Karl Carstens; Former President of West Germany

Karl Carstens, a former president of West Germany who came under criticism for his Nazi past, died Saturday at age 77.

The cause of death was not given, though he suffered a stroke two weeks ago. Carstens died at his home in Meckenheim near Bonn, the government press office said.

Despite his membership in the Nazi party, Carstens helped build postwar relations with the United States and played a significant role in unifying Europe.

“He was a patriot who unwaveringly strived for German unity. And he was just as convinced of the importance of Europe’s political union,” Chancellor Helmut Kohl said.

Carstens served as an officer in the German army in 1939-45, and was harshly criticized later for his Nazi affiliation. Carstens said his membership was a formality and that he was not an active member of the party.

Others defended Carstens, pointing out that many Germans who served during World War II had become good democrats.

Carstens was born in Bremen on Dec. 14, 1914, and received a law degree from Yale University. He opened a legal practice in Bremen soon after the war and began his political career at the local level.

He was helped along by West Germany’s first postwar chancellor, Konrad Adenauer. A member of Adenauer’s Christian Democratic party, he joined the Foreign Ministry in 1955 and became the No. 2 official there in 1961.

He traveled to Washington in 1963 to soothe American misgivings about the budding German-French friendship and was one of the architects of the 1957 Rome Treaty, which created the European Economic Community.

He left the federal government when Social Democrat Willy Brandt was elected chancellor in 1969, and was elected to the lower house of Parliament, the Bundestag, three years later.

In 1979, he became president, a largely ceremonial position.

He is survived by his wife, Veronika. They had no children.