Aus Wikipedia. Nicht dargestellt. Auszug: Helmut Josef Michael Kohl (German pronunciation: ; born 3 April 1930) is a German conservative politician and statesman. He was Chancellor of Germany from 1982 to 1998 (of West Germany between 1982 and 1990 and of a reunited Germany between 1990 and 1998) and the chairman of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) from 1973 to 1998. His 16-year tenure was the longest of any German chancellor since Otto von Bismarck and oversaw the end of the Cold War and the German reunification. Kohl is widely regarded as one of the main architects of the German reunification and, together with French President François Mitterrand, the Maastricht Treaty, which created the European Union. Kohl and François Mitterrand were the joint recipients of the Karlspreis in 1988. In 1998, Kohl was named Honorary Citizen of Europe by the European heads of state or government for his extraordinary work for European integration and cooperation, an honour previously only bestowed on Jean Monnet. In 1996 he won the prestigious Prince of Asturias Award in International Cooperation Kohl has been described as „the greatest European leader of the second half of the 20th century“ by former U.S. President George H. W. Bush. Kohl was born in Ludwigshafen am Rhein (at the time part of Bavaria, now in Rheinland-Pfalz) Germany, the third child of Cäcilie (née Schnur; 1890-1979) and her husband Hans Kohl (1887-1975), a civil servant. His family was conservative and Roman Catholic, and remained loyal to the Catholic Centre Party before and after 1933. His older brother died in the Second World War as a teenage soldier. In the last weeks of the war, Kohl was also drafted, but he was not involved in any combat. Kohl attended the Ruprecht elementary school, and continued at the Max Planck Gymnasium. In 1946, he joined the recently founded CDU. In 1947, he was one of the co-founders of the Junge Union-branch in Ludwigshafen. After graduat…http://booksllc.net/?l=de