Helmut Kohl [File photo]

How do you judge the legacy of a statesman of the stature of Helmut Kohl? It is said that every statesman, or political leader, harbors a dream that they will either be born during a time of global change, or will live through the change and actively take part in it.

It is a human desire to be a part of history altering accomplishments, to be remembered fondly by posterity. Not everyone of course accomplishes that. Some are remembered in ways opposed to what they would have imagined themselves to be. Some opinions change with time.

At the university where I research, one of my fellow researchers has a street sign from East Germany in his office. It reads in English, German and Russian that one is entering the GDR. No one can possibly remember those days, and while travelling across Europe it feels strange even thinking about it. Europe, under the European Union, is nominally united and free. All that, thanks to one man…Helmut Kohl.

However, his legacy will be mixed. In 1947, right after the war, Kohl began working in a conservative Christian Democratic Union youth organization and got a PhD in history and political science in 1958. It was during this time that Kohl wanted to manage the idea that one can be a right winger in a country like Germany, without having too much strings attached. Kohl was always a balancer.

Despite his son of the soil instincts, he tried to keep West Germany not going too far to the right, or too far left. In fact, when the Soviet Union slowly started loosening its grip on Eastern Europe after Glasnost, Kohl understood the defining moment of his life awaits him, even when the Social democrats were wary of antagonizing the Soviets too much. Kohl was lucky in his timing. During the period of Gorbachev's Perestroika on one side, the West was ruled by three Conservatives. Two of them, Thatcher and Reagan were die hard economic free marketers, the kind which has been the norm ever since. Kohl was, however, an old fashioned "soil and pitchfork" type. It was his desperate wish to unify Germany, the country united by language, divided by ideology, the most powerful power of Mittel Europa, the one to decide the continent's destiny.

One Conservative leader saw through it. Britain's Thatcher, contrary to both Gorbachev and Reagan, was extremely opposed to German unification. She understood that Europe needs to be, and will inevitably be dominated by one central power. It was a matter of time that Germany, due to its sheer size, economic strength, demographics, and efficiency, will come to dominate the continent.

Kohl was a terrific diplomat. His greatest achievement was of course the Maastricht treaty. He understood that the biggest problem the continent always faced was a geopolitical rivalry between two central and completely opposed powers of Prussia/Germany and France. Somehow, that rivalry needed to be institutionalized and tempered. In 1991, the Maastricht treaty was signed, when Mitterand of France and Kohl of Germany forever changed the direction of the continent and essentially gave birth to what we now know as the liberal hegemony of the European Union.

It was also during this time that he introduced a young new shy female leader to his party as his protégé. Her name was Angela Merkel. The economic idea, the ideological force of liberalism, and the concept of eastward expansion and ever closer Union were decided, as was the fate of the continent.

Looking back, his legacy will be deemed to be mixed. Of course, no one is questioning his interest in unifying Germany. Division of Germany was one of the geopolitical scourges of the last century and it was inevitable that someday it would be reunited. However, it was Kohl who started the eastward domination of Germany.

Was he an old fashioned realpolitik statesman? Were his ideas of German grand strategy shaped by the age old question of Germany dominating eastern and central Europe via either military or economic means? Or was he genuinely a liberal "one world" ideologue? The question will never be answered satisfactorily.

Right now, however, Europe is divided. The latest PEW survey shows that Europeans on median oppose immigration, trade and transferring sovereignty to the centralized decision making body. Needless to mention, they oppose the ever closer union as well. Austerity and mass migration are two concerns which are driving Europeans even further apart, and that is not going to change anytime soon.

Kohl's vision of a united Europe is anything but true. History has a strange sense of humor, and in a couple of hundred years time, Kohl might even be remembered to be the one who planted the seeds of European implosion again by destroying the precarious balance that existed in 1991.

Sumantra Maitra is a columnist with China.org.cn. For more information please visit:

http://www.ccgp-fushun.com/opinion/SumantraMaitra.htm

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