Trials: Court bans further passages from book about Helmut Kohl

Maike Kohl-Richter, the widow of former Chancellor Helmut Kohl, has once again prevailed in a court case over a controversial tell-all book. The Cologne Higher Regional Court banned further passages from the book “Legacy. The Kohl Protocols”, which was published ten years ago.

These not only concern quotes from Kohl, but also descriptions and assessments by the author Heribert Schwan, who previously worked as a ghostwriter for Kohl. Although witnesses such as Kohl’s son Walter confirmed in the previous court case that Kohl had not entered into a written confidentiality agreement with Schwan, the court assumed that “a comprehensive obligation of confidentiality” was implied because Schwan worked for Kohl.

Schwan was disappointed with the decision. “If I had been asked to keep things confidential, I would have run away,” he told the German Press Agency. From a journalistic point of view, it is “unbelievable” that passages of text have now been banned that do not contain any statements by Helmut Kohl, but rather evaluations by him, Schwan. This includes, among other things, descriptions of how the conversations with Kohl went and assessments of why the break occurred. Schwan blames Kohl’s second wife Maike Kohl-Richter for this.

Book publisher: “completely incomprehensible”

The publishing group Penguin Random House, which published the book, described the court’s decision on Schwan as “completely incomprehensible.” The head of the legal department, Rainer Dresen, spoke of a “legal construction that seems quite adventurous”.

The journalist and historian Schwan (79) wrote his memoirs together with Kohl as a ghostwriter in the early 2000s. Schwan recorded Kohl’s long descriptions of his political life on cassette, a total of 630 hours. Day after day he sat with Kohl in the basement of his bungalow in Ludwigshafen-Oggersheim.

However, before writing the final volume of memoirs, which was supposed to deal with Kohl’s deselection in 1998 and the CDU donations affair that was subsequently exposed, the two fell out. Schwan then published the book “Legacy. The Kohl Protocols” in 2014 without consulting Kohl, in which he published unauthorized statements by the former Chancellor, in particular drastic value judgments about other public figures such as Angela Merkel or Princess Diana. The book became a bestseller.

Court: Ghostwriter must also be able to remain silent

Kohl then sued Schwan. He argued that the comments made public by Schwan were never intended for the public. In 2017, he won the highest compensation in German legal history – one million euros. The reason given by the Cologne Regional Court was: A ghostwriter must not only write, but also be able to remain silent. Many of Kohl’s statements were taken out of context; other things he didn’t say at all.

However, before the verdict became final, Kohl died. His widow Maike Kohl-Richter continued the proceedings afterwards. A bitter defeat for them was a ruling by the Federal Court of Justice, according to which it was not possible to inherit the sum of millions. The reasoning was that monetary compensation only ever serves personal satisfaction, and a deceased person can no longer receive satisfaction. The Federal Constitutional Court confirmed this.

Kohl (1930-2017) is considered one of the most important chancellors in German history, primarily due to his contributions to German reunification and European unification. He ruled for 16 years from 1982 to 1998 – even a little longer than Angela Merkel.