Kohl died peacefully in his bed at home in Ludwigshafen, in the southwestern state of Rhineland-Palatinate, said the Bild newspaper, adding that his wife Maike Kohl-Richter was by his side.
Tributes poured in for the man U.S. former president George H.W. Bush hailed as "one of the greatest" postwar leaders, and European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker called the "very essence of Europe".
In Brussels, European flags were lowered to half-mast in tribute.
"I will never forget how in a dramatic meeting of the European Union in December 1989, it was not least the Irish prime minister who supported us Germans and myself in a very hard situation", said Kohl. "Throughout our endeavors, Helmut was a rock - both steady and strong", Bush said Friday.
"A friend and a statesman who helped reunite Europe".
He became chancellor of West Germany in 1982 and as the Cold War ended with the Berlin Wall coming down in November 1989, he moved to "grab the mantle of history", as he later said, forging a political stature commensurate with his towering height.
"In such cases, a lot depends on the people taking decisions". In a statement, Trump says Kohl is "not only the father of German reunification, but also an advocate for Europe and the trans-Atlantic relationship".
Politicians from Germany and overseas paid tribute to the merits of the CDU politician about German unity and the convergence of Europe.
"At the same time, recalled the president of the German Bishops' Conference, he was "the chancellor of the European idea" and played a major and decisive role in the growth of a united Europe without frontiers". She described her mentor as a "stroke of luck" for Germany.
Netanyahu said in a statement that "Kohl was the leader who united Germany with a determined and steady hand".
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Helmut Kohl also gained more attention for his unlikely friendship with the French leader. I was honestly amazed by his wisdom, his ability to take thought-out, far-sighted decisions even in the most complex of situations.
He says Kohl "will be remembered in Russian Federation as a staunch advocate of a friendly relationship between our countries". Together with his close ally, French President Francois Mitterand, Kohl undertook complex negotiations that paved the way for the creation of the larger European Union, a political hierarchy that many thought impossible just a generation removed from the destruction of World War II.
"He was deeply convinced that Europe was our destiny", Steinmeier said. Kohl spearheaded, less than a year later, the end of Germany's division at the front line of the Cold War.
He won voters in communist East Germany by promising them "flourishing landscapes".
Swiss banks were involved in a financing scandal of the centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) that tarnished Kohl's reputation shortly after leaving office.
Kohl, leader of the center-right Christian Democrats, served as chancellor for 16 years, from 1982-98.
When Bonn prosecutors launched an investigation into possible breach-of-trust charges in January 2000, Kohl was pressured to give up his party's symbolic honorary chairmanship - notably by Merkel, a longtime Kohl protegee. "We value his contribution in strengthening India-Germany ties", Modi said. Chancellor Kohl, recalls Cardinal Marx was a regular guest of the Katholikentag.
Elation over German reunification ebbed amid the harsh realities of its cost and the difficulties of integrating east and west, but Kohl's coalition squeaked by again in 1994. The world has benefitted from his vision and efforts.
Former US presidents George HW Bush and Bill Clinton both called Kohl the greatest European leader of the second half of the 20th century.
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