Helmut Kohl Dies: Chancellor Who Reunified Germany
He served sixteen years as German Chancellor — longer than anyone since Bismarck — and used twelve of them to pursue a single goal: European unification. When the Berlin Wall fell in November 1989, Helmut Kohl moved faster than anyone expected, pushing through German reunification in eleven months over the objections of Thatcher and the anxiety of Mitterrand. He then drove the creation of the European Union and the euro. A campaign finance scandal in the late 1990s tarnished his final years. He died in June 2017, at eighty-seven, his place in European history secured regardless.
June 16, 2017
9 years ago
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