BERLIN — Helmut Schmidt, the chancellor who guided West Germany through economic turbulence and Cold War tensions, stood firm against a wave of homegrown terrorism and became a respected elder statesman, died Tuesday. He was 96.
Schmidt died at his house in Hamburg, according to German weekly Die Zeit, of which Schmidt was a co-publisher.
Schmidt, a center-left Social Democrat, led West Germany from 1974 to 1982. He was elected chancellor by lawmakers in May 1974 after the resignation of fellow Social Democrat Willy Brandt, triggered when a top aide to Brandt was unmasked as an East German agent.
Schmidt’s chancellorship coincided with a tense period in the Cold War, including the Soviet Union’s 1979 invasion of Afghanistan. He went along the following year with the U.S.-led boycott of the Moscow Olympics, although he later said that it “brought nothing.”
Schmidt’s wife, Loki, died in 2010. They had one daughter, Susanne.
