Word: kohl
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...parliamentary ploy bears the sinister label of Königsmord (murder of a king), but the intent is entirely bloodless. As soon as Chancellor Helmut Schmidt's ruling coalition crumbled two weeks ago, Opposition Leader Helmut Kohl pressed ahead with his plan to become West Germany's first Christian Democratic Chancellor in 13 years. Rebuffing Schmidt's call for elections, Kohl prepared to introduce a rarely used vote of no confidence in the Bundestag to bring down Schmidt's minority government immediately. If his strategy works, Kohl will move into the modern glass-and-steel Chancellery...
...staid predictability of Bonn politics quickly took on the intrigue of a Florentine court last week. Initially, Kohl was confident that former Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher, leader of the centrist Free Democrats who bolted Schmidt's government, could deliver at least 33 votes from his party's 51 members of parliament. This total would provide Kohl 259 votes, when added to the 226 of his coalition. Schmidt's S.P.D. has only 215 seats, and depended on heavy Free Democrat support to stay in office. Kohl and Genscher had been talking quietly of creating a new center...
...Kohl and Genscher, however, were unprepared for two challenges that made their task more complicated and the ultimate outcome less certain. Genscher was confronted by an outburst of opposition from left-leaning elements in his party about the wisdom of breaking with the Social Democrats. And Franz Josef Strauss, leader of the Christian Social Union, the Christian Democratic Union's sister party in Bavaria, raised his thunderous voice against the notion of merging with the Free Democrats. Insisting that "a marriage without love" was not destined to endure, Strauss issued a "nonnegotiable" demand for national elections...
...Kohl has also had to struggle to escape from the shadow of his coalition part ner in adroitly Christian Social Union Leader Franz Josef Strauss, who adroitly outmaneuvered him to become the C.D.U./C.S.U. candidate for Chancellor in the 1980 federal elections. Supporters argue that Kohl's apparent lack of resolve in facing down the wily Bavarian is just a reflection of his desire to avoid harmful political confrontation. He has even been known to come to the aid of Schmidt when the Chancellor was under attack in the Bundestag from leftists in his own party. seem its drawbacks...
...Even if Kohl accedes to Schmidt's mantle and becomes an international statesman and media superstar, the chances are good that he will remain a provincial at heart. Kohl still prefers his cluttered office in Mainz to the C.D.U. 's marble music, in the German capital. A devotee of jazz and classical music, the master of a world-class wine cellar in his home outside Ludwigshafen, he also admits a fondness for television westerns and pizza. Recalling their eleven-year courtship, his wife Hannelore says, "I got three to four letters a week from him, amounting to over...