Peter Kohl

Peter Kohl (born 28 August 1965 in Ludwigshafen) is a German businessman and author, who resides in Switzerland. He is the younger of the two sons of former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl and Hannelore Kohl, and is the brother of Walter Kohl. He grew up at the family home in Ludwigshafen-Gartenstadt and then, after a move in 1971, in the city's Oggersheim quarter where, according to his brother, they lived "behind bulletproof glass" (..."hinter Panzerglas"), with lots of police in the surrounding residential streets and security walls meters high around the family home.^[1]

Kohl attended the Waldorf school in Ludwigshafen and a gymnasium (secondary school) across the river in Mannheim. He served for two years in the army, after which he studied at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Vienna. He lived for around two decades in London where he embarked on a career in corporate finance with Credit Suisse.^[2]

In May 2001 he married his long-time girlfriend, the Turkish-born banker Elif Sözen, whom he had met in Boston during his studies at MIT; she was the daughter of a wealthy industrialist from Istanbul, Kemal Sözen, the head of the metal company Kale Kalip Makina Sanayii.^[3][4][5][6] At the time of their marriage, they had already lived together for over ten years, eight of them in London, most recently in Chelsea.^[7] His wife had attended elite schools in the United States and speaks six languages including German, a language also spoken fluently by her parents.^[7] Reflecting the multicultural nature of the event, the celebration in Istanbul lasted three days and three marriage ceremonies were involved: a Roman Catholic marriage, a Muslim marriage and a (Turkish) civil marriage.^[8] Noting Chancellor Kohl's opposition to admitting Turkey to the European Union, an English newspaper asserted excitedly that "the marriage of Peter Kohl and Elif Sözen ... [had] the potential to transform German attitudes towards race".^[5] Kohl's wife formerly worked with JP Morgan in London.^[9][10] They have a daughter, Leyla, born in 2002.^[11] It was reported in 2009 that Leyla had spent time in Turkey to learn Turkish.^[6] After the death of Helmut Kohl, Leyla Kohl visited her grandfather's house in Ludwigshafen together with her uncle Walter Kohl and cousin Johannes Kohl, and they were denied entry to the house by Helmut Kohl's second wife Maike Kohl-Richter.^[12]

In 2002 he published a biography of his late mother, co-written with Dona Kujacinski, which received much media attention after her recent suicide.^[13][14][15]

Peter Kohl currently resides near Zurich in Switzerland, working as a freelance entrepreneur.

Bibliography

• Hannelore Kohl. Droemer, München 2002; second ed.: Knaur, München 2013, ISBN 978-3-426-78557-7.

References