor in 1982 at the head of a coalition of three political parties. He stressed symbolic reconciliation with Germany's enemies from World War II.

Helmut Kohl was born in 1930 to a Catholic family in Ludwigshafen, in today's West German province of Rhineland-Pfalz. His parents remained patriotic under the World War II National Socialist government, but were not Nazis. Kohl's origins were particularly important for his political career. Only 15 year old when the war ended, he presented himself as the first chancellor of the post-war generation, not only innocent of Nazi crimes, but grown to political maturity in a democratic German nation.

Interest in Post-War Politics

In 1947 Kohl helped found the "Young Union," the youth organization of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in Ludwigshafen. He studied law, political science, and history; and in 1958, he completed his doctoral dissertation on post-war political parties in the Pfalz province. First elected to the parliament of Rhineland-Pfalz in 1959, he served as minister president, or governor, of that province between 1969 and 1976. Under Kohl's leadership, the CDU in Rhineland-Pfalz consistently increased its share of votes, reaching 50 percent in 1971 and 53.9 percent in 1975. During these years Kohl rose to national prominence.

Losses in the national parliamentary elections of 1969 forced the CDU out of the national government for the first time in 20 years. Kohl became one of a group of younger leaders seeking to return the party to power. Chosen as head of the national party in 1973, one of his highest priorities was the structural reorganization of the CDU, especially giving it a broader membership. In 1976 Kohl first ran for the office of chancellor as the candidate of the CDU and its more conservative Bavarian ally, the Christian Social Party (CSU). Kohl was a moderate, with appeal to liberal voters, and the CSU was at first unenthusiastic about his candidacy. When Kohl lost to the Social Democratic Party's (SPD) Helmut Schmidt, relations between Kohl and the CSU's flamboyant chief, Franz-Josef Strauss, worsened. In the elections of 1980 Kohl had to step aside while Strauss ran as the CDU/CSU candidate. Strauss' own more severe defeat, however, strengthened Kohl's position in the party.

Chancellor Kohl

In 1982 the ruling coalition of the SPD and the small liberal party, the FDP (Free Democratic Party), collapsed when the FDP decided to ally its crucial swing votes with the CDU. On October 1, 1982, Helmut Kohl became chancellor. The new government was a coalition containing representatives of the CDU, CSU, and FDP and was confirmed in office in elections held in March of 1983. The CDU received 38.2 percent of the vote, its best result since 1957. Kohl proclaimed his government a "turning point" (Wende) in German politics.

In his first major address as chancellor, Kohl linked three crises plaguing the Federal Republic: a crisis of economic growth and employment, a financial crisis of the state, and an intellectual-political crisis. He pledged a historical new beginning through a "coalition of the middle." He planned the creation of new jobs through economic recovery, tax relief for the middle classes, and tax incentives for housing; the financial crisis would require a no-interest "loan" from wealthier tax-payers and a lowering of the state's credit needs. Kohl also announced the further development of cable television and atomic energy. In general, he planned to attack all three crises through an expansion of private economic growth. His support of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) decision to place Pershing missiles in the Federal Republic signaled his emphasis on Western alliances. These conservative policies resembled those of Ronald Reagan in the United States and Margaret Thatcher in England.

Kohl's "turning point" was only partly achieved. His major success was a strong economic recovery through early 1985. Corrected for inflation, the gross national product grew 1.3 percent in 1983, the first real growth since 1980. Unemployment rates remained high, however. The Federal Republic's highest court declared the no-interest loan from wealthier tax-payers unconstitutional. Kohl faced recurrent criticism from the CSU and Strauss; the CDU's coalition partners were frequently in public disagreement over social measures - for example, abortion and punishments for public demonstrators who wore masks. Furthermore, the "intellectual-political" crisis was worsened by three political scandals. The first concerned the controversial early retirement of a high general accused of frequenting a homosexual bar. The "Flick affair" revealed that some politicians in all parties had taken money from the giant Flick concern at the time when that company was successfully applying for enormous tax exemptions. The affair hurt the CDU in particular when revelations about Rainer Barzel, the parliamentary president, forced him to resign. The "party-contributions affair" also implicated all parties, although especially the CDU and FDP, in hiding illegal financial contributions.

In foreign policy Kohl's policies were controversial, but generally popular. Relations with Eastern European countries worsened slightly. Kohl's government repeatedly reaf-firmed its adherence to treaties made under the SPD recognizing the national boundaries of Eastern European countries, but the CDU's simultaneous insistence that Germany eventually be reunited chilled relations with Poland and the former Soviet Union. Erich Honecker, head of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany), canceled a planned visit to the Federal Republic in the fall of 1984, and Poland strongly condemned Kohl's tolerance for those in his party who sought to reunite with Germany territory lost to Poland after World War II.

Kohl's most important foreign policy initiative toward the West was his attempt at symbolic reconciliation with Germany's enemies from World War II. He clasped the hand of French President François Mitterand during a visit to graveyards of both German and French soldiers at Verdun in September of 1984. He persuaded Ronald Reagan to carry out a gesture of reconciliation at a German military graveyard in Bitburg in May of 1985, near the 40th anniversary of Germany's surrender in World War II, despite the outcry this caused in the United States. Kohl insisted upon this gesture, not only because it was widely popular in the Federal Republic, but because he was determined to draw a line between Nazi Germany and today's Federal Republic. As he said to a somewhat shocked Israeli audience in January of 1984, "A young generation of Germans does not understand the history of Germany as a burden, but as a mandate for the future. It is ready to take responsibility. But it refuses to acknowledge collective guilt for the deeds of the fathers." Whether Kohl, as a member of this young generation, could so easily change the world's perceptions of Germany was doubtful, but part of his significance as a leader was his articulation of this popular longing.

The Reunification of Germany

Importantly, Kohl is credited with the reunification of Germany. The fall of the Berlin Wall, which took place on November 9, 1989, was more to the credit of former Soviet Union President Mikhail Gorbachev. However, before the year's end, Kohl seized the opportunity to publicly announce that he would reunite his country. Indeed, Germany was peacefully reunited by the following year, and Kohl was re-elected in 1990 and 1994. The divide between east and west remained in the nation's psyche, however, as unemployment in the east seemed to cause resentment of immigrants, which, in turn, led to neo-Nazi violence. While Kohl has taken an anti-nationalistic approach, the rest of the Europe remains wary of a unified, nationalistic Germany. Kohl, who is firmly committed to Germany's part in the European Community, has announced plans to run for a fifth term in 1998.

Further Reading

The economy that Kohl found upon taking office is discussed in Andrei S. Markovits, editor, The Political Economy of West Germany: Modell Deutschland (1982). There is much information on the chancellor in Michael Balfour, West Germany (1982, 2nd ed.). For more recent information, see also: Newsweek, December 11, 1989, January 29, 1990, March 19, 1990; Time, July 30, 1990 and December 10, 1990; Christian Science Monitor, March 9, 1993 and March 11, 1993; and Economist, April 12, 1997.

For more information on Helmut Kohl, visit Britannica.com.

(hĕl-mʊt kōl) , 1930–, German politician, chancellor of West Germany (1982–1990) and reunified Germany (1990–98). He was named chairman of the Rhine-Palatinate Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in 1966 and was elected state premier (1969–76). He then became (1973–98) chairman of the national CDU, leading the opposition in the West German Bundestag, where he engineered a no-confidence vote against Helmut Schmidt (1982) and became chancellor.

Conservative and pro-American, he led the CDU to convincing victories in 1983 and 1987. During his administration, West Germany prospered and became increasingly influential in world affairs. Harnessing momentum for reunification starting in 1989, when East Germany began to disintegrate, Kohl successfully campaigned for the CDU there (Mar., 1990), winning a mandate for speedy reunification. Having accomplished that goal in October, he led the CDU to victory in nationwide elections (Dec., 1990) and became the first chancellor of reunified Germany. He held the post until 1998, when the CDU was defeated at the polls by the Social Democrats led by Gerhard Schröder.

In 1999, Kohl became embroiled in a serious scandal as the existence of more than $1 million in secret campaign contributions to him and other financial irregularities during his administration came to light. Refusing to disclose the source of funds paid to him and with his reputation in shambles, Kohl was forced to resign (2000) as honorary chairman of the CDU. In 2001 he agreed to pay a 300,000-mark fine in exchange for an end to the criminal investigation into his role in the campaign contributions scandal.

This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)