Horst Köhler, who became president of Germany after being a financial engineer behind the reunification of Germany and the creation several decades later from Euro money, died on Saturday in Berlin. He was 81 years old.
The office of the German president, in a declaration On behalf of Mr. Köhler’s family, said he died after a short illness.
Although he was director general of the International Monetary Fund, Köhler was little politically known in Germany before becoming president of the country in 2004. However, he accelerated after taking his Merkel function.
Mr. Köhler advocated to transform Germany into a “land of ideas” that would shape his own future and act as a force for good on the world scene. He called for more daring internal economic reforms and a more international position internationally. In his acceptance speech in May 2004, he declared that “Germany must fight for its place in the 21st century”.
But his daring statements, such as wondering if the unequal standard of life of former Eastern and West Germany could never be lost, have broken taboos in the German political establishment and cost at a price .
In 2010, a year after his second term, Mr. Köhler suddenly resigned in the middle of a criticism dam on the remarks he made on the German soldiers serving in Afghanistan and the peacekeeping missions. His comments, made during a visit to Afghanistan, that German soldiers were deployed to protect German economic interests, attracted the anger of the political opponents who called for the withdrawal of the forces of his country from Afghanistan.
It was the first time in four decades that a German president has left the post – although his successor, Christian Wulff, also resigned, in his case on charges of inappropriate links with businessmen after less than two years of mandate.
The release of Mr. Köhler from the political arena was a political blow for Ms. Merkel, her ally and her close friend. The re -election of Mr. Köhler, member of his Party of the Christian Democratic Union, a year earlier had been considered as a demonstration of party solidarity while Ms. Merkel faced her own re -election in a fractured political space.
Horst Köhler was born on February 22, 1943 in Skierbieszow, Poland. He was the seventh of the eight children, according to his official biography. During the Second World War, his family fled Soviet troops, settling in a city near Leipzig, Germany. Nine years later, they fled again After the 1953 East-German uprising, an anti-Soviet revolt. They lived in several refugee camps before settling in Ludwigsburg, West Germany.
After completing his school and military services, Mr. Köhler studied the economy at the University of Tübingen, graduated in 1969. He then obtained a doctorate. In the university economy in 1977. A year earlier, he started working as a civil servant at the Bonn Ministry of the Economy, which was then the capital of Western Germany.
While Germany was struggling with its reunification in the early 1990s, Mr. Köhler held a front position at the country’s finance ministry. Meanwhile, he was one of the main negotiators of the 1992 Maastricht Treaty, which created the Euro.
From 1993 to 1998, he directed the German Savings Bank Association, an umbrella organization which oversees a network of German banks. He then directed the European Bank for reconstruction and development, which helped Germany and other countries to move to a free market at the end of the Cold War. He also served as advise Chancellor Helmut Kohl.
From May 2000, Mr. Köhler worked for four years as director general of the International Monetary FundWhere he approved a vision of globalization which was more inclusive of developing countries.
However, he remained relatively unknown to the German public and, in 2004, he became president of Germany despite his career creation as a party politician.
After his presidency, he moved his attention to humanitarian work, through a base with his wife, Eva Luise Köhler, who focused on development in Africa and climate change.
Mr. Köhler is survived by his wife; their daughter, Ulrike; A son, Jochen; and four grandchildren.
