Helmut Schmidt, 1918 – 2015: Germany’s man of balance
From our UK edition
Helmut Schmidt, who served as West German Chancellor from 1974 to 1982, has died aged 96. The following review by George Walden of a book about Schmidt by Jonathan Carr was published in The Spectator on 2 February 1985. On a visit to the German Chancellery in Bonn, I remember once admiring the collection of paintings installed by Helmut Schmidt in the corridors. But at the back of my mind was still the image of the armoured cars surrounding the squat, fortress-like building as we came in. It was art — and specifically the German Expressionist painting denounced as 'degenerate' by the Nazis — that evoked Schmidt's first political stirrings.
