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Helmut Kohl returned to school when his city returned to some normalcy in the summer of 1946. He was student body president, participated in many extracurricular activities, and became a member of a political party called the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). Graduating from high school in 1950, Kohl went on to the University of Frankfurt and then ...

Although he was working full-time, Kohl was already very active in the CDU. After the war, the CDU was a political party with no paid positions. One could not make a living from politics, so having a professional career was important. However, political affairs fascinated Kohl, and he gave most of his energy to politics. He was elected to the state...

In his first government address as chancellor, Kohl stressed that his foreign policy would rest on Germany's alliance with the United States and cooperation with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). NATO began as a military alliance of Western European nations and the United States and Canada; the alliance was formed in 1949 to contain co...

Helmut Kohl's hard-line views on nuclear systems and his basic anti-Soviet position, in which he endorsed a unified and integrated Europe free of communist influence, had made him an unpopular figure in Moscow. In a Newsweek magazine interview, Kohl actually compared the public relations efforts of new Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev (1931–; see...

In 1989, rebellion against communist rule spread from one Eastern European nation to another as the populations took advantage of new reforms introduced by Gorbachev and the Soviets that allowed for greater freedoms of expression. In October 1989, public demonstrations against the East Germany communist leaders grew, which led to their resignation ...

Books

Bering, Henrik. Helmut Kohl.Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing, 1999. Clemens, Clay, and William Paterson. The Kohl Chancellorship.Portland, OR: Frank Cass, 1998. Muchler, Gunter, and Klaus Hofmann. Helmut Kohl, Chancellor of German Unity: A Biography.Bonn, Germany: Press Information Office of the Federal Government, 1992. Smyser, W. R. From Yalta to Berlin: The Cold War Struggle over Germany. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1999. Sodaro, Michael J. Moscow, Germany, and the West from Khrushchev...

Web Sites

"Newsmakers: Helmut Kohl." ABC News.http://abcnews.go.com/reference/bios/kohl.html (accessed on April 2, 2003). "Newsmaker Profiles: Helmut Kohl, German Chancellor." CNN Interactive.http://www.cnn.com/resources/newsmakers/world/europe/kohl.html (accessed on April 2, 2003).

The world was stunned when the Berlin Wall went up on August 13, 1961. In the previous seven months, approximately two hundred thousand East Germans had abandoned most of their belongings and headed to the western sectors of Berlin. The East German economy could not afford the continued loss in population. In order to stop the flow, Soviet leader N...