25 June, 2017
"His legacy will live on", Trump said in a White House statement.
He visited Switzerland several times as head of the German government.
Elation over German reunification ebbed amid the harsh realities of its cost and the difficulties of integrating east and west, but Kohl's coalition squeaked by again in 1994. "His name will forever be associated with the deepening of the European Union and the creation of the common European currency".
"We are in sorrow", his Christian Democratic Union (CDU) said on Twitter in announcing his death.
Gorbachev, 86, paid special tribute to the way Kohl led Germany through the process of reunification, which was "not without risk". Kohl refused to identify the donors. He remained in power for 16 years until he lost the Bundestag election against SPD candidate Gerhard Schröder in 1998. Within weeks, Kohl proposes an informal confederation that would lead to eventual German reunification.
Kohl died in the morning in his home in Ludwigshafen, in western Germany.
In 2011, President Bill Clinton called Kohl "the most important European statesman since World War II", adding that "the 21st century in Europe really began on his watch".
Kohl married Maike Richter, an economy ministry aide 35 years his junior, after his fall, and seven years after Hannelore died.
On behalf of the people of the United Kingdom I pay tribute to the role he played in helping to end the Cold War and reunify Germany.
Macron also addressed to German chancellor Angela Merkel and to Germany his testimony of sympathy and friendship.
He says Kohl "will be remembered in Russian Federation as a staunch advocate of a friendly relationship between our countries". These relationships became invaluable when East Germany began to unexpectedly collapse in 1989: Kohl was able to address concerns of global parties on all sides while also on the domestic intricacies of reunification.
"Believe me, Helmut Kohl will never become chancellor", proclaimed his arch-rival among conservatives, Bavarian Premier Franz Josef Strauss, after Kohl lost the 1976 election, "At the age of 90, he'll write his memoirs, Forty Years as a Chancellor Candidate".
"A great German has died", Gabriel said.
In an appearance at the German Historical Museum in Berlin in 2012 to mark 30 years since he became chancellor, Mr Kohl reminded his audience of why he had championed European unity and urged EU leaders to continue on the path of closer integration despite the crisis of the euro.
Kohl was reluctant to view united Germany as a major power because of its Nazi past.
He is fondly remembered as the man who brought East and West Germany together after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. At 6-foot-4 inches tall and weighing a publicly-acknowledged 320 pounds (his actual weight was "a state secret", he joked), Kohl had incredible stamina and capacity for work.
He says Kohl "hated war, but he detested totalitarianism even more" and so devoted his life to strengthening democracy in West Germany.
Former U.S. President George H.W. Bush said Kohl was one of the greatest leaders in post-war Germany and he and his wife mourned the loss of the "true friend of freedom".
