Photo: DPAHelmut Kohl, the former German chancellor who seized the chance to reunite his country after years of Cold War separation, was a giant of contemporary European history who became celebrated as an architect of the continent's integration. "After the fall of the Berlin Wall, Kohl acted as though the spirit of Konrad Adenauer had suddenly seized him," wrote Stanley Hoffmann, a professor of European history at Harvard University. 'Shoulder to shoulder'In 1989, after four decades of division, the capitalist and democratic West Germany was starkly different from the communist, dilapidated East Germany. Kohl persuaded US president George H. W. Bush to accept a larger, reunified Germany, and convinced Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to withdraw troops from East Germany. Seven years later, Kohl married Maike Richter, an economy ministry aide 35 years his junior.

Source: The Local June 16, 2017 16:30 UTC