Dubai: When there were rumblings in June that health officials in Germany were thinking about banning menthol cigarettes for sale across the 28-member European Union — the chemical compounds in the artificially mint-flavoured tobacco is supposedly a greater cancer-causing element than mere nicotine — 93-year-old Helmut Schmidt was prepared.
The former German Chancellor had 38,000 cigarettes stored away – enough to keep the life-long smoker puffing away for the rest of his years.
Whether the story is true or merely stuff of the blogospehere remains to be seen – the German eurocrats are not banning menthol cigarettes to begin with – but Schmidt’s nicotine consumption is legendary.
For a nation with a Teutonic fervour for following rules, the former leader of the centre-left SPD – Social Democratic Party - has little time for such intrusions of the state into his personal life.
In one 45-minute live interview on German television, he famously chain-smoked his way through 13 cigarettes. But for the West Germans watching, Schmidt was beloved, setting the nation on unparalleled economic growth, laying the framework for a European currency and leading Bonn from 1974 through to 1982.
He was born just as the First World War ended, growing up in Hamburg in a nation torn asunder by forced guilt, chronic economic failure and crippled by the punishing terms and reparations of the Treaty of Versailles.
But Schmidt’s father, a teacher, was half-Jewish and illegitimate – a potentially problematic family background, given the rise of National Socialism. As it was, the secret was kept from most family members and it only become known in 1984 when then French President Valery Gisgard d’Estaing commented on it – apparently with Schmidt’s consent.
The family secret also didn’t get in the way of Schmidt’s entry into the Wehrmacht. During the Second World War he served with distinction as a Lieutenant in an armoured division on the Eastern Front and at the siege of Leningrad. He also won an Iron Cross for his actions during the Battle of the Bulge in Belgium’s Ardennes in December 1944 in what was effectively Hitler’s last-ditch attempt to turn back the Western Allies before they reached Germany’s borders.
For many Europeans, service in Hitler’s military machine might be considered reason to thwart a political career. For Germans, Schmidt’s record as a city alderman in Hamburg’s city hall was impressive and he had a genuine concern for the city residents and their issues.
Besides, he had a common touch, liked nothing better than to campaign over steins and cigarettes and they could trust him – and he was good with the city’s finances and the public purses.
Schmidt knew how to get things done. When the city was crippled by floods in 1962, Schmidt took charge, even if that meant stepping on the toes of officials at state or federal level.
He ordered the military out in the city to assist – never mind that given that there was a natural reluctance to see the army used in any domestic situation in West Germany. The nation’s constitution also forbade military involvement in domestic matters until 1968 – Schmidt simply got things done.
“No one put me in charge,” he quipped at the time. “I just took charge.”
And Hamburgers loved him for it, sending him to Bonn on a wave of public support.
His rise within the SPD was meteoric. His straight-talking, no-nonsense approach and his canny knack of knowing how to bring people and agencies together and getting things done, made him Teflon-coated – political scandals didn’t stick to him.
As the federal economic minister, he managed to get West German trade unions working with him, had productivity increased with working hours were reduced, and progressive personal and corporate taxation helped Bonn achieve the most-prolonged period of growth since those dark days when he commanded a Panzer.
Besides, when Chancellor Willy Brandt needed a Defence Minister, Schmidt was a natural, given his first-hand knowledge of military service. With Germany divided and being the front line of the Cold War – 50,000 Soviet tanks were massed at West Germany’s eastern frontiers – Schmidt was popular and, as the T-shirt says, had been there and done that.
Ironically, it was a spy scandal between West and East Germany that allowed Schmidt to become Chancellor. Brandt was forced to resign when it was revealed that one of his closest aides, Gunter Guillaume, was in fact a spy for East Berlin’s Stasi network.
The party needed healing and needed to move fast. Schmidt was waiting and willing.
The oil crisis paralysed western economics – but Schmidt was decisive and managed to ensure that West Germany came out it better organised than the rest of the west.
With d’Estaing in power in Paris, Schmidt found a similarly-minded European and economic theorist – together they laid the groundwork for greater economic integration, a common currency and set the wheels in motion for the EU to grow both in territorial expansion and in political participation.
As Chancellor, Schmidt brought German workers into the boardrooms of companies and corporations, nurtured a social contract between all stakeholders in the German economy and also actively brought environmentalism from the realms of the Birkenstock-wearing hippies into the city and town halls of West Germany.
He may well have been a smoker but the nation’s smoke stacks and factories would at least adhere to high environmental standards.
Parental leave was extended to six months, holidays stretched, productivity and working practices expanded which fuelled the strongest economy in Europe – only outperformed by Japan and the US.
Under his watch West Germany openly accepted and legalised the tens of thousands of “gasterbeit” – illegal guest workers from Turkey, Syria and Northern Africa. For those on the German right, the move was unpopular – but not enough to dissuade support from the centre-left.
Schmidt, however, was opposed to Turkey’s admission to the EU.
Schmidt’s life-long addiction was also a factor in his eventual retirement as Chancellor. He was fitted with a pacemaker in late 1981.
His federal government was becoming fractious too, the left being in open rebellion while three junior coalition ministers quit – enticed by the centre-right policies of Helmut Kohl – the man who would replace him a Chancellor less than a year later.
It’s hard to believe Schmidt has been retired for four decades: He remains an active speaker, economic theorist and occasional commentator on German politics – as long as there’s an ashtray to hand.
