At German Helm Since ‘82, Kohl Is Thriving

When Helmut Kohl became German chancellor in 1982, Ronald Reagan was in the White House, Margaret Thatcher was carrying out her revolution in Britain, Francois Mitterrand was alive and seemingly well in France, and Mikhail S. Gorbachev had not yet risen to power in the Soviet Union.

All of them are but memories today--yet Kohl is going strong, midway through leading his fifth government. Many Germans expect him to run again in 1998. He has already been elected Christian Democratic Union leader 12 times, most recently on Monday.

On Oct. 31, Kohl will complete 5,145 days in office, passing the postwar longevity record set by Chancellor Konrad Adenauer. The only person ever to govern Germany longer was Otto von Bismarck, the so-called Iron Chancellor, who lasted 28 years during the 19th century. An entire generation of young voters has grown up knowing no other leader but Kohl.

All this is impressive for a leader no one thought would last more than a year or so when he entered office. Kohl came to power by a fluke, when a small political party jumped out of the previous coalition government and formed a new partnership with Kohl’s Christian Democrats.

“In the beginning, all the intellectuals were against him and thought he was inadequate,” remembers Martin Suesskind, Bonn bureau chief of the newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung. Kohl’s nickname then was Birne--the “Pear”--and caricaturists rendered him with a pear-shaped head: big at the mouth and small at the brain.

Suesskind, one of those critics, now readily admits that he was wrong. “Kohl showed us that he was much more than a caricature,” he says. “He’s an acceptable manager, a father figure and a good representative for German affairs abroad.”

One event more than any other raised Germany’s low estimation of Kohl: the fall of the Berlin Wall. Suddenly, the parochial Pear stepped into the shoes of a statesman, convincing a less-than-eager Mitterrand and a plainly horrified Thatcher that a reunited Germany would be good for Europe. Kohl also talked Gorbachev into withdrawing the occupying Soviet army from East Germany.

Germans, whose country had been humiliated during World War II and heavily garrisoned by the Allies for more than four decades, were suddenly allowed to feel like citizens of a respectable sovereign state. Kohl got all the credit.

“Without German unification, Kohl would no longer be in office,” says opposition parliamentarian Karsten Voigt.

But Kohl’s staying power also says much about his governing style. His control over his own Christian Democratic Union is ruthless. He demands absolute loyalty, and over the years has salted the German federal and state public sectors--and even to some extent the media and private industry--with people who owe him their jobs.

This kind of strength could eventually prove a weakness, however, as Kohl permits himself to be surrounded by loyalists and yes men who are afraid to challenge their protector.

“Not enough critical voices are coming through,” warns Jochen Thies, a journalist and onetime ghostwriter for former Chancellor Helmut Schmidt. “Kohl risks becoming isolated because most people prefer to remain silent.”

Also, by neutralizing potential rivals, the 66-year-old Kohl has removed from the scene any obvious successor. The closest thing to an heir apparent is the Christian Democratic parliamentary boss, Wolfgang Schaeuble, a disciplined Kohl loyalist who has been wheelchair-bound since an assassination attempt in 1990.

“This way of doing things is not providing for a change of power, which is the basis of a functioning system,” Thies says.