Rise to power and first cabinet, 1982–1983 On 1 October 1982, the CDU proposed a constructive vote of no confidence, which was supported by the FDP. The motion carried — to date, the only time that a chancellor has been deposed in this manner. Three days later, the Bundestag voted in a new CDU/CSU-FDP coalition cabinet, with Kohl as chancellor. Many of the important details of the new coalition had been hammered out on 20 September, though minor details were reportedly still being negotiated as the vote took place. Though Kohl's election was done according to the
Basic Law, it came amid some controversy. The FDP had fought its 1980 campaign on the side of the SPD and even placed Chancellor Schmidt on some of their campaign posters. There were also doubts that the new government had the support of a majority of the people. In answer, the new government aimed for new elections at the earliest possible date. Polls suggested that a clear majority was indeed within reach. As the Basic Law only allows the dissolution of parliament after an unsuccessful confidence motion, Kohl had to take another controversial move: he called for a confidence vote only a month after being sworn in, which he intentionally lost because the members of his coalition abstained. President Karl Carstens then dissolved the Bundestag at Kohl's request and called new elections. The move was controversial, as the coalition parties denied their votes to the same man they had elected Chancellor a month before and whom they wanted to re-elect after the parliamentary election. However, this step was condoned by the German
Federal Constitutional Court as a legal instrument and was again applied by SPD Chancellor
Gerhard Schröder in 2005.
Second cabinet, 1983–1987 In the
federal elections of March 1983, Kohl won a resounding victory. The CDU/CSU won 48.8%, while the FDP won 7.0%. Some opposition members of the Bundestag, angered by what SPD figures in the Hessian regional elections had called the FDP's "betrayal in Bonn", asked the Federal Constitutional Court to declare the whole proceeding unconstitutional. It denied their claim but did set restrictions on a similar move in the future. The second Kohl cabinet pushed through several controversial plans, including the stationing of
NATO midrange missiles, against major opposition from the peace movement. On 22 September 1984, Kohl met French president
François Mitterrand at
Verdun, where the
Battle of Verdun between France and Germany had taken place during
World War I. Together, they commemorated the deaths of both World Wars. The photograph, which depicted
their minutes-long handshake, became an important symbol of French-German reconciliation. Kohl and Mitterrand developed a close political relationship, forming an important motor for
European integration. Together they laid the foundations for European projects, like
Eurocorps and
Arte. In 1985, alongside European leaders from 16 other countries, they founded
Eureka: a research and development network of national funding ministries and agencies (distinct from the European Union) that fund and support collaborative international projects. This French-German cooperation was also vital for important European projects, like the
Treaty of Maastricht and the Euro. In 1985, Kohl and US President
Ronald Reagan, as part of a plan to observe the 40th anniversary of
V-E Day, saw an opportunity to demonstrate the strength of the friendship that existed between Germany and its former foe. During a November 1984 visit to the White House, Kohl appealed to Reagan to join him in symbolising the reconciliation of their two countries at a German military cemetery. Reagan visited Germany as part of the
11th G7 summit in Bonn; then he and Kohl visited
Bergen-Belsen concentration camp on 5 May and the
German military cemetery at Bitburg. There was widespread outrage when the media reported that this cemetery had the graves of SS soldiers but no Americans. Reagan considered that escalating Cold War confrontations with the Kremlin required his strong support for Kohl.
Domestic policies Kohl's chancellorship presided over a number of innovative policy measures. Extensions in unemployment benefits for older claimants were introduced, while the benefit for the young unemployed was extended to age 21. In 1986, a child-rearing allowance was introduced to benefit parents when at least one was employed. Informal carers were offered an attendance allowance together with tax incentives, both of which were established with the tax reforms of 1990, and were also guaranteed up to 25 hours a month of professional support, which was supplemented by four weeks of annual holiday relief. In 1984, an early retirement scheme was introduced that offered incentives to employers to replace elderly workers with applicants off the unemployment register. In 1989, a partial retirement plan was introduced under which elderly employees could work half-time and receive 70% of their former salary, "and be credited with 90% of the full social insurance entitlement." In 1984, a Mother and Child Fund was established, providing discretionary grants "to forestall abortions on grounds of material hardship," and in 1986, a 10 Bn DM package of Erziehungsgeld (childcare allowance) was introduced, although according to various studies, this latter initiative was heavily counterbalanced by cuts. In 1989, special provisions were introduced for the older unemployed. Kohl's time as Chancellor also saw some controversial decisions in the field of social policy. Student aid was made reimbursable to the state while the Health Care Reform Act of 1989 introduced the concept by which patients pay up front and are reimbursed, while increasing patient co-payments for hospitalisation, spa visits, dental prostheses, and prescription drugs. In addition, while a 1986 Baby-Year Pensions reform granted women born after 1921 one year of work-credit per child, lawmakers were forced by public protest to phase in supplementary pension benefits for mothers who were born before the cut-off year.
Third cabinet, 1987–1991 meeting with vice-chancellor and foreign minister
Hans-Dietrich Genscher at the
Federal Chancellery in Bonn, 1987 After the
1987 federal elections, Kohl won a slightly reduced majority and formed his
third cabinet. The SPD's candidate for chancellor was the
Minister-President of North Rhine-Westphalia,
Johannes Rau. In 1987, Kohl hosted East German leader
Erich Honecker – the
first ever visit by an East German head of state to West Germany. This is generally seen as a sign that Kohl pursued
Ostpolitik, a policy of
détente between East and West that had been begun by the SPD-led governments (and strongly opposed by Kohl's own CDU) during the 1970s.
Internal struggle for CDU leadership The CDU's general secretary, Heiner Geißler, considered the party to be in a downward spiral following the relatively poor showing in the 1987 elections. Behind the scenes, he attempted to find a majority to unseat Kohl as the party's chairman and replace him with
Lothar Späth, the
Minister-president of
Baden-Württemberg. Before the CDU party convention in
Bremen started on 11 September 1989, Kohl was diagnosed with an inflammation of his prostate. His doctor recommended immediate surgery, but Kohl refused to miss the convention and attended while wearing a
catheter and with his doctor by his side, whom he introduced as his new speech writer. In the end, the "coup" was unsuccessful, as Kohl was re-elected as chairman with 79.52% of the votes. Späth, who did not stand for the position of chairman after support for Kohl became apparent, was punished by his party, failing to be elected as vice-chairman with just 357 of 731 votes. Geißler meanwhile was relieved of his duties as general secretary and replaced by
Volker Rühe.
Road to reunification in 1989. at the
European Council Summit in Strasbourg, 9 December 1989 Following the breach of the
Berlin Wall and the collapse of the East German Communist regime in 1989, Kohl's handling of the East German issue would become the turning point of his chancellorship. Kohl, like most West Germans, was initially caught unaware when the
Socialist Unity Party was toppled in late 1989. Well aware of his constitutional mandate to seek German unity, he immediately moved to make it a reality. Taking advantage of the historic political changes occurring in East Germany, Kohl presented a ten-point plan for "Overcoming the division of Germany and Europe" without consulting his coalition partner, the FDP, or the Western Allies. In February 1990, he visited the Soviet Union seeking a guarantee from
Mikhail Gorbachev that the USSR would allow German reunification to proceed.
One month later, the
Party of Democratic Socialism – the renamed SED – was roundly defeated by a grand coalition headed by the East German counterpart of Kohl's CDU, which ran on a platform of speedy reunification. On 18 May 1990, Kohl signed an economic and social union treaty with East Germany. This treaty stipulated that when reunification took place, it would be under the quicker provisions of Article 23 of the Basic Law. That article stated that any new states could adhere to the Basic Law by a simple majority vote. The alternative would have been the more protracted route of drafting a completely new constitution for the newly reunified country, as provided by Article 146 of the Basic Law. However, the Article 146 process would have opened up contentious issues in West Germany. Even without this to consider, by this time, East Germany was in a state of utter collapse. In contrast, an Article 23 reunification could be completed in as little as six months. Over the objections of
Bundesbank president
Karl Otto Pöhl, he allowed a 1:1 exchange rate for wages, interest and rent between the
West and
East Marks. In the end, this policy would seriously hurt companies in the
new federal states. Together with Foreign Minister
Hans-Dietrich Genscher, Kohl was able to resolve talks with the former Allies of World War II to allow
German reunification. He received assurances from Gorbachev that a reunified Germany would be able to choose which international alliance it wanted to join, although Kohl made no secret that he wanted the reunified Germany to inherit West Germany's seats at NATO and the EC. A reunification treaty was signed on 31 August 1990 and was overwhelmingly approved by both parliaments on 20 September 1990. At midnight
Central European Time on 3 October 1990, East Germany officially ceased to exist, and its territory joined the Federal Republic as the five states of
Brandenburg, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern,
Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and
Thuringia. These states had been the original five states of East Germany before being abolished in 1952 and had been reconstituted in August. East and West Berlin were reunited as a city-state, which became the capital of the enlarged Federal Republic. After the
fall of the Berlin Wall, Kohl affirmed that
former German territories east of the
Oder-Neisse line were definitively part of Poland, thereby relinquishing any claim Germany had to them in a
treaty signed on 14 November 1990 in
Warsaw. Though earlier in March of that year, Kohl caused a diplomatic firestorm when he suggested that a reunified Germany would not accept the Oder–Neisse line, and implied that the Federal Republic might wish to restore the frontier of 1937, by force if necessary. After the statement caused a major international backlash that threatened to halt German reunification, Kohl retracted his comments after knuckling under international rebuke and assured both the United States and the Soviet Union that a reunified Germany would accept the Oder–Neisse line as the final border between Poland and Germany. In 1993, Kohl confirmed, via treaty with the Czech Republic, that Germany would no longer bring forward territorial claims as to the pre-1945
ethnic German Sudetenland. This treaty was a disappointment for the German
Heimatvertriebene ("displaced persons").
After reunification, 1990–1998 in
Washington, D.C., 16 September 1991 Reunification placed Kohl in a momentarily unassailable position. In the
1990 elections – the first free, fair and democratic all-German elections since the
Weimar Republic era – Kohl won by a landslide over opposition candidate and Minister-President of
Saarland,
Oskar Lafontaine. He then formed his
fourth cabinet. After the
federal elections of 1994, Kohl was reelected with a somewhat reduced majority, defeating Minister-President of Rhineland-Palatinate
Rudolf Scharping. The SPD was able to win a majority in the
Bundesrat, which significantly limited Kohl's power. In foreign politics, Kohl was more successful, for instance, getting
Frankfurt am Main as the seat for the
European Central Bank. In 1997, Kohl received the
Vision for Europe Award for his efforts in the unification of Europe. By the late 1990s, Kohl's popularity had dropped amid rising unemployment. He was defeated by a large margin in the
1998 federal elections by the
Minister-President of Lower Saxony, Gerhard Schröder. == Retirement ==