Helmut Kohl dies at 87

Helmut Kohl, Germany’s ex-chancellor and architect of reunification in 1990, has died at 87.

Kohl led Germany for 16 years (from 1982 to 1998). He is credited with bringing East and West Germany together after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Together with his French ally President Francois Mitterrand, he was responsible for the introduction of the euro.

European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker has ordered flags at EU institutions to be flown at half-mast.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Kohl’s former protegee who later called for his resignation over a political funding scandal, said his death filled her with deep sadness.

“Helmut Kohl’s efforts brought about the two greatest achievements in German politics of recent decades – German reunification and European unity,” she said.

“Helmut Kohl understood that the two things were inseparable.”

For his part, Mr Juncker said in a tweet: “Helmut’s death hurts me deeply.” “My mentor, my friend, the very essence of Europe, he will be greatly, greatly missed,” he added.

Former US President George HW Bush paid tribute to the man he knew while in office from 1989 to 1993 as a “true friend of freedom” and “one of the greatest leaders in post-war Europe”.