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I removed:
that was recently added by an anomymous user. What is a "pro-USA" foreign policy? Is the statement supposed to contrast Kohl against Schröder? Then it's POV. djmutex 12:40, 31 Aug 2003 (UTC)
It does not make sense to start counting chancellors anew whenever Germany changes it's constitution. Germany in the imperial time, Germany in the Weimar time and Germany today is the same state, and Chancellor is the same position.
You are totally wrong. Germany today is as a state identical with the state Germany before 1945. This is even verified by the Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe. Citing the German Wikipedia article de:Deutschland: Das Bundesverfassungsgericht hat aber 1973 festgestellt: »Die BRD ist nicht 'Rechtsnachfolger' des Deutschen Reiches, sondern als Staat identisch mit dem Staat 'Deutsches Reich'«.
Please note that this is the English Wikipedia. In English the leader of the German government is simply called Chancellor, and we do not have the difference between Reichskanzler and Bundeskanzler, a difference which in an English context is rather unimportant (note also that Bismarck used the title Bundeskanzler during the period of the Norddeutscher Bund). Other countries have also changed constitutions as well as the exact formal titles of their prime ministers or head-of-states etc. If we should make such differences, we would make a horrible chaos, and the system would be very misleading and unhelpful. Details regarding the German constitution and history are to be described in separate articles. All German Chancellors are listed in the article Chancellor of Germany as well as the Category:German chancellors, and I would like to make a meaningful order system from Bismarck to Schröder. Starting numbers anew for the "Weimar Republic" and the "Bonn Republic" is unencyclopedic Hajduk
The state now known as Germany was established in 1871. According to the German Constitutional Court. I start with Bismarck because he was the first Chancellor of Germany. The Holy Roman Empire was a different state. And Erich Honecker is not relevant here. He never had a position in Germany, except as a jailed traitor (a "quisling") after the liberation. Soviet occupation puppet regimes has nothing to do with the legitimate government of Germany. I have now included both the numbers when counting all chancellors, and the numbers when counting the current 1949 constitution only. Hajduk
"Kohl is known as a very arrogant and egoistic person who still overestimates his work and historical role. When a journalist asked him what he knew about illegal party finances he replied: "For you I'm still Dr Kohl" (he was addressed by "Mr Kohl"). He was never able to handle criticism and to recognize own mistakes, instisting that he was the greatest statesman ever. In fact he believes that german reunification was his own personal masterpiece, ignoring the development of the Soviet Union and the GDR in the 80's that led to reunification." I'm reverting the article back to before this section was plopped in, because it's blatantly POV and trolling/vandalism. If I messed up by doing this, let me know. I'm still trying to get a feel for registered editing. -- Sporkot 10:48, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
When I created this section I did not mean to publish my personal opinion. I come from Germany and here it's much easier to see this side of Helmut Kohl because he's not only the well-known elderstatesman as you perhaps see him from the distance. His arrogance is very significant for him and his political style. It's been a few years that he left office and therefore his character should be mentioned.
The doctor thing displays upstart manners, as my late father would have said, who was a doctor of physics. More significant is what he actually did, and you can form your own opinion by typing into search engines Kohl+corruption and Kohl+honesty.
It has recently come out in docu by the WDR that industry bought off Rainer Barzel to vacate the position for Kohl. I was heavily impacted by the Kohl government not honouring the property guarantee of the constitution. My late father and grandmother owned land in the former East Berlin (Prenzlauer Promenade 191) but when freedom and democracy broke out there, the elf Aquitaine got the land via the Leuna/Minol matter, called Chancellor Matter by Kohl. They say there was a sale, but nobody has seen the sales papers or money. When Kohl was quizzed in the Bundestag he said 'I do not have to tell you the truth here because I am not under oath, and you cannot put me under oath." Arrogant? There was also someone who took him to court for violating the oath of office, but the court said it wasn't a real oath, just loose promise.
My late father also had a PhD. It becomes part of the name, and people are extremely proud of that when they come from a lower strata - it becomes part of their personality. Among academics it is bad form to insist on the Doctor in conversations. He also told me that it can be taken away when you are caught with malfeasance. The second wife would get a huge widow's pension. 2001:8003:AC99:3B00:BDAE:454A:F795:B543 ( talk) 07:08, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
Well...Members of Kohl's party wouldn't agree with me, that's right. But in fact this is not my personal point of view, so keep it or delete it, but if you delete it keep in mind that you can't understand Kohl without understanding his character. And it's just as I described it, even if not every German agrees with me...:-) Good luck.
It's your personal opinion to say my addition was defamation, that is something else. That does not mean my addition was my personal opinion. That's a big difference. To say something about a person's character is pov and defamation? That's very interesting, Sporkot. I think your sense of "political correctness" is a bit ridiculous. Do you really think it's impossible to mention a person's personality? Isn't it a bit simple to leave it out, to deny any discussion? Isn't it a bit simple to write about an important person like Kohl by just saying: oh, he was born there and held office from then to then, these were his cabinet members? I have to say your attitude is very superficial, think about it. Dear Avatar, in fact I did not mean to say you were Kohl's partisan. But I'm not a partisan of the SPD or any other left party, too. For me it took a few years to realize how Kohl behaves, so I understand why you don't agree with me. It was about two years ago when I saw an interview with Kohl on JBK and I first realized how selbstgefällig he was: "I'm the best, the greatest, I'm so underestimated". And his arrogance is so intense that you can't just ignore it. I know there are many Germans who just don't like him because of his policy, but in fact I was to young to get an aversion to him when he left office. And I know there are many wiki-users who just want to tell other users what they personally think of Kohl. But I am not, and I won't accept that my addition is just seen as "pov" or "defamation" or whatever, avoiding even to think about the description of his character. See some comments on his books: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] (some of them are full of hatred and some full of adoration, but what is mostly descibed beside this is his arrogance as I did)
Over one month, and many reverts later, this section keeps getting added. I've stayed out of it, primarily because I don't want to get involved in a revert war. I see no good way to make something as subjective as personality NPOV, but I'm going to let it be. If anyone wants to dispute what I've said or help me figure out how to better deal with this, please make a mention on this page or my user talk page, and for the love of all that is holy, sign it.-- Sporkot 01:36, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
You can't refer to your own opinions - only other people's and if you want to make it NPOV that means you have to take all opinions on the matter into account. The only way you can include a personality section in a bio without going through reverthell and back is to do it by quotes and referring to whatever public debate there might have been on the subject. So - cite the debate about Kohls personality - make sure to find quotes from both sides of the camp and find the relevant quotes from Kohl. Make sure it's all verifiable and both sides of the argument is accounted for. May the Wiki be With us! WanderingWiki 19:00, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
For what it's worth, here in Adelaide, South Australia, very far from the action, I have not spoken to a German/Ex-German who does not use a nasty word for Kohl that I can't repeat. When people hear us speaking German, they often start talking and he seems to be the most hated of them all. On the net somewhere, I found that the Soviet Union had informed the US they were going to let East Germany go, because she was too expensive for them. Apparently Kohl knew that and went to Poland so he would be closer to Berlin and he could make a historic appearance. That is why he fought tooth and nail through the courts to keep his communist secret service file away from public scrutiny. I'd just like to throw that in the ring, maybe someone knows more about it? Was it all a big charade?
Hi, the word used for Helmut Kohl might be "Birne" meaning pear or noggin which is his nickname due to satire in German magazine "Titanic" - the German article about Kohl even refers to it. No, Kohl definitely did not travel to Poland to be closer to Berlin - there was a film about his life on German TV two weeks ago and it said (as confirmed by himself in interviews) that he was very upset about the schedule of this visit as he would have prefered being in Germany at the time the Berlin Wall teared down. Unfortunately for him, the visit was planned months before and he could not cancel that as it was very important to improve relationships to Poland. On the 10th November 1989, when Kohl returned to Germany to be in Berlin that day, he had to travel via Copenhagen and Hamburg where he had to use a British plane as no German plane was allowed to land in Berlin or fly via GDR at that time - so it took more time to fly from Warzaw to Berlin as from Bonn to Berlin (although the distance from Bonn to Berlin was five-times bigger).
Well, the Stasi (East-German secret service) file of Helmut Kohl is one of the biggest mysteries here in Germany as anyone here would like to know what to find in it! Helmut Kohl will probably have his good reasons to fight up to the High German Federal Court to prevent the publication. As I would consider Kohl as a victim of East German observation (as they did with any high ranked West German politician) I would guess there are some delicate details about his private life. It is not a big secret in Germany that he had a private relationship with his secretary Juliane Weber. Recently I heard even rumours that he was bisexual (which I can not believe, but no one in Germany can believe any sexuality of Helmut Kohl), perhaps his Stasi file contains any information in that direction, we do not know. Things like this only would become interesting if the information in that file would have any political contents. Best regards from Germany YOG'TZE ( talk) 22:27, 16 November 2009 (UTC)YOG'TZE
I came in through Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Politics. Being somewhat familiar with German politics, i can certainly attest that Kohl had a stubborn style of leadership. However, during his reign this was hardly seen as arrognance, but simply as strong leadership. Condemnation of this style came only later, when his political star had faded and the accusations on the dirty business started to fly - and when his old opposition came to power.
So while there might be truth to the statement that he was known for a self-opinionated and stubborn way of governing, it goes much too far to say he is known as an "egoistic person who still overestimates his work". These characterizations are way over the top, and untrue. During his tenure, he was widely regarded as a great statesman (f.e. in strengthening friendship with France).
The paragraph further goes on to say: "In fact he believes that german reunification was his own personal masterpiece, ignoring the development of the Soviet Union and the GDR in the 80's that led to reunification." This is typical historic revisionism (perhaps because the author wasnt old enough to experience it when it happened?). Certainly, the geopolitical changes put everything in motion, but it was indeed Kohl who made sure that die Wende followed quickly and painlessly. Bear in mind that, at the time, there was a significant possibility that the GDR would remain a seperate state for some time, even if it were to become democratic. In fact, it was unclear what would happen with the entirety of Central Europe. Only with hindsight is it clear to see that they have integrated easily in the European Union. Concluding: if there has to be a paragraph on his personality (which i doubt, most information could be included elsewhere), it has to be more balanced and neutrally formulated than this. The Minist e r of War (Peace) 09:40, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
I'm still waiting for further suggestions or proposals concerning a better edit.-- 62.246.61.100 13:20, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
I've given the other users a few weeks to make better proposals but the echo was a bit weak indeed. One reason for that may have been the fact that my addition was deleted - so it should better be kept as "NPOV" and linked to this discussion page ( and - as you may have realized - that's not the version I began with). I will agree to other formulations that will be seen as more neutral but I will also ensure that the essential of my addition will remain. -- 62.246.63.96 19:03, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
I agree, c'mon. As I told you, The Minister of war, it would have been a good idea to keep the section as long as its still under discussion so that other users may have a look at the discussions page. But as long as c'mon prepares his proposal I will not revert the article (under the condition that there will be a section "Public perception and assessments", of course- that's the reason I'm still here,c'mon:-}). -- 62.246.31.81 17:27, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
I am reverting the changes on Kohl being the longest serving Kanzler in the history of the FDR. I realise that he actually is the longest serving Bundeskanzler, but I think it is illuminating to reveal he his the second longest serving chancellor ever. The link with Bismarck is warranted in that regard. Cheers, The Minist e r of War (Peace) 11:11, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
Just to note, although Willi Stoph was Premier, rather than Chancellor, of the DDR, he held this analogous post for more than twenty years over his two tenures, longer than either Bismarck or Kohl. There seems to be a general tendency at wikipedia to act as though the BRD is automatically and obviously the one and only successor state to the German Reich. This simply isn't true - the DDR was a legitimate, internationally recognized regime which had an equal claim to be considered the Reich's successor. I'd prefer that we avoid BRD/Reich comparisons like this. john k 19:23, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
Reich | +---+---+ BRD DDR +---+---+ | BRD
Nope, this is wrong. According to the ruling of the German Federal Constitutional Court of 1973, there is no "successor" to the German state (prior to 1949), because the Federal Republic of Germany is as a state identical with the state 'Deutsches Reich'".
The German Democratic Republic, on the contrarary, did not claim to be identical nor a successor to the German state (prior to 1949).
Also, the Federal Republic of Germany is in legal terms in no way a successor to the German Democratic Republic. The GDR was abolished and its former territory reunified with the Federal Republic of Germany. As a state it simply ceased to exist.
Germany (Deutsches Reich) | ----- GDR Germany (Federal Republic)
Wilhs 14:37, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
The DDR/GDR was the area of Soviet Occupation Zone, the other three occupation zones became the Federal Republik. I don't know who was first, but it was in a very short time frame. Whether the BRD is the successor of the DDR depends on how you look at it. When it came to property, like factories, land, houses, businesses, they acted as if they were successors, sold them, gave some away, sold for half the value (as it happened to my property), and the money stayed with the government of course. When you look at political prisoners they are not successors, for reasons of compensation or making their 'gap years' count for pensions.
I've translated "Verdienstordens der Bundesrepublik Deutschland", from the German article of Helmut Kohl, as "Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany", that's a literal translation. Someone removed it because it was "communist propaganda", but it's a literal translation! Furthermore I've reinstated the trivia section, not because I think this article merits a trivia section, but because the fact, that Kohl was the second longest chancellor, is rather trivial and should not be part of the articles introduction.
C mon 20:01, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
I have changed this passage because I dont consider "architect of the German Reunification" neutral. I rather feel it creates the impression the reunification proceeded along some masterplan created by Kohl. And I (and many others including scholars) would even say he was rather driven by the events and merely reacted to them, but Im not going to discuss this in full detail here. Therefore I would suggest a more neutral expression.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.199.32.41 ( talk • contribs) 2007-01-05
I think this part of the article is biased against Kohl. It is anyway difficult to write such a paragraph without being subjective. Probably this part of the article should be deleted.
91.36.122.93 20:40, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
I think this part is biased both ways. If Kohl is described as one of the most popular politicians in Germany, I think we must be talking about another politician. If you ask me, he was never overly popular. So unless someone could quote some poll or some other link that shows Kohl's high popularity compared to other German politicians I would strongly suggest removing that part about Kohl being one of the most popular politicians. I think that is nonsense. By the way while the German version of the article talks about the "Birne" satire as well it doesn't mention aanything about perceived high popularity at all. 75.175.44.93 ( talk) 19:14, 8 October 2010 (UTC)
Hello LessHeard vanU,
I do not understand why you critize and even reverted my edit.
Helmut Kohl was voted as chancellor on Friday 01st October, his minister were confirmed on Monday 04th October 1982. On Sunday, our parliament Bundestag never has session on Sundays and there was definitely no session on the 03rd October 1982!
Please explain to me why you consider the correction of a wrong date as vandalism?
Best regars YOG'TZE —Preceding unsigned comment added by YOG'TZE ( talk • contribs) 11:23, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
Dear LessHeard vanU,
Many thanks for your quick response! Yes, I can imagine that there is a lot of vandalism fon Helmut Kohl's article, in German edition of wikipedia it is even worse, I guess. Of course, I will explain future changes made from my side in order to avoid any misunderstandings. Best regards from Germany. YOG'TZE ( talk) 21:54, 16 November 2009 (UTC)YOG'TZE
Please stop edit warring around the image to use. I'd prefer the Bundesarchiv image, it's smaller, but clearly of higher quality. The other one is just blurred. -- PaterMcFly talk contribs 08:09, 24 November 2009 (UTC)
The section about the CDU finance affair needs an update. In the meantime, Schreiber was extradited to Germany and sentenced to eight years of jail. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 146.234.100.106 ( talk) 12:48, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
I was going to update the information on the Karlheinz Schreiber court case, but came to the conclusion that is not sufficiently relevant and should be removed. If it were to stay, its relevance would have to be indicated in the text. In any case, like most of the section it is unsourced. As I understand WP:BLP all of this unsourced text should be removed without delay. -- Boson ( talk) 12:34, 5 June 2011 (UTC)
It is general policy in a BLP that a "Dr." is not placed in front of the name. See Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_(biographies)#Academic_titles for more on this topic. I recently reverted someone's addition of the "Dr." in front of Helmut Kohl. Such addition not only goes against the policy as above, but also is a form of derision, given the recent story around Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, who not only had to drop the title of Dr. following allegations of plagiarism, but also had to resign his presitigious post as Defence Minister in the German government.-- Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg: Baron without a title; German defence minister resigns over plagiarism -- Skol fir ( talk) 19:59, 6 March 2011 (UTC)
Eletronic version of thesis "The Political Developments in the Palatinate and the Reconstruction of Political Parties after 1945 (German)":
(remove blank between h and a:) www.4sh ared.com/document/rwjYMthV/HK_1958_diss_transkript.htm (PDF)
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He obviously had one, so which one was it? Was he elected from a constituency or on a state list? Lockesdonkey ( talk) 18:09, 20 December 2015 (UTC)
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Hello, the name of his second wife is Maike Kohl-Richter, see article Helmut Kohl in german wikipedia. Greetings-- Buchbibliothek ( talk) 17:09, 6 June 2016 (UTC)
I don't think "His life after the Chancellorship was overshadowed by a donations scandal and his estrangement from his former protégée Angela Merkel"
is a particularly good sentence. While it's true that his life in the immediate years after his chancellorship was overshadowed by the donations scandal, that affair has been rather ancient history and not really received much attention for well over a decade now, and it wasn't mentioned by any of the public figures who commented on his death (Merkel, Schröder, Schulz, Gabriel, and a whole bunch of current and former world leaders). Also, I don't think "estrangement" is an accurate description of his relationship with Merkel. When she became Chancellor, he was immediately invited to the Chancellery and lauded publicly by her, and they have met several times where she has paid tribute to him publicly. He has made some critical comments about her policies in recent years, but "overshadowed" and "estrangement" are far too strong words to describe his relationship with her since she became chancellor. --
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Helmut Kohl was born in Ludwigshafen in 1930. At the time of his birth, Germany's official name was the German Reich (commonly referred to as the Weimar Republic). Given the political upheaval and emergence of several 'German' polities (Kaiserreich, Weimar, Third Reich, East, West etc.) across the twentieth century, and in the interest of historical fact and accuracy, it would be prudent to have an underlying link directing to the German Reich/Weimar Republic page on his place of birth. In other words, the Germany he died in is not constitutionally, territorially or politically the Germany he was born in.
Some have argued that this is wrong - that historical 'time periods' should not feature in this respect. However, as a riposte to their refusal to reach consensus, I point to the Wikipedia page for Adolf Hitler. This details his place of death as 'Nazi Germany', however, this was never the official name of Germany. In fact, during the Nazi period, Germany continued to use the same official name as the Weimar Republic, the 'German Reich'. There is, therefore, inconsistency across Wikipedia's articles.
As a point of comparison, the articles of numerous historical and contemporary personalities on Wikipedia detail their places of birth as states that are no longer in existence today. This, I believe, is right and historically accurate. It enriches the general information about the person and provides the reader with convenient historical context. 195.147.250.224 ( talk) 17:42, 18 June 2017 (UTC)
"Die Bundesrepublik Deutschland ist also nicht ‚Rechtsnachfolger‘ des Deutschen Reiches, sondern als Staat identisch mit dem Staat ‚Deutsches Reich‘". France got a totally new system of government and constitution in 1958, but of course France the country is still the same country as the France that existed before the Fifth Republic. -- Tataral ( talk) 19:01, 18 June 2017 (UTC)
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these are gleaned from many newspaper articles published over a period of many years, in Germany. OggenheimerWise ( talk) 19:57, 4 December 2019 (UTC)
"During his time in Parliament and in opposition he failed to understand the nature of Germany's obligations and duties after World War II. The most glaring failure on his part was the lack of understanding and interest to make full retribution to the victims of Nazi Germany's atrocities against people in Europe, Russia and North Africa. This is especially true and a sad story for the slave labor of the Nazi era, numbering 15 million persons from Europe and Russia, who were actually members of the peace movement and loyal to the League of Nations. The final compensations that were made, reached those who were still alive in 2005, since the Free Democratic Party (FDP) failed to support this with the Governments of the Chancellors Helmut Schmidt and Willy Brandt.
and The cabinet of Kohl's govt found it very difficult to maintain law and order amidst violent attacks against foreigners and visitors, amidst high rates of unemployment in east German states, thoughtless errors and a poorly implemented program of reunification. It was also suspected, understandably, that childhood trauma from world war II, was lurking in the background among some members of government and administration.
Both paragraphs are not backed by concrete sources, only 5 very general autobiographies, mainly refering to SPD or Green politians are given as source. We need an adequate reference from leading historians or politicians and they should be mentioned by name and proper citation. -- Nillurcheier ( talk) 08:29, 6 December 2019 (UTC)
There should be sources. Sources are important. — Preceding unsigned comment added by KasiaNL ( talk • contribs) 08:54, 1 January 2020 (UTC)
The article has: In 1993, Kohl confirmed, via treaty with the Czech Republic, that Germany would no longer bring forward territorial claims as to the pre-1945 ethnic German Sudetenland. This treaty was a disappointment for the German Heimatvertriebene. I dispute that. There was (some) disagreement about relinquishing the claims in Poland; one of the sources given after these sentences explicitly talks about the "Polish side". These territories really had been German prior to the Second World War, and had been given to Polish administration for the time being, that is before a peace treaty, at Potsdam. This peace treaty then happened, under Kohl, in 1990/1991. - The Sudetenland on the other hand had (setting pre-16th century Egerland aside) always been Bohemian, including, it is true, the long time when Bohemia itself was part of multinational Austria; it had been confiscated at gunpoint by Hitler in 1938 and definitely renounced by Brandt in the 1970s (whereas Brandt renounced the Polish territories only "until a peace treaty by a united Germany"). After that, and after definitely renouncing the actual former Eastern territories to Poland in 1990/1991, I doubt anything Kohl did about the Sudetenland two years later raised as much as an eyebrow. (I hadn't myself heard about that to begin with.)-- 2001:A61:3A4A:2001:E57C:586B:95E0:8024 ( talk) 23:13, 19 May 2020 (UTC)
User:Nillurcheier, pls note that the article text and the image caption don't even bother to mention who Kohl was meeting with, never-mind the significance of the location. Btw, this DW article covers the meeting; mentioning its significance and the Kreisau Circle, however it does not included "Kreisau" as a German reference to Krzyżowa [9]. At this point it's Krzyżowa, this is the only official name of the village. -- E-960 ( talk) 06:13, 20 May 2021 (UTC)
I can't help but feel that this image is better suited for the infobox image because it appears to be an official portrait whereas the current one used looks more like a candid pic that could be used in a section talking about his last years in office. Thoughts? 2601:249:8E00:420:ECE5:2C89:626D:50C3 ( talk) 21:28, 8 March 2023 (UTC)