Helmut Kohl religion or worldview Catholic Church
Life
Youth and education
Kohl was born on 3 April 1930 in Ludwigshafen. He was the third child of Hans Kohl (3 January 1887 – 20 October 1975), a Bavarian army veteran and civil servant, and his wife, Cäcilie (née Schnur; 17 November 1891 – 2 August 1979).Kohl's family was conservative and Catholic, and remained loyal to the Catholic Centre Party before and after 1933. His elder brother died in World War II as a teenage soldier. At the age of ten, Kohl was obliged, like most children in Germany at the time, to join the Deutsches Jungvolk, a section of the Hitler Youth. Aged 15, on 20 April 1945, Kohl was sworn into the Hitler Youth by leader Artur Axmann at Berchtesgaden, just days before the end of the war, as membership was mandatory for all boys of his age. Kohl was also drafted for military service in 1945; he was not involved in any combat, a fact he later referred to as the "mercy of late birth" (German: Gnade der späten Geburt).Kohl attended the Ruprecht Elementary School, and continued at the Max-Planck-Gymnasium. After graduating in 1950, Kohl began to study law in Frankfurt am Main, spending two semesters commuting between Ludwigshafen and Frankfurt. Here, Kohl heard lectures from Carlo Schmid and Walter Hallstein, among others. In 1951, Kohl switched to Heidelberg University, where he studied history and political science. Kohl was the first in his family to attend university.
faith belief system creed philosophy ideology