Word: kohl
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...most passionate dispute of his presidency. A gesture of friendship had instead revived memories of the Holocaust and World War II, strained relations between the U.S. and West Germany, and provoked worldwide debate. As the tumult raged on all last week, Reagan and his West German host, Chancellor Helmut Kohl, moved gamely through their appointed rounds, more the prisoners than the proprietors of their enterprise...
Reagan and Kohl next flew to the western town of Bitburg for the reconciliation ceremony. It was this act, symbolizing the restoration of friendship, that stood at the heart of the controversy roiling around them. Buried in the soil of Bitburg were the remains not only of ordinary German fighting men but also of 49 members of the Waffen SS, a branch of the elite Nazi guard that ran the death camps, though the Waffen SS did not serve in that capacity...
After all the anger stirred by the cemetery plans, both Reagan and Kohl were determined to keep the wreath laying there as low-key as possible. They succeeded. Air Force One carried the two leaders into a U.S. air base on the outskirts of Bitburg, a pleasant town in the Eifel hills where 11,000 Americans live in friendship with a roughly equal number of Germans. A motorcade took them through open country, then into a residential area and to the small cemetery. There the flat markers, arranged in 32 rows, had been polished for the visit, and flowers were...
Reagan and Kohl spent just eight minutes at the cemetery. Accompanied by two World War II officers--General Matthew Ridgway, 90, who led the U.S. 82nd Airborne Division, and General Johannes Steinhoff, 71, a former Luftwaffe ace--they walked a path encircling the headstones, then stopped at a gray wall, where four German soldiers attended two tall wreaths. The two Americans and the two Germans simultaneously approached their separate wreaths. Then they stepped back as a German military bugler sounded a German tribute to lost soldiers, I Once Had a Comrade. Kohl and Reagan met some relatives of German soldiers...
...Force One will touch down in Germany on Wednesday morning. Prior to the summit sessions on Friday and Saturday, Reagan will be officially welcomed at the imposing Villa Hammerschmidt and partake of an intimate dinner with Chancellor Helmut Kohl and other foreign leaders at Schloss Falkenlust. Reagan's meetings with the summit participants at the Palais Schaumburg will include a working lunch to consider political issues. After visiting BergenBelsen on Sunday, Reagan and Kohl will fly to Bitburg, 300 miles to the southwest...