West Germany: Last Taunts From the Lip

Helmut Schmidt served West Germany as both Finance and Defense Minister and, from 1974 to 1982, as Chancellor. Supercompetent, superconfident and supercritical, Schmidt is a gifted orator whose acerbic wit earned him the nickname “Schmidt the Lip.”

The U.S. has been a frequent target of Schmidt’s sharp tongue. He once described Jimmy Carter as a “faith healer” who made “policy from the pulpit.” Schmidt resented economic lectures from American officials. “Not only is your inflation higher than ours,” he would snap, “your unemployment rate is twice as high.”

Schmidt, 67, is not running in next January’s parliamentary elections, and last week he bade farewell to politics with a two-hour speech in the Bundestag. Even in his farewell address, he got in a few glancing blows. Schmidt blasted Chancellor Helmut Kohl for following U.S. policy too slavishly, saying, “The Federal Republic must remain the friend and partner of the United States, but not a client.”