Photo Gallery Kohl's World
Helmut Kohl (right) and German President Richard von Weizsäcker in 1985 in Bonn. Kohl did not have positive things to say about the president in his private interviews with journalist Heribert Schwan. "He left no doubt that he was one of the most important men of the present time. And that basically everyone else was an idiot," Kohl said.
Kohl spoke with Schwan, who ghost wrote his memoirs, for over 600 hours. But after his first wife Hannelore committed suicide in 2001, Kohl remarried, to Maike Kohl-Richter, pictured here. She sought to exert more control over Kohl's public image, and Schwan was fired as a result.
The tapes recorded by Schwan are of particular importance because the aging Kohl is no longer able to speak clearly, the product of an accident suffered in his home in 2008.
Wolfgang Thierse, holding the key, was president of German parliament from 1998 to 2005. In that position, he was sharply critical of Kohl due to the political donations scandal which has cast a shadow over the former chancellor's legacy. Kohl said Thierse had a "community college brain."
Kohl in his office at the Chancellery in Bonn in the spring of 1998. In the interviews for his memoirs, he called Christian Wulff, who went on to become German president, "an enormous traitor" and "a zero."
Tilmann Jens, who co-authored the current book with Heribert Schwan, stands in front of a Kohl statue. Kohl was particularly fond of badmouthing SPIEGEL. Jens says Kohl mentions SPIEGEL some 250 times in the interviews with Schwan.
It was Kohl who discovered now Chancellor Angela Merkel shortly after the Berlin Wall fell. He did much to advance her early career, but she then broke ties with him as a result of the donations scandal. When he discovered her, Kohl said, she "couldn't even eat properly with a knife and fork." This image is from 2000.
Kohl has been particularly critical of Merkel's European policies. "She doesn't have a clue," he said. This picture is from 1991.
Heribert Schwan was forced to turn over his tapes to Kohl and his wife Maike Kohl-Richter. He had them transcribed before doing so, however, and has now published a book based on the tapes.
