biography
pronunciation:
[voe(r)ner]
| sex:
| male
|
| lived:
| (1934–94)
|
| biography:
| German politician, born in Stuttgart, SW Germany. He studied at Heidelberg, Paris, and Munich universities, and was elected to the Bundestag in 1965. As Christlich-Demokratische Union military expert, he served from 1982 under Kohl as minister of defence, but had to resign from this post after the ‘causa Kießling’ (in which General Kießling was dismissed on suspicion of homosexuality).. He oversaw the controversial deployment of US Cruise and Pershing-II nuclear missiles in West Germany, and an extension of military service from 15 to 18 months to compensate for a declining birthrate. He succeeded Lord Carrington as secretary-general of NATO in 1988, the first German to hold this post. During 1992 he carried out an unprecedented tour of former Warsaw Pact countries, meeting government leaders, and re-affirming NATO's pledge that no ‘security vacuum’ would be allowed to develop in Eastern Europe following the break up of the Soviet Union. |
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