Helmut Kohl quotes

Helmut Kohl was a German politician who served as Chancellor of Germany for sixteen years. His leadership was instrumental in the reunification of East and West Germany and the creation of the European Union. He played a key role in shaping modern Europe and is remembered as one of Germany's most influential postwar leaders. Here are 63 of his quotes:

The young people of Germany have no problem with Judaism. I too, with my two sons sometimes walk across the Jewish cemetery in Oggersheim.

Helmut Kohl

Peace must be more than the absence of war.

Helmut Kohl

I have been underestimated for decades. I've done very well that way.

Helmut Kohl

We were united not only by political respect for each other, but also by deep mutual sympathy as people.

Helmut Kohl

You didn't just pay lip service to the goal of overcoming the division of Europe and Germany... Rather, you put yourself at the forefront of those who encouraged us on the way to unity.

Helmut Kohl

We Germans have learned from history. We are a peace-loving, freedom-loving people. For us, love of our native country, love of freedom, and the spirit of being a good neighbor always belong together.

Helmut Kohl

The Berlin Wall is perhaps the most visible expression of the moral gulf between free democracy and totalitarian dictatorship.

Helmut Kohl

As long as there is a wall, barbed wire and orders to shoot, there can be no talk of normality in Germany.

Helmut Kohl

Germany is our fatherland; Europe is our future.

Helmut Kohl

A successful industrial nation, meaning a nation with future, can not be organized as a collective holiday resort.

Helmut Kohl

This is a typical journalistic statement: It is correct, but it is not the truth.

Helmut Kohl

I knew that I could never win a referendum in Germany. We would have lost a referendum on the introduction of the Euro. That's quite clear. I would have lost and by seven to three.... If a Chancellor is trying to push something through, he must be a man of power. And if he's smart, he knows when the time is ripe. In one case – the Euro – I was like a dictator ... The Euro is a synonym for Europe. Europe, for the first time, has no more war.

Helmut Kohl

Russia is Germany's most important neighbor in the East, and it will remain so.

Helmut Kohl

George Bush was for me the most important ally on the road to German unity.

Helmut Kohl

The Christian Democrats always made you feel like the poor relation.

Helmut Kohl

The army is under orders to defend every place.

Helmut Kohl

The visionaries of yesterday are the realists of today.

Helmut Kohl

The means of existence of our country will break down, once the watergates are open to the foreigners.

Helmut Kohl

We will move to Berlin - but not to a new republic.

Helmut Kohl

By a common effort, we will soon succeed in tranforming Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Sachsen-Anhalt, Brandenburg, Sachsen and Thüringen into blossoming landscapes, where it is worth to live and work.

Helmut Kohl

I am not the one trying to speed things up. We are being driven.

Helmut Kohl

Revenue and cost have to be in the right relation to each other.

Helmut Kohl