The 100 most important Germans: Helmut Kohl

Helmut Kohl (CDU) (* 3. April 1930 in Ludwigshafen )
The Chancellor who was in charge during the reunification of Germany, he is also known for achievements in …

Errm

I am really sorry for speaking it out loud, but beside the fact, that Kohl was coincidently Chancellor at the time when the wall falls down and therefore sixteen years in total in charge, there is nothing important what comes into my mind when it comes to him.

Of course he followed a clear line of integration of Germany in the EU, but that was already established by his predecessors. What you can say for sure about him is that he wanted power. After he ran two times unsuccessful a campaign to get the job, he get back to basics in politic and gained the job with plotting and intriguing. So he was finally elected as chancellor in 1982. When I grew up he was one of the two “Masters of the Universe” together with Honecker, because until I was seventeen there was this old fat man in charge.

He had also two times a scandal at his hand about the accounting of donated money. He never named the donators and was never blamed for it. So he was one of the people who lead to the question if you are untouchable when you are the leader.

Compared with that he was a man lead by his instinct, he did what he had to do and when he saw the chance of reunite Germany he took it. Most certainly also because he knew when this big act was concluded his place in the History books was secure and there were 14 million votes in East Germany waiting for him. During his campaign he promised the people prosperous landscapes and with that he won a election which didn’t looked good for him at the start. Without the events of 1989 he most probably would only be a footnote in the books.

And like Adenauer his own people wasn’t very happy with him at the end, because of his behavior in the last scandal and his missing willingness to let someone else lead.

His long lasting tenure (16 years) lead also to the very first time in the history of Germany that as chancellor didn’t gave up for himself nor that the parliament had spoken his distrust for his actions, this time he just wasn’t elected again.