Word: schmidts
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Although no athlete, Schmidt at 60 is vigorous and trim: 5 ft. 8 in., 172 Ibs. A chain-smoker of mentholated cigarettes, he drinks no alcohol except for dutiful sips at a dinner or reception. He never refuses a cigar, however. Devoted to his 90-year-old parents, whom he visits at a home for the elderly near his beloved Hamburg, he unfailingly sticks the proffered cigar in his pocket to take to his father. Schmidt and his wife spend every weekend possible in Hamburg. On summer holidays at their cottage on a lake in northern Germany, they are joined...
...Schmidt originally planned to be an architect. Instead, in 1937 at the age of 18, he was drafted into the Wehrmacht and served with an antiaircraft unit that fought on both the Eastern and Western fronts. After being commissioned a first lieutenant, he was captured at the Battle of the Bulge and held as a prisoner of war for six months in Belgium. Earlier, he had joined the Hitler Youth, as did every other boy in his school. His submissive stance is said to have privately troubled Schmidt in later years. Returning after the war to the devastation of Hamburg...
...Schmidt graduated at the top of his class...
...local government at 31 earned him national recognition. In his first try in 1953 he was elected to the Bundestag. In 1969, after two years as S.P.D. Bundestag floor leader, he entered Brandt's national Cabinet as Defense Minister. By the time Brandt began to lose his political authority Schmidt was West Germany's internationally regarded Finance Minister and the Chancellor's increasingly powerful standin. "When occasionally Willy wouldn't show up, it seemed perfectly natural that Helmut would take over the sessions," a Cabinet colleague recalls. Just as naturally, when Brandt resigned after the Guillaume scandal, Schmidt took over...
...popular as he is with the public, Schmidt does not have correspondingly dominant control over his own government, which is a coalition of his own S.P.D. and the middle-road Free Democratic Party. In the surprisingly close 1976 elections, the S.P.D.-F.D.P. coalition ended up with a greatly reduced majority ?253 out of 496 voting seats in the Bundestag. Although F.D.P. today has only 40 seats in the Bundestag compared with the S.P.D.'s 224, the F.D.P. can, and does, exercise disproportionate power in the coalition. With four key portfolios in its hands, the F.D.P. can make its voice...