Wednesday, December 24, 2008
AFP - Wednesday, December 24BERLIN (AFP) - - Germany on Tuesday celebrated the 90th birthday of former chancellor Helmut Schmidt, a chain-smoking, straight-talking elder statesman who has risen to new prominence in recent years.
Schmidt, a centrist Social Democrat (SPD) who led then West Germany from 1974 to 1982, steered it through Cold War tensions and a bloody wave of terror by far-left radicals that shook the young country to its core.
Newspapers across the political spectrum dedicated their front pages to Schmidt, with tributes pouring in for the German leader who championed European integration and embodied realpolitik, or cool, hard-headed politics.
Chancellor Angela Merkel, a conservative, praised Schmidt's steady hand in turbulent times that helped build the reputation of the post-war republic at home and abroad.
"With your presence, drive and steadfastness, you have again and again inspired confidence in people, confidence in the integrity and liberty of our society," she said.
Helmut Kohl, Germany's longest-serving postwar chancellor who succeeded Schmidt in 1982, said his predecessor was among the strongest political figures to emerge in the decades after the Nazis' defeat.
Noting that Schmidt had been faced with a daunting crisis during a series of kidnappings and assassinations of prominent Germans by the Red Army Faction, Kohl said Schmidt had "acted with courage and character despite the immense pressure" facing him.
Gerhard Schroeder, a fellow Social Democrat who helped revive Schmidt's reputation during his 1998 to 2005 stint at the helm of a centre-left coalition government, said the Hamburg native still had wise lessons to offer.
"Like few others in postwar history, he understood how to surmount crises with the courageous intervention of the state," Schroeder wrote in a column for the newsweekly Der Spiegel.
As chancellor, Schmidt preached free-market economics, and vigorously backed the proposed NATO deployment of intermediate-range missiles in Europe, against opposition from the SPD youth wing and a strong German peace movement.
But resistance built up against him in the party, especially on defence matters which dominated debate, when he was hospitalised with an irregular heartbeart in 1981 and had a pacemaker fitted.
A switch of alliance by the liberal Free Democrats towards the Christian Democrats in 1982 finally brought down his government through a no-confidence vote in parliament, which led Kohl to become chancellor.
"I was never interested in power or my career," Schmidt later said. "Those who aspire to power are potentially dangerous people."
Since retiring from politics more than a quarter of a century ago, Schmidt has appeared to grow in stature in Germany as a sought-after public speaker and a guiding light at the prestigious liberal weekly Die Zeit.
His authoritative and often unconventional views on issues such as Germany's dealings with China or its handling of the global recession, delivered in a laconic tone with dry wit, make him a darling of the talk show circuit, and Germans are intensely fond of his wife of 66 years, Loki, a trained biologist.
Germany's top-selling daily, the conservative Bild, is publishing an affectionate feature this week with 90 of Schmidt's most quotable bon mots, including advice for aspiring politicians: "One needs the will. And cigarettes."
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