Former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, a stalwart ally of the U.S. and the nation’s leader when the Berlin Wall came down, died at the age of 87 on Friday morning in his home in Ludwigshafen, Bild reports. Kohl is known for being stubborn and determined—he called himself “an elephant in a china shop” in his memoir, and he was disgraced over a party fund-raising scandal at the end of his political career. Kohl served in the post from 1982 to 1998—the longest tenure since Otto von Bismarck.
