Celebrity Deathwatch: Hannelore Kohl, Wife of Former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, 68

["Deathwatch Central" <cdw@slick.org>]

http://www.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/europe/07/05/germany.kohl/index.html

Helmut Kohl's wife commits suicide
July 5, 2001 Posted: 11:35 AM EDT (1535 GMT)

BERLIN, Germany -- The wife of former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl has
committed suicide at the age of 68.

Hannelore Kohl was found dead on Thursday at the family's home in the
western city of Ludwigshafen.

Her husband's office later issued a statement saying she had committed
suicide.

Hannelore Kohl had been suffering for seven years from a painful sunlight
allergy that virtually kept her a prisoner indoors.

She had to "spend the last 15 months without daylight in her house" and
could leave and enter her home only in total darkness, the statement said.

As her pain worsened, she was given stronger medication, but medical
treatment could not reverse the disease, the statement said.

"Due to the hopelessness of her health situation, she decided to end her
life of her own free will.

"She conveyed this decision in farewell letters to her husband, her sons and
friends."

Doctors in Germany and abroad failed to alleviate the extremely rare
ailment, the statement said.

Hannelore Kohl married the future chancellor in 1960 and stood firmly by his
side throughout a long political career, including both his time as
chancellor from 1982 to 1998, and a slush fund scandal that enveloped him
after he was voted out of office.

She had kept herself and the couple's two sons out of the public spotlight
as Helmut Kohl rose through the ranks in post-war West Germany's
conservative Christian Democratic party, taking over as leader in 1973.

When Kohl, now 71, lost power in 1998 and was engulfed by a party funding
scandal the following year, his wife spoke up for him. "We survived World
War II. We will also cope with this ... I stand by my man," she said.

Condolences poured in from Kohl's political friends and foes, including
Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, who wished Kohl and the couple's two sons
"courage and strength to live with this terrible loss," AP reported.

Hannelore Kohl led a charity for helping accident victims -- the Hannelore
Kohl Foundation -- and a few years ago wrote a cookbook with her husband.

In May, she missed the wedding of her son Peter to his Turkish fiancee in
Istanbul, Turkey, due to her illness, but won lavish praise in Turkey for
supporting her son's choice of wife.

Hannelore Kohl's allergy was triggered by a penicillin treatment in 1993.
She acknowledged it was untreatable, and her condition worsened last year.

She was born March 7, 1933 in Berlin, the daughter of an engineer from
Rhineland-Palatinate. She grew up in the eastern city of Leipzig until the
end of World War II in 1945, when her family moved west.

She is survived by her husband and sons.

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