A decision is to be announced today in the ongoing legal dispute over quotes from former Chancellor Helmut Kohl in a book.
In the proceedings before the Cologne Higher Regional Court, the former Chancellor’s widow, Maike Kohl-Richter, wants to ensure that a series of quotes from the 2014 book “Legacy. The Kohl Protocols” by Heribert Schwan may no longer be distributed. In doing so, she is objecting to a ruling by the Cologne Regional Court in 2019, which only found her right in relation to individual passages. Schwan also appealed against it. The Cologne Higher Regional Court then decided that the evidence taken in the first instance should be repeated.
Schwan originally wrote Kohl’s memoirs. However, before the final volume was written, the two had an argument, whereupon Schwan published a book with unauthorized quotes from Kohl on his own initiative. Kohl took legal action against this, both against Schwan and against the publisher Random House. Since Kohl’s death in 2017, the legal dispute has been continued by his widow. There is also the question of whether there was a confidentiality agreement between Kohl and Schwan.
