German court bans more passages in Helmut Kohl biography

The Higher Regional Court of Cologne on Tuesday banned further passages of a book containing revelations about late German chancellor Helmut Kohl.

The ruling is the latest twist in an ongoing legal dispute involving Kohl's second wife Maike Kohl-Richter and the politician's autobiographical ghostwriter Heribert Schwan.

What the ruling said

The court said it had established a duty of confidentiality between Kohl and Schwan. 

Witnesses such as Kohl's son Walter, who is on bad terms with Kohl-Richter, had said in previous proceedings that there had been no written confidentiality agreement with Schwan.

However, the court said it assumed that confidentiality was implied because Schwan had worked for Kohl.

It said this stretched not only to the reproduction of any statements made by Kohl but also to the author's own evaluations of the former chancellor.

Schwan told the DPA news agency he was disappointed by the decision, and that he would not have agreed to the ghostwriting task if he had been asked to keep things confidential. 

Schwann added that, from a journalistic point of view, it was "inconceivable" that even passages that do not relate to statements by Helmut Kohl, but rather to assessments of him, had been banned.

How did the court case arise?

The legal dispute has dragged on for years and relates to the book "Vermächtnis — die Kohl-Protokolle" ("Legacy — the Kohl Transcripts"). 

Schwan had recorded long accounts from Kohl about his political life on tape to tell the conservative Christian Democrat leader's story in the successive volumes of his multi-volume autobiography "Errinerungen" (Memoirs). 

However, before he wrote the last book in the series, Schwan and Kohl fell out. 

Schwan said their working relationship broke down after Kohl remarried, and Maike Kohl-Richter took greater control of her new husband's affairs.

The writer went on to publish "Vermächtnis" with co-author Tilman Jens in 2014 using the material he had recorded.

That book contained numerous, sometimes negative, statements that the former chancellor is said to have made about other politicians, including his eventual successor, Angela Merkel.

After the book was published, an already severely ailing Kohl and his wife went to court and demanded that the controversial passages not be distributed.

The court already banned other passages from the book in a previous ruling.

After Kohl died in 2017, his widow Maike Kohl-Richter continued the legal dispute.

Kohl, in office from 1982 to 1998, is widely considered to be one of the most important chancellors in German history, mainly due to his contribution to German reunification and helping lay the foundations of the single European currency.

rc/msh (AFP dpa)

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