Germany mourns Bernhard Vogel, “the bridge builder between the East and the West”
Germany mourned the death of political giant Bernhard Vogel, who led the state governments on both sides of the country’s former divide.
The party confirmed that Vogel, from the Conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU), died at the age of 92.
He was prime minister of two states, totaling 23 years, a record that cemented his legacy in the 1990 reunification period to rule Germany’s political sphere.
Former Prime Minister Angela Merkel once described Vogel as “a unique historically” as he led the governments of the Western Rhineland-Patnat and the Eastern Thuringi (who was once part of East Germany).
The country’s next prime minister, Friedrich Merz, described Vogel on Monday as “a bridge builder between the East and the West” who “left a lasting legacy.”
Vogel’s political career began in the 1960s when he established close ties with Helmut Kohl, who later became the first prime minister to unify Germany.
Vogel became the prime minister of Rhineland-Palatinate in 1976, and then lost the internal power struggle in 1988.
After chairing the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, a leading conservative think tank associated with the CDU, Vogel returned to power in a very different context in Thuringia in 1992, replacing the CDU leader accused of working in East Germany’s security service Stasi.
He led the state until his retirement in 2003.
“The idea of becoming prime minister in another German state is so far-fetched that no one has had it for a long time. I don’t think it’s so difficult,” Vogel said in 2022.
