BERLIN - Hannelore Kohl's lonely death yesterday has shocked Germany, fuelling speculation about what drove this proud, battle-hardened Catholic woman to suicide.
Her body was discovered in the family home in Oggersheim. She was 68 years old.
She had been ill and house-bound for the past 15 months, unable to attend even
her son Peter's wedding in Turkey in May. She had spoken to journalists about her suffering, but not even her closest friends appeared to be aware how serious the affliction was.
The couple quietly celebrated their 41st wedding anniversary only a few days ago. No one, not even her husband who received the tragic news while attending the Bundestag in Berlin, could sense the true depth of her despair.
Hannelore Kohl developed photodermatitis in 1993, after being mistakenly treated for influenza with penicillin, even though she was allergic to the drug. She immediately developed a high fever, and had to spend the next three weeks in hospital.
"This allergy was awful," she told the newspaper Die Welt am Sonntag this year. "I had inflammations all over my skin. Everything was swollen."
She recovered from that episode, but about 15 months ago, just as her husband was caught in the middle of a party funding scandal, the illness returned with a vengeance. Since then she had not set foot outside her home.
When her son Peter married his Turkish bride in Istanbul less than two months ago, she followed the ceremony by telephone.
Her body reacted violently to light, but even in darkness her skin erupted in painful, open sores. According to the farewell note she is reported to have left behind, she could take it no more.
For a few hours after her body was discovered, officials insisted she had died from "natural causes." The admission that she had taken her own life came hours later, in a statement issued by Helmut Kohl's office.
"Due to the hopelessness of her state of health, she decided voluntarily to withdraw from life," the statement declared. "She announced this decision to her husband, her sons and friends in farewell letters."
Whether it was the pain alone that drove her to suicide, or the combination of physical agony and the depressing spectacle of her husband's demise, we shall perhaps never know.
- INDEPENDENT
