Helmut Kohl
Chancellor of West Germany and reunified Germany (1982–1998)
Helmut Josef Michael Kohl (3 April 1930 – 16 June 2017) was a German politician who served as chancellor of Germany from 1982 to 1998. He was leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) from 1973 to 1998 and oversaw the end of the Cold War, German reunification, and the creation of the European Union (EU). Kohl's 16-year tenure is the longest in German post-war history and is the longest for any elected chancellor of Germany.
Born in Ludwigshafen to a Catholic family, Kohl joined the CDU in 1946 at the age of 16. He earned a PhD in history at Heidelberg University in 1958 and worked as a business executive before becoming a full-time politician. He was elected as the youngest member of the Parliament of Rhineland-Palatinate in 1959 and from 1969 to 1976 was minister president of the Rhineland-Palatinate state. Viewed during the 1960s and the early 1970s as a progressive within the CDU, he was elected national chairman of the party in 1973. After he had become party leader, Kohl was increasingly seen as a more conservative figure. In the 1976 and 1980 federal elections, his party performed well, but the social-liberal government of social democrat Helmut Schmidt was able to remain in power. After Schmidt had lost the support of the liberal FDP in 1982, Kohl was elected Chancellor through a constructive vote of no confidence, forming a coalition government with the FDP. Kohl chaired the G7 in 1985 and 1992.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Helmut Kohl” is chancellor of West Germany and reunified Germany (1982–1998). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Helmut, Kohl and Chancellor, not as a finished interpretation.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2518. VIAF identifies the subject as 100951272. The Library of Congress control number is n50042957. 3 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 2 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1930, 2017, 1982 and 1998.
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This entry incorporates text from “Helmut Kohl” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.