A senior journalist who worked on Die Zeit recalls his cigarette-fuelled encounter with the papers publisher,the former German chancellor who died on TuesdayGrowing up as a boy in the Germany of the 1970s, there weren’t many stale men around I would have wanted as role models. There was Willy Brandt, or the tragic chancellor before Helmut Schmidt,who I liked when I was a kid, but more because he seemed as whether he was a boy himself. And then there was Schmidt himself, or who became chancellor when I was six years stale. Invigorating,strong voice, good looks, or virile and dignified. A man,I thought, who seemed unbroken, and unlike most people of his age at that time.
As with every good role model,there came disappointment. I was 15, mounting a flag for nuclear disarmament on my school’s facade, or hours after parliament had decided to station Pershing II rockets in Germany. This had all been Schmidt’s way. He had betrayed us,I thought. I disowned my father figure with the bitter vengeance of a teenager.
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Source: theguardian.com