Pursuits
Hans-Dietrich Genscher, German Unity Architect, Dies at 89
- Former German foreign minister negotiated 1990 reunification
- Dealmaker led Free Democratic Party, served two chancellors
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Hans-Dietrich Genscher, who was Germany’s longest-serving foreign minister and helped negotiate the reunification of East and West Germany in 1990 at the end of the Cold War, has died. He was 89.
Genscher suffered heart failure Thursday night at his home near Bonn, his office in the former West German capital said in an e-mailed statement. He died two weeks after one of his successors both as foreign minister and chairman of the Free Democratic Party, Guido Westerwelle, who succumbed to leukemia at age 54.