BERLIN, Germany (AFP) — German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s spokesperson Steffen Seibert on Friday expressed “deep sorrow over a great German and a great European” on news that Helmut Kohl had died. Merkel’s chancellery chief-of-staff Peter Altmaier said that “we owe an infinite debt to Helmut Kohl: for our freedom, for our unity, for our Europe.”

BERLIN, Germany (AFP) — Germany’s longest serving post-war leader, Helmut Kohl, the father of German reunification and an architect of European integration, died Friday at the age of 87. Kohl, a passionate European, helped long-divided Germany navigate the traumatic transition to a reunified country, and later worked with France’s Francois Mitterand to put Germany at the core of the European project. Tributes poured in for the man former United States president George H.W. Bush hailed […]