User:Hans Adler/Relations between Helmut Kohl and Kurt Tucholsky

Relations between Helmut Kohl and Kurt Tucholsky refers to the relations between the former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl and the German author Kurt Tucholsky. These two notable Germans have much in common. Both were among the 100 prominent Germans selected to be featured on German national television in the series Unsere Besten. Kohl is a right-wing politician under whose name appeared a book, and Tucholsky was a left-wing political author. While Kohl is still alive, his wife Hannelore died of suicide in 2001, 66 years after Tucholsky's suicide.

Since Kohl was born in the year in which Tucholsky emigrated to Sweden, and was only five years old at the time of Tucholsky's death, the relations between the two have always had a tendency to be somewhat one-sided.

Kurt Tucholsky has been called a "prophet of European unity", a vision that was later essentially completed by Helmut Kohl and others. As of 1990, Kohl seemed to be a regular reader of at least some of Tucholsky's works, although it is unclear whether this included his political writings. On the occasion of a visit by Helmut Kohl to Japan in 1993, a newspaper article speculated that during his meditations in the temples of Kamakura, Kohl could have mused about verses by Tucholsky.

In 1996, the German author Heribert Prantl received the Kurt-Tucholsky-Preis for his critical writings about German politics. He later wrote a book specifically about Kohl.