Former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, who died at the age of 87 on Friday, was the man who put German history to bed. It was also he who, with his idealism, helped lay the groundwork for the current confrontation between Russia and the West.
A local dialect speaker from Rheinland Pfalz, Kohl was once summed up by Margaret Thatcher with a sigh and three words, "He's so German." He was a local politician, an activist for the Christian Democratic Union since his teens, who was ultimately brought low by a very local scandal that involved illegal slush funds. But in the 1980s, he was reluctantly thrust into the international limelight by the historic opportunity to reunite Germany. He did the best he could for his country, though, like other major players at the time, he was overtaken by events. The world he helped to shape baffled him and didn't quite turn out as he dreamed.
On Nov. 10, 1989, U.S. President George H.W. Bush asked for Kohl's impressions of what was going on in Berlin, where the wall was no longer stopping people from crossing the border. Kohl reported:
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