German ex-Chancellor Helmut Schmidt dies at 96 Tuesday Nov 10,2015

 

Helmut Schmidt, who served as West German Chancellor from 1974 to 1982, has died aged 96 on Tuesday Nov 10,2015 afternoon in his home city of Hamburg

Helmut Schmidt, who was a Social Democrat, was an architect of the European Monetary System, which linked EU currencies and helped pave the way to the euro.
He also helped to consolidate Germany's post-war economic boom

In 1982, the coalition led by Helmut Schmidt's party collapsed and he lost power to Helmut Kohl.

Born in a tough, working-class district of Hamburg in 1918, a month after the end of World War I, Helmut Schmidt spent his early years in a Germany wracked by political, economic and social strife.
Aged 14 when the Nazi Party came to power, he became a group leader in the Hitler Youth, joined the German army in 1937 and, during World War II, saw action on both the eastern and western fronts.
Promoted to first lieutenant rank and the recipient of an Iron Cross, Helmut Schmidt was captured by the British after the Battle of the Bulge in the winter of 1944-45.
While in captivity, his fellow prisoners of war convinced him to become a Social Democrat. Joining the party on demobilisation in 1946, he progressed effortlessly through its ranks.
He graduated from Hamburg University in 1949, having been national chairman of the Social Democrats' student wing, and became an economic adviser to the Hamburg government.
He was elected to the federal parliament in 1953, where his verbosity soon earned him the nickname "Schmidt-Schnauze" (Big Mouth Schmidt)

Helmut Schmidt will be remembered for his wit, his abilities on the piano, but also for his chain smoking.

During the last years of his life he refused to extinguish his beloved cigarettes - even while appearing live on television.

The German tabloid newspaper Bild puts it simply: "Germany mourns."



Helmut Schmidt (left) with GDR leader Erich Honecker in East Berlin