Leadership Quote by Helmut Kohl

Kohl’s line reads like a geography lesson, but it’s really a power map. By calling Russia Germany’s “most important neighbor in the East,” he’s not describing borders so much as describing the permanent gravity of the state that sits beyond them. “It will remain so” is the key: a promise to Germans that no amount of post-Cold War optimism will repeal history, and a signal to Moscow that Bonn (and later Berlin) intends to treat Russia as a fixture, not a problem to be managed away.

The intent is stabilizing, almost managerial. Kohl governed at the hinge moment of German reunification, when Soviet consent mattered and European institutions were being rewritten. In that context, “important” is a diplomatic euphemism for “indispensable” - for security, energy, trade, and the broader question of whether a newly unified Germany would be seen as anchored in the West or tempted into a separate deal-making lane with the East.

The subtext carries a double reassurance: Germany won’t pretend Russia can be isolated, and Germany won’t pretend it can be neutral about Russia either. It’s an argument for engagement as realism, not romance - the same logic that later fed Ostpolitik’s afterlife in pipelines, boardrooms, and summitry.

It works because it compresses a controversial strategy into something that sounds unavoidable. Kohl turns a choice (how close to stand to Russia) into fate (Russia will always matter). That rhetorical move makes policy feel like prudence, even when the costs of “importance” are politically inconvenient.