Introduction

The long public life of Helmut Schmidt coincides closely with the life span of the Federal Republic. He and West Germany grew into maturity together, and the variety of responsibilities that Schmidt undertook in the course of his public life is closely connected with many of the major preoccupations of the new state: the need to establish a viable democratic system and proceed with political and economic reconstruction. The Federal Republic's growing influence has come about by design as well as by opportunity: the Germans have become stronger in absolute terms through their own conscious efforts, and they have become stronger in relative terms through the default of others. Although Schmidt's centrist position was under attack from the Left as well as from the Right in Germany, abroad, the German chancellor became the personification of German economic and monetary prowess, the embodiment of what could be called the "second" German economic miracle.