World leaders bid farewell to Helmut Kohl as force for European unity
2 July 2017 4:30 PM GMT
Leaders from the United States, Russia and across Europe paid tribute on Saturday to former German chancellor Helmut Kohl as the architect of German reunification and a driving force for European integration.
Kohl, who died on June 16 at 87, was lauded at a ceremony at the European Parliament as a dedicated European who abhorred war by former US President Bill Clinton, Russia Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and other figures. A funeral service was held later on Saturday with 900 invited guests at Speyer Cathedral, where as a teenager Kohl found shelter from World War Two aerial bombings.
His casket was flown by helicopter from Strasbourg to his hometown Ludwigshafen before being carried by boat up the Rhine to Speyer, one of Germany's oldest towns where Kohl took former world leaders including Clinton, George Bush, Mikail Gorbachev, Boris Yeltsin and Margaret Thatcher for private meetings.
"Helmut Kohl gave us the chance to be involved in something bigger than ourselves, bigger than our terms in office and bigger than our fleeting careers," Clinton said in Strasbourg of the man who was German chancellor from 1982 to 1998 and oversaw German reunification in 1990.
The two-hour memorial in Strasbourg, a city that has often changed hands and now lies in France, symbolised the role Kohl played in reconciling the two erstwhile enemies France and Germany while driving European integration forward.
The resting place of many rulers of the Holy Roman Empire, itself a Europe-spanning polity, Speyer Cathedral was seen by Kohl as a symbol of European unity. AGENCIES
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