1. Quotes
  2. Authors
  3. Helmut Kohl

Helmut Kohl Quotes

Helmut Josef Michael Kohl was a German politician and statesman who served as Chancellor of Germany from 1982 to 1998 and as the chairman of the Christian Democratic Union from 1973 to 1998. From 1969 to 1976, Kohl was minister president of the state Rhineland-Palatinate. Kohl chaired the Group of Seven in 1985 and 1992. In 1998 he became honorary chairman of the CDU, resigning from the position in 2000.

Born in 1930 in Ludwigshafen to a Roman Catholic family, Kohl joined the Christian Democratic Union 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 became Minister-President of his home state in 1969. Viewed during the 1960s and the early 1970s as a progressive within the CDU, he was elected national chairman of the party in 1973. In the 1976 federal election his party performed well, but the social-liberal government of social democrat Helmut Schmidt was able to remain in power, as well as in 1980, when Kohl's rival from the Bavarian sister party CSU, Franz Josef Strauß, candidated. After Schmidt had lost the support of the liberal FDP in 1982, Kohl was elected Chancellor through a switch of the FDP, forming a Christian-liberal government. After he had become party leader, Kohl was increasingly seen as a more conservative figure.

As Chancellor Kohl was strongly committed to European integration and French–German cooperation in particular; he was also a steadfast ally of the United States and supported Reagan's more aggressive policies in order to weaken the Soviet Union. Kohl's 16-year tenure was the longest of any German Chancellor since Otto von Bismarck. He oversaw the end of the Cold War and the German reunification, for which he is generally known as Chancellor of Unity. Together with French President François Mitterrand, Kohl was the architect of the Maastricht Treaty, which established the European Union and the euro currency. Kohl was also a central figure in the eastern enlargement of the European Union, and his government led the effort to push for international recognition of Croatia, Slovenia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina when the states declared independence. He played an instrumental role in solving the Bosnian War. Domestically, Kohl's policies focused on economic reforms and later also on the process of integrating the former East Germany into the reunited Germany, and he moved the federal capital from the "provisional capital" Bonn back to Berlin, although he himself never resided there because the government offices were only relocated in 1999. Kohl also greatly increased federal spending on arts and culture. After his chancellorship, Kohl's reputation suffered domestically because of his role in the CDU donations scandal and he had to resign from his honorary chairmanship of the CDU after little more than a year in January 2000, but he was partly rehabilitated in later years. The later Chancellor Angela Merkel started her political career as Kohl's protegée.

Kohl was described as "the greatest European leader of the second half of the 20th century" by U.S. Presidents George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton. Kohl received the Charlemagne Prize in 1988 with François Mitterrand; in 1998 Kohl became the second person to be named Honorary Citizen of Europe by the European heads of state or government. Following his death, Kohl was honored with the first ever European Act of State in Strasbourg. Kohl was married to Hannelore Kohl during his entire political career, and they had two sons, Walter Kohl and Peter Kohl. Wikipedia  

✵ 3. April 1930 – 16. June 2017
Helmut Kohl photo
Helmut Kohl: 19   quotes 0   likes

Famous Helmut Kohl Quotes

“The visionaries of yesterday are the realists of today.”

Helmut Kohl

Discussion with his predecessor Helmut Schmidt in 'Die Zeit' (1998)

“This is the worst president since Hermann Göring.”

Helmut Kohl

Das ist der schlimmste Präsident seit Hermann Göring.
On President of German Parliament Wolfgang Thierse, according to DER SPIEGEL during lunch with colleagues (August 29, 2002)

“The means of existence of our country will break down, once the watergates are open to the foreigners.”

Helmut Kohl

Die Existenzgrundlage unseres Landes geht kaputt, wenn erst die Schleusen für die Ausländer geöffnet sind.
Lecture for businessmen from Schwabia (March 1994)

“A successful industrial nation, meaning a nation with future, can not be organized as a collective holiday resort.”

Helmut Kohl

Eine erfolgreiche Industrienation, das heißt eine Nation mit Zukunft, lässt sich nicht als kollektiver Freizeitpark organisieren.
In a parliamentary speech (March 1993)

“We will move to Berlin - but not to a new republic.”

Helmut Kohl

Wir gehen nach Berlin – aber nicht in eine neue Republik.
50 JAHRE DEMOKRATIE DANK AN BONN" (July 06, 1999)

“We will cut in half unemployment and the number of foreigners living in Germany.”

Helmut Kohl

Wir werden die Arbeitslosigkeit und die Zahl der in Deutschland lebenden Ausländer um die Hälfte reduzieren.
Taz (June 10, 1998), during the 1982 election campaign

Helmut Kohl Quotes

“The crucial thing is what comes out at the end.”

Helmut Kohl

Entscheidend ist, was hinten rauskommt.
In a press conference on August 31, 1984; cited in DER SPIEGEL (September 3, 1984)

“This is a typical journalistic statement: It is correct, but it is not the truth.”

Helmut Kohl

Das ist eine klassische journalistische Behauptung. Sie ist zwar richtig, aber sie ist nicht die Wahrheit.
ARD-Tagesthemen (February 22, 1994)

Truth

“In all future, only peace may come from German soil.”

Helmut Kohl

Von deutschem Boden muss in Zukunft immer Frieden ausgehen.
Lecture in front of the Frauenkirche (December 19, 1989)

Peace , Future

“By a common effort, we will soon succeed in tranforming Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Sachsen-Anhalt, Brandenburg, Sachsen and Thüringen into blossoming landscapes, where it is worth to live and work.”

Helmut Kohl

Durch eine gemeinsame Anstrengung wird es uns gelingen, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern und Sachsen-Anhalt, Brandenburg, Sachsen und Thüringen schon bald wieder in blühende Landschaften zu verwandeln, in denen es sich zu leben und zu arbeiten lohnt.
In a television speech about East Germany after the Reunification. (June 1990)

Effort

“I knew that I could never win a referendum in Germany. We would have lost a referendum on the introduction of the Euro. That's quite clear. I would have lost and by seven to three…. If a Chancellor is trying to push something through, he must be a man of power. And if he's smart, he knows when the time is ripe. In one case – the Euro – I was like a dictator … The Euro is a synonym for Europe. Europe, for the first time, has no more war.”

Helmut Kohl

2002 interview for the PhD. of Jens Peter Paul, a German journalist

War , Time

“I am not the one trying to speed things up. We are being driven.”

Helmut Kohl

On November 9, 1989, the Berlin Wall fell. The idea of German reunification, often discussed but considered unrealistic, once again became a subject of heated debate. Reunification now appeared inevitable, but scarcely anyone ventured to prophesy how soon it would come. German chancellor Helmut Kohl remarked those words when was accused of pushing unification plans too fast.
Awake! magazine, 12 - 22 - 1991; in its article The Dream of European Unity.

Speed

“Revenue and cost have to be in the right relation to each other.”

Helmut Kohl

Erträge und Kosten müssen im richtigen Verhältnis zueinander stehen.
In a speech in Düsseldorf in 1986

“The German Reunification and unification of Europe are two sides of the same coin.”

Helmut Kohl

Die deutsche Einheit und die europäische Einigung sind zwei Seiten ein und derselben Medaille.
In a speech on the 15th party congress of the CDU, in Frankfurt an Main (June 17, 2002)

“The new poverty is an invention of the socialist Jet-set.”

Helmut Kohl

Die neue Armut ist eine Erfindung des sozialistischen Jet-sets
STERN (July 24, 1986)

“The young people of Germany have no problem with Judaism. I too, with my two sons sometimes walk across the Jewish cemetery in Oggersheim.”

Helmut Kohl

Die jungen Leute in Deutschland haben kein Problem mit dem Judentum. Ich gehe ja auch manchmal mit meinen beiden Jungs über den jüdischen Friedhof in Oggersheim.
In Tel Aviv in front of 900 Israelian politicians (January 1983)

People , Problem

“We Germans have learned from history. We are a peace-loving, freedom-loving people. For us, love of our native country, love of freedom, and the spirit of being a good neighbor always belong together.”

Helmut Kohl

As quoted in "Kohl: German chancellor, European statesman" https://www.dw.com/en/kohl-german-chancellor-european-statesman/a-16274982 (October 1, 2012), Deutsche Welle

Peace , History , Freedom , Country

“The Berlin Wall is perhaps the most visible expression of the moral gulf between free democracy and totalitarian dictatorship.”

Helmut Kohl

As quoted in "East, West Mark Berlin Wall in Conflicting Ways" https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1986/08/14/east-west-mark-berlin-wall-in-conflicting-ways/0ee15034-ea45-4c31-9490-7f64e7ac159b/ (August 14, 1986), The Washington Post

Democracy

“As long as there is a wall, barbed wire and orders to shoot, there can be no talk of normality in Germany.”

Helmut Kohl

As quoted in "East, West Mark Berlin Wall in Conflicting Ways" https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1986/08/14/east-west-mark-berlin-wall-in-conflicting-ways/0ee15034-ea45-4c31-9490-7f64e7ac159b/ (August 14, 1986), The Washington Post

Similar authors

Octavio Paz photo
Octavio Paz 71
Mexican writer laureated with the 1990 Nobel Prize for Lite…
Augusto Pinochet photo
Augusto Pinochet 28
Former dictator of the republic of Chile
George S. Patton photo
George S. Patton 77
United States Army general
Erwin Rommel photo
Erwin Rommel 24
German field marshal of World War II
Hazrat Inayat Khan photo
Hazrat Inayat Khan 37
Indian Sufi
Nikolaj Velimirović photo
Nikolaj Velimirović 2
Serbian bishop and saint
Peter Ustinov photo
Peter Ustinov 59
English actor, writer, and dramatist
Margaret Thatcher photo
Margaret Thatcher 348
British stateswoman and politician
Heinrich Böll photo
Heinrich Böll 6
German author, novelist, and short story writer
Winston S. Churchill photo
Winston S. Churchill 601
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom