Former West German chancellor Helmut Schmidt died Tuesday aged 96 after his health worsened dramatically in recent days, his office said.

Schmidt led then-West Germany from 1974 to 1982 as it rose to become a global economic powerhouse.

A centrist from the Social Democratic Party (SPD), Schmidt steered the country through a bloody wave of terror by far-left radicals from the Red Army Faction, preached free-market economics to his party and embodied cool-headed pragmatic politics in a Europe riven by the Iron Curtain.

Heiner Greten, chief physician for the sharp-tongued elder statesman, had told the Hamburger Abendblatt newspaper on Tuesday that Schmidt was now "only rarely conscious".

"The situation is very precarious," he said. "Since Sunday, his condition has continually and dramatically worsened."

Co-publisher of the influential liberal weekly Die Zeit, Schmidt continued to play an active part in international economic debate, including criticising conservative Chancellor Angela Merkel during the eurozone debt crisis for lacking financial savvy.

He was a popular guest on television chat shows, always granted special dispensation to flout a smoking ban while holding forth with the laconic brand of wit that is prized in his native port city of Hamburg.
Source: AFP