For years, the widow of former Chancellor Helmut Kohl has been at odds with his ghostwriter over unauthorized book quotations. Now a son of the CDU politician has testified as a witness – against his will.
In the ongoing legal dispute over book quotations from former Chancellor Helmut Kohl, his son Walter expressed his outrage in court at having to testify as a witness. “Today I am de facto under duress. I would have wished that I had been spared this day,” said the 59-year-old on Wednesday before the Cologne Higher Regional Court (OLG). In the civil lawsuit, the widow of the former CDU chancellor, Maike Kohl-Richter, wants to ensure that a number of quotes from a book by Kohl ghostwriter Heribert Schwan are no longer allowed to be distributed.
“I see it here today as an impertinence,” said Walter Kohl in court. “I’m sitting here in a room with people who have caused me and my family the greatest pain and who were not uninvolved in my mother’s suicide.” Hannelore Kohl committed suicide in 2001 at the age of 68.
Before the trial, Walter Kohl had invoked his right to refuse to testify in order not to have to testify. The Higher Regional Court wants to clarify in the proceedings whether there was a confidentiality agreement between Kohl, who died in 2017, and the author Schwan. Walter Kohl said that he and his brother Peter had repeatedly asked their father to sign a confidentiality agreement with Schwan. “But my dad said, ‘No. i trust dr Swan. We made a handshake agreement, he won’t betray me.”
Years of litigation in court
Initially, Schwan also treated all internal matters confidentially, said Kohl’s son. But after the death of his mother, Maike, as his father’s new partner, largely destroyed his old environment and severed relationships. “In this situation, the attitude has also changed at Dr. Schwan,” said Walter Kohl. In his opinion, Kohl-Richter’s behavior at the time ultimately led to a legal dispute having to be waged.
Schwan had written Kohl’s memoirs. However, before the final volume was written, the two fell out, prompting Schwan to independently publish a book containing unauthorized quotes from Kohl. It was published in 2014 under the title “Legacy. The Kohl Protocols”.
The dispute between Maike Kohl-Richter and Schwan and his publishing house has repeatedly occupied various courts for years. In the current OLG proceedings, the widow is contesting a 2019 judgment by the Cologne Regional Court, which only agreed with her on individual text passages.
Last December, Kohl-Richter suffered a defeat before the Federal Court of Justice (BGH) in Karlsruhe. Shortly before his death, her husband had obtained compensation of one million euros from the author for the violation of his personal rights. But the BGH ruled that such monetary compensation is not inheritable. Kohl-Richter got nothing.
Source: Stern
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