Kohl family spat blots mourning

Berlin, June 22

Helmut Kohl was the "Chancellor of German unity" but a week after his death, a family spat has cast a glaring spotlight on deep divisions and a looming battle over his legacy.

A long-running feud between Kohl's widow and his two adult sons from a previous marriage reached a new low when she denied one of them entry to his childhood home to pay his respects yesterday.

Both sides have since traded angry recriminations that threaten to overshadow the mourning period for one of Europe's great statesmen, who died last Friday aged 87.

Der Spiegel weekly, meanwhile, reported that Kohl's widow, Maike Kohl-Richter, who was 34 years his junior, had planned to bar Chancellor Angela Merkel from speaking at the funeral of her political mentor. This would reflect the bitterness over what Kohl saw as Merkel's betrayal which launched her own meteoric career - when she turned against him in 1999 over a campaign finance scandal.

Kohl-Richter told Merkel last Friday, according to Der Spiegel, that she would invite as a speaker Hungary's hardline Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who has harshly attacked Merkel's liberal refugee policies. The matter has been resolved, and Merkel is now set to address the July 1 service in Strasbourg, along with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, French President Emmanuel Macron and former US President Bill Clinton.

Parliamentary Speaker Norbert Lammert said pointedly that "with all due respect, the way and the place in which this outstanding political lifetime achievement ... is honoured are more than a family affair". — AFP