Political life is like this - elections go back and forth. Representative democracy can only be successful if one sits down and says, 'That's it. I will connect myself,' - as I did - 'connect my existence to a political project.' Then you automatically have in your party a lot of people who say, 'If that fails, so do I'.

I don't want to give myself grades. I will leave evaluation of my achievements to history.

My childhood ended in 1942. I was 12, and for the next three years, I lived under incessant bombings. It was a life of constant fear.

Helmut Kohl Quotes