“Until recently he contributed to the editorial team with his analyses, his commentaries and his interviews about current affairs”.
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Former Chancellor Helmut Schmidt has died at his home in Hamburg at 96.
“He died the way he wanted: in his bed at home and fully without pain”, Greten said. Indeed, as Schmidt’s personal views became more widely known, they tended to legitimize a growing anti-American sentiment among a few segments of German opinion.
Helmut Schmidt’s chancellorship coincided with the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan in 1979.
A year later, West Germany supported the United States in boycotting the Moscow Summer Olympics. North Atlantic Treaty Organisation Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg called Schmidt “a great statesman who believed in the European project” and “an insightful leader who understood that there is no contradiction between a strong defense and dialogue”.
“He led his country at a very hard time and he led it towards economic stability and towards the choice of growth”, said Hollande, who added that Europe owed the existence of the euro common currency to Schmidt.
“He always said the market economy must be allowed to live but also that it needed a social dimension”.
Schmidt was also an exceedingly complicated man. He joined the Hitler Youth and fought with the Nazis during World War II, all while harboring the secret his grandfather was Jewish.
He was drafted as a soldier in the Second World War before being deployed to the Soviet Union.
For a short period he left parliament and as Hamburg’s interior minister directed clear-up operations after a disastrous North Sea flood.
He was respected for his tough stance against terrorists in the Red Army Faction, or Baader-Meinhof Gang.
In a campaign of violence in 1977 the group murdered the chief federal prosecutor and the chief executive of Dresdner Bank. Schmidt ordered German special forces to storm the plane.
Schmidt later said he wept at the news, having previously pledged to resign if it resulted in carnage.
Although convinced he had taken the right action, he also conceded he felt guilty about Mr Schleyer’s death.
He remained a staunch Social Democrat until the end of his days.
The decision by coalition partner the Free Democrats to switch alliances to the Christian Democrats in 1982 finally brought Schmidt s downfall through a parliamentary no-confidence vote, and led to conservative Helmut Kohl becoming chancellor. His health deteriorated while in office and in 1981 he was fitted with a cardiac pacemaker.
Within two years he was himself chancellor.
Schmidt’s own time in office was hit by turbulent times. He is considered to have been a Social Democrat, who went on to become a statesman who was active in German politics throughout his life.
“Schmidt has rendered outstanding services to our country”.
His lasting influence was underlined by the huge success of his 1987 memoir, Menschen Und Machte (People And Powers) – a bestseller for more than a year. He also accused former East Germany of “whininess” for constantly stressing its economic problems.
A lover cigarettes, Hamburg prosectors through out an anti-smoking lobby’s complaint after he and wife Hannelore – better known as Loki – lit up in a theatre, in the face of a newly-introduced ban.
Schmidt was married for 68 years to his childhood sweetheart, Loki, with whom he had a son who died in his first year and later a daughter, Susanne.
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In a televised tribute, Merkel said she first heard of Schmidt in 1962 when Hamburg faced major floods and Schmidt was interior minister of the city-state, handling disaster relief “with determination and a gift for improvisation”.
