Helmut Kohl turns 80, calls Germans "petty minded"

[Syt]

FT: Kohl relives rift with CDU on 80th birthday

Helmut Kohl, the former German chancellor, has used his 80th birthday today to remind the nation of his disappointment that his Christian Democratic Union party turned its back on him during a funding scandal 10 years ago.

The man who helped to reunify Germany and to forge the European Union told Bild, the tabloid newspaper, that he found it hard to understand how "people who once couldn't get close enough suddenly turned away, even turned against you".

His words appear to revive a long-simmering disagreement with Angela Merkel, the current CDU leader and chancellor, about reinstating Mr Kohl as the party's honorary chairman in recognition of his historic achievements.

Instrumental in relieving Mr Kohl of his post, Ms Merkel has ignored occasional calls by party members to do so. Asked about the issue in a documentary about Mr Kohl, she said: "It's not a question that's relevant any more."

But 10 years after he admitted accepting secret party donations, the nation appears more forgiving. A new TV poll shows 59 per cent of Germans now rate him a good chancellor, and better than his successor, Gerhard Schröder, at 47 per cent.

A debate about Mr Kohl's role would see Ms Merkel - the first CDU grandee to break with him in 2000 - squeezed between those focusing on his achievements and those who recall his misdeeds.

German media has used the publicity attending Mr Kohl's birthday to celebrate his record. Welt, the conservative newspaper, lauded "the miracle of German normality" that his policies produced. Even left-leaning Spiegel, a magazine Mr Kohl loathed, published an essay that ended with grudging respect for him.

That all suggests Mr Kohl's birthday would offer Germany - a nation that emphasises important birthdays - every excuse for a rousing spectacle.

But events to mark the former chancellor's big day are low key. The CDU, which he led for quarter of a century, has postponed a public celebration until early May as Mr Kohl is too ill to leave home in Oggersheim, south of Frankfurt, after an operation.

The CDU honours him with a web page. "You will go into twentieth-century history books as a great statesman," Ms Merkel says in a video - an arms-length greeting that reflects their still-difficult relationship.

Famous for ruling Germany from 1982 to 1998, longer than any other post-war chancellor, and for seizing the chance to unify west and east Germany in 1990, Mr Kohl in retirement became infamous for the party-funding scandal. Ms Merkel that year called on the CDU to "go its own way".

Expatica: Kohl says Germans are 'petty-minded'

Former chancellor Helmut Kohl, architect of Germany's reunification 20 years ago, accused his countrymen of complaining too much, in comments published Friday.

"We Germans have all the resources and possibilities, we have proved we are competitive, but we are losing ourselves in complaints and petty-mindedness," he told Bild newspaper in a interview to mark his 80th birthday on Saturday.

Kohl, who led the country for 16 years, said Germany was "clearly wasting its chances. And I am not just thinking about politics, I am thinking about society as a whole."

Germany in October marks the 20th anniversary of the reunification, which Kohl masterminded following the dramatic fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.

The veteran conservative politican, suffering from the effects of a severe stroke last year which paralysed his lower face and made it difficult to speak, said in the interview that he had no regrets from his career.

With around a quarter of Germans saying in a poll in March that life would be better if the Wall was still up, Kohl insisted that he he would have "taken the same important decisions if I had to do it again."

"That is a nice thing to be able to say on my 80th birthday."

He added that he hoped that Germany would have "peace internally and externally".

He was particularly beloved by satirical magazine Titanic:

(the bottom three read: "Finally peace in the (Soviet) Zone: Kohl uses poison gas; Reunification is invalid: Kohl was doped; Buddhism bizarre: Kohl threatens to be reincarnated"

And of course:

"We have re-invented the airbag."


His legacy remains problematic. Sure he was instrumental for the economic boom in the 80s and reunification in 1989/90. But he pissed a lot of that down the drain when he refused to recognize his time was over in the mid-90s, and putting his "word of honour" to people he took donations from over an oath in court.

[The Brain]

He was no Hitler, that's for sure.

[Scipio]

He's still ALIVE?

[Syt]

He's still ALIVE?

Yes, here with his 30 or 40 years younger wife:


(First wife killed herself after suffering from an allergy against light for a long time)

[Syt]

Another picture of the loving couple (he's around 193 cm tall, I think?)

[syk]

Another picture of the loving couple (he's around 193 cm tall, I think?)

He would have been the right guy to put next to Sarkozy on photos.

[jimmy olsen]

(First wife killed herself after suffering from an allergy against light for a long time)

[Syt]

(First wife killed herself after suffering from an allergy against light for a long time)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannelore_Kohl

On July 5, 2001, Kohl was found dead at age 68 in her Ludwigshafen  home. She had apparently committed suicide with an overdose of sleeping pills, after years of suffering from what had claimed to be a very rare and painful photo allergy induced by an earlier penicillin  treatment that had forced her to avoid practically all sunlight for years.

[Richard Hakluyt]

Another picture of the loving couple (he's around 193 cm tall, I think?)

He would have been the right guy to put next to Sarkozy on photos.

Yes, that would have looked very funny 

...........providing Kohl didn't accidentally sit on Sarkozy and crush him to death 

[jimmy olsen]

(First wife killed herself after suffering from an allergy against light for a long time)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannelore_Kohl

On July 5, 2001, Kohl was found dead at age 68 in her Ludwigshafen  home. She had apparently committed suicide with an overdose of sleeping pills, after years of suffering from what had claimed to be a very rare and painful photo allergy induced by an earlier penicillin  treatment that had forced her to avoid practically all sunlight for years.

What an odd condition, sounds horrible.

[Martinus]

(First wife killed herself after suffering from an allergy against light for a long time)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannelore_Kohl

On July 5, 2001, Kohl was found dead at age 68 in her Ludwigshafen  home. She had apparently committed suicide with an overdose of sleeping pills, after years of suffering from what had claimed to be a very rare and painful photo allergy induced by an earlier penicillin  treatment that had forced her to avoid practically all sunlight for years.

Did she also drink blood? 

[Josquius]

Wow, weird to see a guy that age so tall.

[syk]

Did she also drink blood? 

Children's blood only. She's Ventrue.

[Martinus]

Wow, weird to see a guy that age so tall.

WTF?

[Josquius]

Wow, weird to see a guy that age so tall.

WTF?

WTF WTF?