In the dispute over a million dollar compensation after a controversial book publication, the widow of former Chancellor Helmut Kohl has little hope.
The Federal Court of Justice (BGH) declared on Monday in Karlsruhe that a claim to such monetary compensation due to violated personal rights is generally not hereditary and the Senate does not see any exception in this case.
The BGH does not want to announce its judgment until later.
Sole heir Maike Kohl-Richter wants, like her husband, who died in 2017, at least five million euros plus interest from Kohl's ghostwriter and former confidante Heribert Schwan. The journalist and historian was supposed to write Kohl's memoir and spoke for hundreds of hours with the former CDU leader at his home in Ludwigshafen. After three of the four planned volumes it broke. In 2014 Schwan published the book "Legacy: The Kohl Protocols" on his own initiative, in which Kohl is quoted with derogatory judgments about politicians and social figures.
Kohl-Richter’s lawyer argued in Karlsruhe that the Cologne regional court had granted Kohl a million euros shortly before his death and that the debtors were in arrears.
In addition, the negotiation concerned the distribution of more than a hundred controversial passages from the book.
Here it could come down to the BGH having some or all of the quotations reevaluated by another court.
(Ref .: VI ZR 248/18 and VI ZR 258/18)