Former German chancellor Helmut Kohl dies at 87

Helmut Kohl, the German chancellor credited with reunifying Germany, has died at age 87. The German newspaper Bild reports Kohl died Friday at his home in Ludwigshafen. Kohl, who led Germany from 1982 to 1998, longer than anyone else in the 20th century, helped bring East and West Germany together after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Former U.S. President George H.W. Bush once described Kohl as “the greatest European leader of the second half of the 20th century.” Kohl, along with French President François Mitterrand, was a major force in establishing the European Union and the introduction of the euro to the European economy. Since 2008, following a bad fall, Kohl was confined to a wheelchair.

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