The defeat that Helmut Kohl suffered in the Rhineland-Palatinate last week amounted to a mugging in his backyard. Although the Chancellor was not on the ticket, the polling for the legislature of his home state was seen throughout the country as a referendum on his handling of the merger of the two Germanys. | His Christian Democratic party (CDU) was beaten, 38.7% to 44.8%, by the Social Democrats. Kohl, the state's premier from 1969 to 1976, admitted that the defeat was "personally painful."
Kohl has been criticized for timid handling of Germany's part in the gulf war and apparent callousness about...
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