Helmut Kohl - RIP

As the cliché goes, some are born to greatness, while others have it thrust upon them.  Helmut Kohl became German Chancellor in an unusual way.  In most parliamentary democracies, a successful “no-confidence” vote forces the government that lost the vote to call for a new election.  That government is forced to resign but continues in office as a caretaker government until the newly-called election determines the make-up of the new government.  In Germany, there is what is called a Constructive vote of no confidence.  This allows a parliament to withdraw confidence in a government and allow a new government to take over immediately if there is the prospect of a majority to support a new government to take its place.  Article 67 of the German Basic Law states:

Article 67. (1) The Bundestag can express its lack of confidence in the Federal Chancellor only by electing a successor with the majority of its members and by requesting the Federal President to dismiss the Federal Chancellor. The Federal President must comply with the request and appoint the person elected.

(2) Forty-eight hours must elapse between the motion and the election.

This was how Helmut Kohl became chancellor in 1982.  At that time, the ruling Social Democratic Party [SPD - the chancellor was Helmut Schmidt] was in a coalition government with the Free Democratic Party [FDP – led by Hans-Dietrich Genscher, Schmidt’s foreign minister].  By the fall of 1982, the FDP disagreed with the SPD over economic policy.  This disagreement prompted the FDP to leave the SPD-FDP coalition and join with the Christian Democratic Union [CDU].  The FDP switched sides, Schmidt lost the vote, and Kohl was immediately sworn in as Chancellor.  Helmut Kohl remained Chancellor of Germany until 1998.

Helmut Kohl died on June 16, 2017.  He was 87.  He was Germany’s longest-serving Chancellor since World War II.  He played a significant part in ending the Cold War.  His part in that was to allow the US to base Pershing II missiles in West Germany.  At the time, the Soviet Union had deployed nuclear-capable SS-20 intermediate-range ballistic missiles.  Chancellor Schmidt argued the Europeans needed a similar weapon to deter possible Soviet use of the SS-20 [and any other aggression].  Ironically, Chancellor Schmidt’s own party was deeply divided over whether to allow US deployment of such a deterrent on German soil.  Helmut Kohl’s CDU party had no such divide.  Over the course of two years of negotiations, it boiled down to the Soviets desiring to keep almost 600 nuclear warheads in Eastern Europe if the US canceled the deployment of the Pershing IIs and the ground-launched cruise missiles in other NATO countries.  The US didn’t like the Soviet idea and deployed the Pershing IIs in November 1983.  The Soviets walked out of the INF negotiations.  In 1987 on his own initiative, Kohl decided to remove older Pershing Ia missiles.  The Soviets eventually came back to the bargaining table. Because Helmut Kohl allowed the Pershing II deployment, and demonstrated good faith by getting rid of the Pershing Ia missiles, the US and the Soviets eventually agreed to eliminate an entire class of nuclear weapons in September 1987.

Helmut Kohl will be remembered as the “Reunification Chancellor”.  He made the reunification of Germany happen despite misgivings from the Soviets, the French, and the British.  How did he do it?  I found this nugget from a National Public Radio article published the day Kohl died:

"For 70 percent of the time that he was in office he looked like he was semi-asleep,"

John Kornblum, U.S. ambassador to Germany during Kohl's final years in power, told

NPR's Eric Westervelt. "He wasn't one of these people out ordering people around. He

spent much more time talking with people on the phone and getting a feel for what

was going on. He schmoozed all the time. But when it came time to do something, he did something."

He was a politician, and from what the article implies, he was a pretty good one.  He listened more than he spoke.  When Francois Mitterrand voiced his skepticism of German reunification, Kohl persuaded him the Germans had learned from World War II, and that the best way for Germany to be a good neighbor was to be integrated with the rest of Europe – financially, economically, and politically.  Kohl saw German reunification and European integration as being two sides of the same coin.  He earned goodwill of Mitterrand and Margaret Thatcher [albeit grudgingly] by renouncing German claims to Polish land, by recognizing the Oder-Neisse line [set after World War II] as the permanent German-Polish border.  He won over Mikhail Gorbachev by pledging to pay billions of German Deutschmarks to pay for the withdrawal of Soviet troops from East Germany.  Some would call that a very expensive bribe, but it did the trick.  Gorbachev used to make references to a “common European home”, and Kohl’s desire for a unified Germany in an integrated Europe echoed that theme.  Cynics would think that was telling Gorbachev what he wanted to hear, but Kohl followed his own rhetoric with concrete action.

The fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 took all of us by surprise [it happened the day before I turned 27].  Helmut Kohl was on a visit to Poland.  He was just sitting down to eat dinner when he got word of the events of November 9^th.    He cut short his visit and rushed to Berlin.  His critics thought Kohl lacked the vision to make reunification a reality, but in less than three weeks he proposed a 10-point plan for reunification.  In presenting this plan, it included economic assistance, a kind of confederation between the two German states, a wish to strengthen the European Community [“We see the process of regaining German unity as a European matter…”].  He called for a more-democratic East Germany with free and fair elections that included opposition parties.  He sent a personal letter to the Francois Mitterrand, which included a time-line for further steps at the EC level regarding the economic and monetary union. 

As travel between East and West Germany became more routine, the East German political structure began to erode.  This wasn’t due to anything Kohl himself did – that credit goes to the people of East Germany, and to the people of the former Warsaw Pact countries that threw off the Communist yoke in 1989.  But to his credit Helmut Kohl saw his shot and he took it.  The East German Christian Democrats [the sister party to Kohl’s own CDU] and their allies made reunification the major issue for their campaign in the upcoming March 1990 elections.  The East German Christian Democrats won the election and got to form the first freely-elected government in East Germany.  Helmut Kohl had an ideological twin in East Germany - Lothar de Maizière.  Two months after de Maizière formed his government, he and Kohl signed the German Treaty on the Creation of a Monetary, Economic and Social Union, which entered into force on 1 July.  To keep East German workers in East Germany [and to keep them from overwhelming West Germany], Kohl introduced the Deutschmark in East Germany, and allowed East Germans to swap their weaker East German Marks at a through a 1-to-1 conversion rate.  He did this despite warnings from the German Bundesbank.  Once the monetary and economic union happened, the political union followed very quickly.  The four post-World War II occupying powers [US, UK, Soviet Union, and France] agreed to let Germany to regain total sovereignty.  East Germany reconstituted itself into five Länder, and each Länder joined West Germany under the Basic Law.  The reunification of Germany took effect October 3, 1990.  Helmut Kohl was the last chancellor of West Germany, and the first chancellor of a post-war united Germany.  None of this would have happened had not the Soviet empire in Eastern Europe crumbled.  But, Helmut Kohl saw an opening, adapted to events on the fly, and accelerated events to such a point that something I thought would not happen in my lifetime [the reunification of Germany] became a reality.  I believe his ability to schmooze with other world leaders was key to the reunification.

As I mentioned before, Kohl renounced any German claims to Polish lands east of the Oder-Neisse line.  He went one step further and did the same with the Czech Republic.  Kohl made a treaty with them where Germany renounced any claims to the Sudetenland.  Once Germany reunited, Kohl turned his attention to the European Community.  Helmut Kohl and Francois Mitterrand were the prime movers to make the Maastricht Treaty a reality.  Now most European countries have the same currency [the Euro], and travel between member countries is as easy as travel between states within the United States.  While Europe doesn’t always speak with one voice, the European Union that resulted from the Maastricht Treaty is a more-unified Europe, where we are seeing more coordination between the member countries.  The most recent example of this coordination and cooperation is the economic sanctions imposed by the EU on Russia in the wake of their illegal annexation of Crimea.   

More important than the entity that is the European Union, there is the ideal of the European Union.  The EU is a strong pillar of the post-Cold War order.  To borrow a phrase from RFE/RL’s Brian Whitmore, the EU stands for a world where small countries have the same rights as big countries.  The sovereignty of smaller countries is no less sacrosanct than those of the larger countries and is, therefore, unconditional.  All countries are created equal.  That belief has brought peace and stability to Europe.  This contrasts with countries like Russia, who believe that smaller states must be subservient to the larger states.  Countries like Ukraine and Georgia want to join the EU, and desire to leave behind their past when they were vassals of the Soviet Union.  Eugene Rumer’s June 30, 2016 piece on the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace website lists the EU’s values as:

1.      Respecting the independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity of all nations;

2.      Refraining from using force to settle international disputes;

3.      Allowing freedom of choice by all states to pursue their foreign policies and enter into alliances;

4.      Demonstrating respect for fundamental human rights and personal freedoms in states’ domestic political arrangements.

Since late 2013, thousands of Ukrainians have died for this ideal.  They want to be part of Europe and not to be subservient to Russia.  They desire to chart their own course, and not to have their course charted by someone else.  In no small way, THAT is Helmut Kohl’s legacy.

Helmut Kohl hung around German politics a little too long.  Social Democrat Gerhard Schröder unseated him as German chancellor in 1998.  Two years later, it was revealed that Kohl had a secret slush fund he could use to help fellow CDU politicians.  The scheme of illegal campaign financing did not enrich Kohl personally, but it did tarnish his reputation to the extent that Angela Merkel, once a Kohl protégé, took advantage of to become the CDU leader [and now German chancellor].  Over the passage of time, this one scandal has receded from memory while Kohl’s legacy – the reunification of Germany and the foundation of the European Union as we know it – remains intact.  At first it seemed that Helmut Kohl had greatness thrust upon him.  But given his performance on the world stage, it appears that Helmut Kohl was instead “born to greatness.”  His place in history is secure. 

RIP Helmut Kohl. 

Helmut Kohl at the gate he opened...

What's Old Is New Again...The Sports Edition

Whenever I hear of athletes abusing steroids and other such performance-enhancing drugs [PEDs], one of the first things that comes to mind is “East German swimmers.”  I was almost fourteen years old when the 1976 Montreal Olympic Games took place.  Besides Nadia Comenici’s perfection in gymnastics, for me the enduring image of those games is the female swimmers from East Germany.  They were bigger, stronger, and faster than anybody else in the pool.  American swimmers, Shirley Babashoff being the most outspoken of the bunch, complained of being at a competitive disadvantage.  The East German girls were built like men, they sounded like men, and they dominated.  Something was just not quite right.  But the Americans were labelled as “sore losers.”  Then the Berlin Wall came down, and all of East Germany’s dirty little secrets about doping all their athletes were no longer secret.  It turns out the grapes weren’t so sour after all.  

During the Cold War international sports competitions were but one of the stages where countries on both sides of the Iron Curtain competed to demonstrated the superiority of their respective political systems.  To insure their “superiority”, Eastern bloc nations, notably the Soviet Union and the German Democratic Republic [DDR, or East Germany for short] had state-instituted doping regimes for their athletes. The DDR’s Stasi drugged more than 10,000 athletes with performance-enhancing substances, some of them without their knowledge.  East German athletes under the age of eighteen were given “little blue pills” and told they were taking “vitamins”.  Older athletes were sworn to secrecy about their “supplements”.  The East German authorities cared nothing for the side effects these drugs might have on their athletes.  The athletes were considered to be soldiers in the Cold War struggle against the capitalist West and were seen as expendable.  It was a Faustian bargain for the athletes.  Medal-winning performances resulted in certain perks – money, better living conditions, and better cars and other goods than what was afforded to the “proletariat”.  But the price they paid was steep.  These athletes have had myriad health problems.  Some died young, others had miscarriages, stillbirths and children with birth defects.  Others suffer from depression, cancer, liver damage, and damage to their endocrine and cardiovascular systems.  

So why do I bring up past PED abuse by countries that no longer exist?  In keeping with the theme of “what is old is new again”, there’s a huge controversy involving the current crop of Russian athletes and PED abuse.  Last year the German broadcaster ARD entitled “Top Secret Doping: How Russia Makes Its Winners.”  After this exposé aired, the World Anti-Doping Agency [WADA] established an Independent Commission to conduct an inquiry into the allegations made in the German broadcast.  Last November the IC released its findings.  The report is as detailed as it is damning.  Violations reported include [but are not restricted to] and are quoted verbatim from the report:  

Within the scope of this investigation, there is clear evidence of a “Systemic Culture of Doping in Russian Sport” perpetuated, in part, although not exclusively, through coaches and administrators, whose collective actions at times extended beyond mere administrative violations into potentially criminal acts.  

Evidence of extensive PED use is supported and confirmed by audio and video evidence.  It is also documented by witness statements that corroborate the original allegations of the German television documentary and which provide further details regarding the extensive use of PEDs and blood doping within the Russian federation.  

This network created an atmosphere in which an athlete’s choice was frequently limited to accepting the prescribed and mandated doping regimen or not being a member of the national team.  

The coaches wrongfully encouraged their athletes, or athletes chose to believe that all other nations were following similar illicit training methods, thereby creating a self-justification that ‘sport doping’ and the non-enforcement of violations were competitive necessities and perhaps even patriotic obligations.  

The IC investigation found overwhelming evidence against a number of senior national team coaches who were involved in collusion to illicitly obtain details of suspicious ABP testing results against their athletes. Such conduct demonstrates an embedded and institutionalized process designed to secure winning at any cost.  

On the secret whistleblower recordings, coaches discussed with athletes, in their own words, how ABP testing can be circumvented, the problems ARAF has had with preventing ABP from capturing violations of their athletes and what they can do about it in the future, including the suggestion of administering newly developed PEDs that will escape detection.   

Athletes under current anti-doping sanctions were allowed to compete during the period of the sanctions, contrary to a specific Code prohibition.  

There was collusion between the President of ARAF and the laboratory Director Rodchenkov to conceal positive drug tests by swapping clean samples for known dirty “A” samples at the Moscow lab.  Athletes paid both the President and the Director for the benefit of such services.  

Interviews with athletes and secret recordings led to the finding that within Athletics, (which is the only sport that the IC was mandated to investigate) there were a series of high-level individuals involved, who, for monetary payments, conspired to conceal positive doping samples, leading to the conclusion that there was likely a system in Russia for cover-ups in doping.  

The Deputy Director General of the Russian Federal Research Center of Physical Culture and Sports (VNIIFK) provided banned substances to Russian athletes and was very active in the conspiracy to cover-up athletes’ positive tests in exchange for a percentage of their winnings.  

Russian law enforcement agencies were involved in the efforts to interfere with the integrity of the samples.  

Deliberate efforts were made to stretch the time between notice and the provision of samples for analysis, to provide opportunity for obstructive actions in relation to the tests.  

Coaches were complicit in attempting to prevent access to athletes for testing, thereby obstructing the doping control process.  

The IC determined that there were many occasions on which Russian athletes participating in athletics were given advance notice of proposed out-of-competition tests and were thus able to avoid being tested or take steps to render the tests ineffective.  

The IC found examples of the use of false identities for purposes of evading testing.  

RUSADA DCOs [Doping Control Officers] routinely accept bribes from the athletes, thereby ensuring that the doping control test will not be effective.  

The Moscow laboratory is not operationally independent from RUSADA or the Ministry of Sport.  Its impartiality, judgment and integrity were compromised by the surveillance of the FSB within the laboratory during the Sochi Winter Olympic Games.  

The apprehension of surveillance by the staff in the Moscow laboratory caused by FSB representatives regularly visiting the laboratory and weekly discussions occurring between the Moscow laboratory Director and the Russian Security service affect the impartiality, judgment and integrity of the laboratory.  

The IC concludes that there was direct intimidation and interference by the Russian state with the Moscow laboratory operations.  

Why is there such pervasive doping in Russia?  It starts at the top.  Sport is part and parcel of Vladimir Putin’s image.  In contrast to his old, often inebriated and decrepit predecessor Boris Yeltsin, Putin portrays himself as a man of action.  Photos of Putin the Manly Man are all over the internet.  He can be seen swimming the butterfly in frigid waters, playing hockey, sparring with judo partners, fishing, hunting, and riding horseback bare-chested, flying airplanes, driving race cars, riding motorcycles, etc.  You get the picture.  But there’s more than just Putin’s image at stake.  He sees his tenure as Russian president as a return of Russia to “great power” status.  When the Soviet Union was a great power, it was regularly at the top of medal tables in the Olympics and other international sports competitions.  The Soviet Union enjoyed the prestige of being a major sports power.  Putin wants that prestige for Russia.  He has been able to attract major sporting events to Russia – 2013 World Track and Field championships in Moscow, the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics and the 2018 FIFA World Cup.  In 2014 the Russian Formula 1 Gran Prix resumed in Sochi after a 100-year absence.  Events such as these give Putin’s regime legitimacy in the eyes of the international community.  There’s another benefit for the regime.  The construction projects that go with these events give Putin’s cronies more opportunities to plunder the Russian treasury, while they provide Putin “services” as thanks in return.  That’s just one of the ways the system works in Russia – as long as the oligarchs stay out of politics and support the Collective Putin, they get to keep what they steal.  

After publication of the Independent Committee’s report, the International Association of Athletics Federations [IAAF] banned Russian track and field athletes from international competitions over which it has jurisdiction.  The 2016 Rio Olympics is one such competition.  The IAAF is expected to rule next month whether to lift the Russian team’s suspension.  International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach said that if WADA “prove the allegations true, it would represent a shocking new dimension in doping with an, until now, unprecedented level of criminality.”  Bach also suggested the entire Russian Olympic team could be banned from Rio.  Such a thing is unheard of for competition violations.  But it is a sign of the times that such an action is being contemplated, much less discussed publicly.  This discussion would not have happened during the Soviet era.  If the IOC takes action to ban Russia from the Rio Games, this would be a huge blow to Vladimir Putin’s quest for enhanced prestige.  “Great powers” don’t get banned from the Olympics.  Russia would become an international athletics pariah like South Africa was during the time of apartheid.  

A quote from a senior representative of the IAAF Anti-Doping department is in the report:  

“To be frank there is no surprise to anybody that the former Soviet Union countries have a doping culture deeply incurred [sic] in the sport. It works for Russia, it works for Ukraine, works for Belarus, for Kazakhstan, works for all the former Soviet Union countries.”  

What is old is definitely new again…

November 9th - a date in German History

Wow.  It’s been 25 years since the Berlin Wall came down.  Where has the time gone?  I was still a 2Lt at Beale AFB, CA, getting ready to turn 27 the next day.  It was just another day for Carol and I and our two dogs.  As is my wont I was channel surfing on TV when I saw this strange image on CNN.  There were people standing on top of the Berlin Wall.  Ever since I could remember, I knew that whoever came close to the Wall from the East German side usually ended up dead, and yet here were all these people standing on it.  What the hell happened?

In the summer of 1989, Hungary [still a Warsaw Pact country at the time] pretty much dismantled their armed border with Austria.  East Germans vacationing in Hungary found this out and began to flee to Austria by the thousands.  After a while the Hungarians refused to let more East Germans cross into Austria.  Instead of returning to East Germany, these Germans flooded the West German embassy in Budapest.  The same thing happened in Czechoslovakia.  East Germans flooded the West German embassy in Prague and refused to leave.  This situation gained international attention.  Ultimately, Erich Honecker allowed these “refugees” to go to the West, but only by sealed trains via East Germany. 

While many East Germans squatted in the West German embassies, many East Germans in Leipzig began peaceful protests after each Monday’s “prayer for peace.”  Their demands were to be given the freedom to travel anywhere and the right to elect a democratic government.  The backdrop of all these activities was Mikhail Gorbachev’s glasnost [“openness”] and perestroika [“restructuring”]. The peaceful protests from Leipzig spread across the country that culminated in the Alexanderplatz demonstration in Berlin on November 4^th.  Prior to the Alexanderplatz demonstration, Erich Honecker [who built the Wall in 1961 and who had ruled the East German Communists since 1971] “resigned” on October 18^th.  He had dispatched troops to deal with the protests spreading across the country, but local Communist party bosses prevented them from firing on their own people.  The situation was getting out of hand, and Honecker was also very ill at the time.  So on October 18^th, the East German Politburo removed Honecker [saying he “requested to be released” from his posts] and replaced him with Egon Krenz.  Apparently these actions were taken with Mikhail Gorbachev’s blessing. 

As wave of East Germans leaving their country by whatever means increased, Egon Krenz decided on November 9^th to allow East Germans to go to the West directly through East German-West German checkpoints, including Berlin.  The word got out and spread quickly.  So many East Berliners descended upon the Wall that the guards were overwhelmed- they didn’t know what to do.  They couldn’t find anybody to take responsibility for using lethal force against those who wished to go west.  As East Berliners came pouring through the Wall with no guards to stop them, West Berliners started to jump on top of the Wall.  They were soon joined by many of their East Berlin brethren.  It was all so surreal and seemed to happen so quickly.  I had the sense that Cold Warriors everywhere would have the same question that Wiley E. Coyote had when he finally caught the Roadrunner – now what?

There must be something weird in Germany that allows strange, albeit historic events to happen on November 9^th.  In October 1918, World War I was still raging, but the writing was on the wall [no pun intended] as to the outcome.  The German High Seas Fleet had been inactive in port since the Battle of Jutland in 1916.  But the Naval High Command decided it would launch one last “glory ride” against the Royal Navy.  Sailors in Wilhelmshaven and Kiel saw this as a suicide mission and mutinied, thus sparking the November Revolution.  The sailors began to elect worker and soldier councils like the Soviets from the Bolshevik Revolution.  These councils took over military and civil powers in many cities, including Munich.  Rebellion spread across Germany which led to the proclamation of a republic on November 9^th.  On that date, German Chancellor Prince Max of Baden announced Kaiser Wilhelm II’s abdication from the German and Prussian thrones. He handed the German government over to Freidrich Ebert, thus beginning Germany’s road to become a democratic nation.

In November 1923, a group of approximately 2,000 men marched in the streets of Munich to seize power in that city.  Once secure in Munich, this band of brawlers planned to march on the Weimar Republic [inspired by Mussolini’s March on Rome].  Their grievance –these nationalists claimed the German army of World War I was undefeated on the battlefield, only to be “stabbed in the back” by Marxists on the home front.  They dubbed the people who did the stabbing as the November Criminals.  Between 1920 and 1923, the Bürgerbräukeller [one of the largest beer halls in Munich] served as a meeting place for a small group called the German Workers Party, later to be known as the National Socialist German Workers Party – Nazis for short.  Their leader was an ex-corporal from the German Army named Adolf Hitler.  Hitler saw an opportunity to seize power when the Bavarian State Commissioner was giving a speech at the Bürgerbräukeller on November 8^th.  The state commissioner [Gustav von Kahr], head of the Bavarian State Police [Hans Ritter von Seisser] and a Reichswehr general [Otto von Lossow] ruled Bavaria under a state of emergency.  They were all present at the Bürgerbräukeller on November 8^th.  Hitler’s men surrounded the Bürgerbräukeller, rounded up the three men and “persuaded” them to support what became the Beer Hall Putsch.  Hitler made a mistake, though.  He left the beer hall to attend to another matter, and while he was away Erich Ludendorff released Kahr and the others.  When Hitler realized his crass mistake, he and his men marched on the Bavarian Defense Ministry on November 9^th, but the putsch was easily put down in a hail of gunfire.  Hitler was arrested for treason and sent to jail, where he decided he would use legal means to gain power.

Fifteen years later in 1938, another historic event occurred on November 9^th.  This occasion is remembered as Kristallnacht – the Night of Broken Glass.  On November 7^th, a German diplomat in Paris named Ernst vom Rath was shot by a Polish Jew named Herschel Grynszpan.  His grievance was the deportation of Polish Jews from Germany back to Poland.  No one knows why Grynszpan picked vom Rath as his target, but vom Rath died from his injuries on November 9^th.  The Nazis used this as a pretext to organize a pogrom against Germany’s Jews.  On that evening, troops from both the SA and the SS [wearing civilian clothes] went about destroying Jewish property, to include stores, businesses, homes, cemeteries and synagogues.  Jews were rounded up – some thrown into jails, others sent to concentration camps.  Others were murdered.  Police all over Germany let it happen.  Kristallnacht has been cited by some as the beginning of the Holocaust.

November 9^th has brought many things to Germany – the end of the German Empire, the rise to prominence of the Nazi Party, the beginning of the Holocaust, and the beginning of the end of the Cold War.  That’s a lot of history packed into a single date, but there it is.