Helmut Kohl, a Giant of the Post-War Era

Today we are saying goodbye to the German and European Statesman, Helmut Kohl. And I am saying goodbye to a true friend who guided me with affection over the years and the decades. I am not speaking now as President of the Commission, but as a friend who became President of the Commission. In Helmut Kohl, a giant of the post-war era leaves us; He made it into th ehistory books even while he was still alive – and in those history books he will forever remain. He was someone who became the continental monument before which German and European wreaths are laid, and indeed must be laid. It was his wish to say goodbye here in Strasbourg, this Franco-German, European border city that was close to his heart. This wish had to be granted. Today’s memorial service is not ‘not-German’, it is European, and thus it is also German. We begin this day in Strasbourg and conclude it this evening in Speyer, in Speyer cathedral, with which he had a life-long connection. Helmut Kohl was a German patriot. But he was also a European patriot. He was someone who brought together and reconciled things and people. A German and European Patriot, because for him there was no contradiction between that which is German, and the European, that has to be. The French philosopher Blaise Pascal said that he liked things that go together: J’aime les choses qui vont ensemble. For Helmut Kohl, German and European unity went together. Two sides of the same coin, as he, and Adenauer before him, always used to say. He made Adenauer’s maxim his own. And he put it into practice again and again through his thoughts and actions. There are many examples of this. The fall of the Berlin Wall was greeted with joy throughout Europe and the world. But German reunification – in which he always uncompromisingly believed – encountered resistance in parts of Europe, and indeed sometimes outright rejection. Helmut Kohl promoted German reunification in many patient conversations. He was able to do so successfully because his reputation, which had grown over many years, allowed him to give credible assurances that he was striving for a European Germany and not a German Europe. He wanted German reunification with all his might, and outside Germany he was able to convince others of the historically correct path. He was able to seize the mantle of God as it drifted through history for a brief moment. Not everyone in Germany and sadly not everyone in Europe sensed this movement of the mantle of God immediately. But he did. He sensed that German unity was within reach. He rightly judged and used the opportunity. Others would have failed in this epoch-making task. You could sense that this was a man of vision.