Hannelore Kohl

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Hannelore Kohl (March 7, 1933 – July 5, 2001) was the wife of former German Chancellor Dr. Helmut Kohl. She met him for the first time at a prom in Ludwigshafen, Germany, when she was 15 years old.

She was born in Berlin and was christened Eleonore Johanna Renner. Later, she chose the composition "Hannelore" to be used as her first name. In the years of her husband's chancellorship, she founded the Hannelore Kohl Stiftung and the Kuratorium ZNS.

Kohl is known to have been raped by Soviet soldiers towards the end of the Second World War. According to The Observer ^[1] she was raped along with her mother at the age of 12 as they failed to escape on a train bound for Dresden.

On July 5, 2001, Kohl was found dead aged 68 in her Ludwigshafen home. She had apparently committed suicide with an overdose of sleeping pills, after years of suffering from what was claimed to be a very rare and painful photo allergy induced by an earlier penicillin treatment that had forced her to avoid practically all sunlight for years.

However, journalist Andrew Gimson, writing in The Spectator ^[2], cast doubt upon the official version of events. Similar questions were also raised by the German newsmagazine, Stern and the BBC.^[3]

Kohl is known for her collection of German-style cooking recipes published as Kulinarische Reise durch Deutsche Länder (Culinary Journey through German Regions) which was published in 1996.

[edit] References

Persondata
NAME	Kohl, Hannelore
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Renner, Eleonore Johanna
SHORT DESCRIPTION	wife of former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl
DATE OF BIRTH	March 7, 1933
PLACE OF BIRTH	Berlin
DATE OF DEATH	July 5, 2001
PLACE OF DEATH	Ludwigshafen