Hannelore Kohl was the wife of former German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 Chancellor Helmut Kohl

Helmut Kohl

Helmut Josef Michael Kohl is a German conservative politician and statesman. He was Chancellor of Germany from 1982 to 1998 and the chairman of the Christian Democratic Union from 1973 to 1998...

. She met him for the first time at a prom in Ludwigshafen, Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

, when she was 15 years old.

She was born in Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

 and was christened Johanna Klara Eleonore Renner. Her father was Wilhelm Renner, who headed the employment office at HASAG that developed the successful one-man anti-tank weapon, the Panzerfaust

Panzerfaust

The Panzerfaust was an inexpensive, recoilless German anti-tank weapon of World War II. It consisted of a small, disposable preloaded launch tube firing a high explosive anti-tank warhead, operated by a single soldier...

. Later, she chose the composition "Hannelore" to be used as her first name.

In the days following Germany's defeat in World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, at the age of 12, Hannelore Kohl was raped by Red Army

Red Army

The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...

 soldiers and subsequently “thrown out of a window like a sack of potatoes by the Russians.” In addition to the obvious psychological impact, the attacks left her with a fractured vertebra and back pain for the rest of her life. In order to help others with similar injuries, in 1983 Hannelore Kohl founded the Kuratorium ZNS, a foundation that helps those with trauma-induced injuries to the central nervous system

Central nervous system

The central nervous system is the part of the nervous system that integrates the information that it receives from, and coordinates the activity of, all parts of the bodies of bilaterian animals—that is, all multicellular animals except sponges and radially symmetric animals such as jellyfish...

, and became its President.

On July 5, 2001, Kohl was found dead at age 68 in her Ludwigshafen home. She had apparently committed suicide

Suicide

Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...

 with an overdose of sleeping pills, after years of suffering from what she had claimed to be a very rare and painful photo allergy induced by an earlier penicillin

Penicillin

Penicillin is a group of antibiotics derived from Penicillium fungi. They include penicillin G, procaine penicillin, benzathine penicillin, and penicillin V....

 treatment that had forced her to avoid practically all sunlight for years. In 2005, the Kuratorium ZNS was renamed ZNS - Hannelore Kohl Stiftung in her honor.

However, journalist Andrew Gimson

Andrew Gimson

Andrew Gimson is a British political journalist and writer. Gimson writes the parliamentary sketch for The Daily Telegraph and has written a book about Boris Johnson and a book entitled Desired Effect...

, writing in The Spectator

The Spectator

The Spectator is a weekly British magazine first published on 6 July 1828. It is currently owned by David and Frederick Barclay, who also owns The Daily Telegraph. Its principal subject areas are politics and culture...

, cast doubt upon the official version of events. Similar questions were also raised by the German newsmagazine, Stern

Stern (magazine)

Stern is a weekly news magazine published in Germany. It was founded in 1948 by Henri Nannen, and is currently published by Gruner + Jahr, a subsidiary of Bertelsmann. In the first quarter of 2006, its print run was 1.019 million copies and it reached 7.84 million readers according to...

and the BBC

BBC

The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

.

Kohl is known for her collection of German-style cooking recipes published as Kulinarische Reise durch Deutsche Länder (Culinary Journey through German Regions) which was published in 1996.