“You did well to achieve that during your lifetime and those of us who experienced it love you for it.”

Mr Kohl, who served as Chancellor from 1982 to 1998, oversaw the end of the Cold War and is widely regarded as the mastermind of German reunification. Juncker described Kohl as “a German patriot and at the same time a European patriot.” Kohl will be buried later today following a mass in the German city of Speyer. Merkel will now stand alongside the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, Russian leader Dmitry Medvedev, former US president Bill Clinton and the European commission chief, Jean-Claude Juncker, as well as the new French president, Emmanuel Macron, all of whom will deliver tributes. Leaders from the United States, Russia and across Europe paid tribute to Helmut Kohl as the architect of German reunification and a driving force for European integration at first such memorial ceremony at European parliament on Saturday. Medvedev, the Russian Prime Minister, described Mr Kohl as the “the architect of the world order”, adding: “In Russia, we'll remember him as our friend – a wise and sincere person.”

“Helmut Kohl was a German patriot and a European patriot,” said European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, a close friend. But just how much Kohl himself was behind the careful decision-making and how much was the responsibility of his second wife, Maike Kohl-Richter, remains a matter of huge speculation in Germany.
World leaders such as Bill Clinton, Emmanuel Macron, Theresa May, Dmitry Medvedev and Angela Merkel attend the memorial service for the former West German leader Helmut Kohl.