Hannelore Kohl

Johanna Klara Eleonore "Hannelore" Kohl (née Renner; 7 March 1933 – 5 July 2001) was the first wife of German Chancellor Helmut Kohl. She met him for the first time at a school party in Ludwigshafen, Allied-occupied Germany in 1948, when she was 15 years old, and they became engaged in 1953. They were married from 1960 until her death in 2001, a span which included his entire political career. They were the parents of Walter Kohl and Peter Kohl. As the first lady of Rhineland-Palatinate (1969–1976) and later as the wife of the Chancellor (1982–1998) she undertook official duties, and was engaged in philanthropic work. According to their sons she was an important adviser for her husband during his chancellorship, especially concerning the German reunification and in international relations. Her fluency in foreign languages aided her husband in personal diplomacy. Life and work Johanna Klara Eleonore Renner was born and christened in Berlin. Her father Wilhelm Renner who joined the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in 1933, became an engineer, business executive, at Hugo Schneider AG and also headed the employment office that developed the anti-tank weapon . Later, she chose "Hannelore" to be used as her first name. In the days following Germany's defeat in World War II, at the age of 12, Hannelore Kohl was "one of the girls battered and defiled by Stalin's soldiers", multiple times raped by multiple Soviet soldiers and then thrown out of a window. In addition to psychological trauma, the attacks left her with a fractured vertebra and back pain for the rest of her life. In order to help others with similar injuries, in 1983 she founded the , a foundation that helps those with trauma-induced injuries to the central nervous system, and became its president.