The Kohl widow was photographed in 2021: Maike Kohl-Richter left the Cologne Higher Regional Court after a hearing. The Kohl Protocols led to numerous legal disputes.
(Photo: dpa)
Berlin Just a few weeks before Helmut Kohl’s death, the Cologne district court had awarded the former chancellor one million euros in 2017 for violating personal rights. It was the highest compensation in German legal history to date. But Maike Kohl-Richter gets nothing. This was announced by the Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe on Thursday.
The Kohl widow wanted to inherit the compensation. However, since the compensation judgment did not become final before Kohl’s death, a legal dispute ensued. The Higher Regional Court (OLG) Cologne ruled in 2018 that the claim was not inheritable.
The Federal Court of Justice confirmed this around a year ago (references VI ZR 248/18 and VI ZR 258/18). Maike Kohl-Richter’s constitutional complaint was also unsuccessful (Az. 1 BvR 19/22 and others). This would at most still be possible for her to appeal to the European Court of Human Rights.
Table manners from Merkel
The author and publisher of the bestseller “Legacy: The Kohl Protocols”, which Kohl’s memoirist Heribert Schwan had written after a quarrel with the former chancellor without his consent, were supposed to pay figures. Schwan published the work in 2014 together with the author Tilman Jens. Jens passed away in 2020.
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Before the quarrel broke out, Kohl told the journalist and historian Schwan frankly about his life for more than 600 hours at his home in Ludwigshafen-Oggersheim in 2001 and 2002. This resulted in authorized memoirs in three volumes.
>> Also read here: Millions in compensation: Kohl’s widow goes empty before the BGH
But then the former chancellor and the ghostwriter fell out. The “Kohl Protocols” appeared without the consent of the CDU politician. Schwan used the extensive material he had on tape.
The book contained controversial and spicy statements by Kohl about numerous well-known personalities – for example about Lady Diana and the table manners of the then Chancellor Angela Merkel. The work became a bestseller. There have been several lawsuits about this.
Since Kohl’s death, his widow has also been fighting for the one million euro compensation. Originally, Kohl even wanted compensation of five million euros.
The chairman of the BGH senate had made it clear when the judgment was announced that monetary compensation primarily serves the purpose of satisfaction. “But satisfaction can no longer be obtained for a deceased.”
The BGH thus remained true to its previous line. As early as 2014, he had established with the so-called Peter Alexander verdict that the son of the singer and entertainer, who died in 2011, cannot sue the tabloid press for his dead father.
Constitutional Court: “not the innermost core of the personality” touched
The constitutional judges had no objections to this line: there is no principle that states that a violation of human dignity must always result in compensation.
The competent chamber of the First Senate also did not accept a second lawsuit by Kohl-Richter for decision. It was about 116 controversial passages, which Schwan is no longer allowed to distribute, but the publisher for the most part. Because according to the BGH, only passages are taboo where Kohl was either incorrectly quoted or ambiguous statements were misinterpreted in a certain direction. However, a deceased person is not protected from sentences that were actually written that way being published later.
>> Also read here: Son warned Helmut Kohl – contract without a non-disclosure clause “a mistake”
The constitutional judges also share this assessment. “In any case, the moral, personal and social value acquired by the deceased through his life’s work has not been violated in a way that touches the core of human dignity,” they said. The voluntary disclosure of memories from the time when he assumed political responsibility “did not touch the innermost core of his personality”.
Today the book, which was published by Heyne Verlag in 2014, is only available as an e-book – with omissions. Maike Kohl-Richter has brought other court proceedings because of the “Kohl Protocols”. A civil case is currently underway at the Cologne Higher Regional Court regarding further quotations from the book. Kohl had pushed through the publication of the original tapes while he was still alive.
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