I.

Introduction

Helmut Kohl, born in 1930, German politician and chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany (1982-1998). Kohl was the longest-serving German chancellor of the 20th century. A career politician with the moderately conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU), Kohl is best known as the chancellor who presided over German reunification in 1990 and as an influential proponent of European integration. Although he faced criticism throughout his career for his provincial image and his occasional public-relations blunders, his four terms in office reflect his political savvy. Kohl stepped down in 1998 after the Social Democratic Party (SPD) of Gerhard Schröder ousted his ruling coalition of the CDU and the Christian Social Union (CSU).

II.

Childhood and Education

Helmut Josef Michael Kohl was born on April 3, 1930, in the industrial city of Ludwigshafen on the Rhine River, in what is now the state of Rhineland-Palatinate. He was raised in a household and community that stressed Roman Catholic and conservative values. As a boy Kohl was shaped by the experience of World War II (1939-1945). He lived through several years of devastating bombings of his home city by the Allies (the countries that fought against Germany) and then suffered the loss of his older brother, who was killed in action. Kohl never saw military action, but the war left him with a deep commitment to prevent future European conflict.

Five years after the war's conclusion, Kohl passed the Abitur, Germany’s college entrance exam, and began his studies at the universities of Frankfurt and Heidelberg. He was awarded a doctorate in history from the latter institution in 1958. Kohl married Hannelore Renner in 1960 and the couple had two children.

III.

Early Political Career

Kohl pursued an interest in politics from a young age. He joined the CDU in 1946. The party had been founded shortly before the end of the war by German Catholics and Protestants. Some members of these groups had put aside long-standing political differences between them in order to oppose Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Party, which had taken control of Germany (see National Socialism). Kohl distinguished himself quickly in the new organization. He became the youngest member of the Rhineland-Palatinate state legislature in 1959, and he was elevated to party chairman in that body four years later. As he rose through the party ranks, Kohl built a reputation as an energetic party leader and a shrewd back-room negotiator.

Two events in 1969 thrust Kohl into the national spotlight. In May he was elected minister-president of Rhineland-Palatinate. At 39 years old, Kohl was the youngest leader of any West German state. Then, in November, Kohl was picked by party members to be vice chairman of the national CDU organization.

In 1971 Kohl suffered one of his few defeats, when he made an unsuccessful run for the national CDU party chair. His standing within the party was bolstered, however, after the CDU was soundly defeated in national elections the following year. After calls for change within the party, the reform-minded Kohl was chosen party chair in 1973. The following year the CDU and its Bavarian ally, the Christian Social Union (CSU), scored impressive gains in state and local elections, which encouraged party officials to believe that they could return to power in the next national election.

With his position as CDU leader secure and the party's membership expanding, Kohl ran for the German chancellorship in the 1976 election. Stressing his opposition to socialism, the party’s intensified efforts against terrorism, and a reemergence of national pride, Kohl took on the incumbent chancellor Helmut Schmidt of the Social Democratic Party (SPD). When the votes were tallied, however, the CDU/CSU had fallen just short of victory.

Thereafter, Kohl clung to his new, additional post as the CDU/CSU parliamentary leader amid growing criticism from coalition partners, who attacked him for his dull speeches and his provincial image. Despite this criticism, Kohl remained confident, claiming that defense and economic policy disputes within the SPD coalition would eventually cause the breakup of Schmidt’s government. That finally occurred in 1982, when the Free Democratic Party (FDP) deserted the coalition. In October Schmidt was forced out of office after the parliament passed a no-confidence vote (a declaration by the majority of the members that they no longer support the chancellor), which simultaneously elevated Kohl to the post, making him the first postwar chancellor of West Germany to take power in this way.

IV.

Chancellor

Kohl and the CDU/CSU were returned to power by German voters in the 1983 national election. His new government sought moderate cuts in government spending and renewed support for West German commitments to allow troops and weapons of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to be stationed on West German soil. In addition, Kohl worked closely with French president François Mitterrand and other European leaders to increase cooperation among the European nations. By applying these policies successfully, Kohl was able to improve West Germany's economy and the nation's standing among European allies and with the United States.

But Kohl still faced trouble at home. His policies of limiting welfare benefits and funding for social programs in order to cut government spending raised substantial protest from labor leaders. Additionally, Kohl faced criticism from those who resented the stationing of NATO missiles in West Germany. Kohl was also hampered by quarrels among his coalition's parties, which—along with a party finance scandal and other embarrassments—undercut his popularity.

Kohl's coalition government was able to retain power after the 1987 national elections, but its majority in the parliament had slipped. New disputes within the government undermined proposed plans for reforming social welfare programs and lowering taxes. Kohl's coalition also bickered over cooperation with Communist countries and a controversial 1987 state visit by East German leader Erich Honecker.

In 1989 small radical right-wing parties drew votes away from the more centrist CDU/CSU in regional elections. Later that year, after Kohl discharged one of his critics from the CDU, other rivals in the party tried to oust him. The effort failed, but the dispute further hurt CDU unity and Kohl's image. Yet throughout these difficulties, Kohl managed to survive politically, and many Germans believed that Kohl was a suitable leader for a nation enjoying prosperous but relatively unremarkable times.

V.

Reunification

This allegedly unremarkable era came to a dramatic end when the Berlin Wall separating democratic West Germany from the Communist German Democratic Republic (GDR, or East Germany) was toppled in November 1989. While Kohl had little to do with this historic event, his political fortunes certainly benefited from his skill at taking advantage of it.

The chancellor had long thought that German reunification would be desirable, although unlikely, given that the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) strongly supported Communist East Germany. In 1985, however, the reform-minded Mikhail Gorbachev became president of the USSR. After some initial skepticism, Kohl and other Western leaders had high hopes that he would encourage political and economic changes within the GDR that might ease relations between East and West.

Despite these hopes, nearly everyone was surprised by the dramatic events of 1989. When the USSR relaxed its tight control over the GDR, the East German government began to totter, and the Berlin Wall was mobbed by East German citizens seeking to visit the West. In fact Kohl was out of the country when the Berlin Wall came down; he was in Poland on a foreign relations visit.

With the opening of the Berlin Wall, Kohl and West Germany faced an entirely new set of challenges. While the chancellor encouraged movement toward democracy in the East and quietly supported the concept of German reunification, he did not want to press too hard or too openly for reunification for fear of provoking a Soviet-backed crackdown in East Germany. Additionally, Kohl was concerned about a potential torrent of eastern refugees that might flood into West Germany. Kohl was also under pressure from European neighbors who were uneasy about an enlarged Germany.

In response, the chancellor sought to enact a long-term plan to first reform the economic and political infrastructure of the East, and then reunify the nation. This plan included promises to keep a unified Germany in NATO, to keep seeking European consensus throughout the reunification process, and to press the new regime in the GDR in the direction of democracy.

However, the changes came much faster than Kohl had anticipated. When Kohl visited an East German city in December 1989, he was shocked to be greeted by cheering throngs who chanted his name. These demonstrations convinced him that the nation's desire to end more than four decades of division were too forceful to delay. By the early months of 1990, Kohl had voiced support for pro-reunification groups in East Germany, including an East German branch of the CDU that, although long a tool of the regime, had removed its Communist leaders after the wall came down. Kohl also pushed through a plan allowing East Germans to exchange their nearly worthless money for the far stronger West German deutsche mark, a move that was intended to stem economic collapse in the East and prevent a mass immigration to the West.

Kohl demonstrated sharp political and foreign relations skills in helping bring about a peaceful reunification in 1990. Supported by U.S. president George Bush, Kohl visited Moscow in February, where he won Gorbachev's acceptance of the idea of ending Germany's division. The chancellor also campaigned actively for his CDU allies in the GDR's first free election in March, helping the party to a surprising victory. The election of a friendly government in East Germany helped pave the way for a May treaty on economic and currency union between the two Germanys. In the treaty the West German government agreed to continue to subsidize the East German economy.

In order to soften Soviet insistence that a united Germany remaining in NATO would pose a threat to the USSR, Kohl approved large-scale financial aid for Soviet economic reforms. In June the chancellor agreed to ban NATO troops and weapons from eastern Germany after unification and offered a pledge to limit the size of a united German army. These concessions were not lost on the Soviet president—during a July visit by the chancellor, Gorbachev agreed that a united Germany could remain in NATO.

This breakthrough accelerated negotiations on a final settlement to restore a fully sovereign, united Germany. The Two Plus Four talks, which had begun in May between the Federal Republic, the GDR, and the four countries that had occupied Germany at the end of World War II (the Soviet Union, the United States, Britain, and France), were concluded in September in favor of reunification. At the same time, Kohl's government worked out another treaty with the GDR, extending most West German laws to East Germany and making Berlin the future capital of the united country. Both agreements were approved in September.

The long-awaited reunification finally came on October 3, 1990. Kohl, no longer merely a leader in ordinary times, greeted joyous crowds at a midnight ceremony in Berlin. This triumph was much more than a public-relations coup—the resultant wave of popularity carried Kohl’s coalition to victory in the reunited country’s first nationwide elections, which were held in December 1990. Kohl became the first chancellor of a unified Germany since the end of World War II.

VI.

The 1990s

Soon after his greatest triumph, Kohl was faced with some of the toughest challenges of his tenure. Eastern Germany's old-fashioned industries, unable to compete in a single capitalist economy, collapsed. Facing massive unemployment in the east, the German government had to transfer tens of billions of dollars to prop up the region. This unexpected spending, along with a global recession, threw Germany into its worst economic slump since the end of World War II. In 1993 Kohl helped work out a compromise among all parties in the government to raise more aid for eastern Germany, funded by future tax hikes. The compromise forced Kohl to abandon an earlier pledge that reunification would be completed without increased taxation.

Kohl also had difficulty trying to manage the social repercussions of reunification and economic hardship. German society was strained by massive unemployment, widespread resentment against immigrants, and an upsurge of neo-Nazi violence. In response Kohl criticized radical right-wing attacks on foreigners, while at the same time he sought tighter laws on political asylum to stop the costly and unpopular influx of refugees.

The new fiscal and immigration measures were passed—amid substantial opposition—and Kohl's coalition was able to retain a thin majority in the 1994 national elections. Some observers thought that the victory would not have been possible without the help of a timely economic recovery that year.

Throughout the 1990s Kohl sought to broaden Germany's foreign policy role. Cautiously redefining old constitutional and political limits on sending troops outside Europe, the government permitted some involvement in international peacekeeping. Lightly armed units took part in United Nations (UN) operations in Somalia and NATO missions in the Balkan Peninsula.

However, Kohl's key foreign policy goals focused on European integration and the European Union (EU), an organization designed to increase economic ties and cooperation among European countries. In 1991 he played an important role in the development of the so-called Maastricht Treaty, which created the EU and included controversial provisions for a future common European currency. In 1992 and 1993 Kohl pushed for ratification of the treaty in Germany, despite wariness abroad about German domination of this new Europe. There was also opposition at home to abandoning the deutsche mark in favor of a new European currency. Throughout such challenges, Kohl remained a leading advocate of European political and economic integration. His lobbying helped assure passage of the treaty in Germany. He also paved the way for expanding the European Union to include Scandinavian countries and Austria. Kohl advocated opening NATO and, once economic conditions allowed, the EU to certain former Communist countries.

As the 1998 elections approached, Kohl's agenda was dominated by the interrelated issues of the economy and European unity. At home an economic slump resumed as unemployment hit record highs. Prodded by the FDP, one of the CDU’s coalition partners, Kohl endorsed new steps to trim Germany's social welfare system. He voiced cautious support for cutting public spending, workers' benefits, and taxes. Kohl argued that these measures would help Germany retain its economic power. It would also help Germany meet the economic criteria necessary to qualify for participation in the EU’s Economic and Monetary Union (EMU), which called for the introduction of a single European currency in 1999. Such changes faced resistance from defenders of the welfare system in his own party, from large labor union demonstrations, and from opponents of a unified European currency.

In the end, the opposition proved insurmountable for Kohl. In elections in September 1998 the Social Democratic Party (SPD) of Gerhard Schröder, in alliance with the ecological Green Party, defeated Kohl’s ruling coalition. The CDU/CSU lost 49 seats in the 669-seat lower house of parliament, to finish with 245. The SDP gained 46 seats, to finish with 298, and the Green Party garnered 47. As the head of the CDU, Kohl took responsibility for the defeat and resigned as party leader, although loyal party members immediately voted to name him honorary chairman.

Kohl’s problems continued in late 1999 and early 2000 as a scandal involving millions of dollars in illegal funds rocked the CDU. At the center of the scandal was Kohl’s admittance that he had accepted almost $1 million in secret campaign contributions between 1993 and 1998. Kohl refused to identify the donors, violating German election laws. As the investigation widened, many called for Kohl to be expelled from the CDU, and in January 2000 he was forced to resign his post as honorary chairman of the party. In February 2001 prosecutors agreed to drop a criminal investigation into Kohl's fundraising practices in exchange for Kohl's payment of a fine.