Many an eye dampened and an air of melancholic reflection was palpable across the country last night as Germans bade farewell to an era, an outlook, and the man who came to embody modern Germany, at home as the father of the nation, abroad as the dependable, responsible ally and leader.
Dr Helmut Kohl, 6 ft 4 in, 19 stone, 68 years old, 16 years chancellor, 25 years leader of his Christian Democratic party, finally bowed out.
He took his leave of the national and international stage with dignity and good humour, yielding the leadership of Germany, Europe, and his beloved CDU, to a different generation, the post-war crew too young for the formative experiences of the 1930s and 1940s which traumatised Kohl's contemporaries and shaped his policies and priorities.
An extraordinary election-winner who saw off all comers and won four general elections in a row, Dr Helmut Kohl faced one ballot-box battle too many yesterday. Despite the determination and the relish with which he took to the hustings, Dr Kohl this time appeared to be yesterday's man, refighting the old battles that raged in divided Cold War Germany through most of his career.
Dr Kohl's final fling bore all the hallmarks of the hubris which affects those in power for too long. His peers and partners - Margaret Thatcher, Mikhail Gorbachev, George Bush, Francois Mitterrand - all succumbed in the end to the blandishments of foreign policy fixation and paid the price. Dr Kohl's legendary political intuition told him that international respect and admiration could secure him a record fifth term and he fought a one-man campaign based on his stature as international statesman and foreign policy record. For once, he got it wrong.
He overtook Konrad Adenauer, his mentor and idol, two years ago as the longest-serving post-war chancellor. Victory yesterday would have brought him closer to eclipsing Bismarck as Germany's longest serving chancellor.
It would also have given him the option of leading Germany into the new millennium. He will be 70 in the year 2000 and all the signs are that he wanted to bow out then rather than last night, handing over to his trusted lieutenant, Mr Wolfgang Schauble. Senior CDU sources say that the Kohl strategy shifted over the past two years. Originally, he intended to hand over to Mr Schauble in the middle of the term just ended, the sources say. But the uncertainty and disputes which jeopardised the establishment of the single European currency - the main achievement and key aim of Dr Kohl's final term - persuaded him to stay on and see the euro past the point of no return.
His lifelong dream of a united and integrated Europe anchored around a single currency is already a reality. But Dr Kohl will not now usher in that new era when the euro is formally launched on January 1st, 1999.
When he became chancellor on October 1st, 1982, Dr Kohl was a bit of a laughing stock, even inside his own conservative camp. Born in April 1930 in the drab Rhine chemicals town of Ludwigshafen, Dr Kohl rose to become prime minister of his native state of the Rhineland Palatinate by the age of 39. Three years later, he became chairman of the Christian Democratic Union, the party of his mentor and idol, Konrad Adenauer, which has ruled for 36 of the post-war republic's 49 years.
CDU grandees and disgruntled backbenchers launched several attempts to depose Dr Kohl. They were slapped down ruthlessly and cunningly by a leader who appeared avuncular and disarming, but who had become a master of political intrigue. The CDU and the governance of Germany transmogrified into the "Kohl system", a method of rule and control centred on the telephones in the chancellor's bungalow, patronage and an extensive network of cronies. Dr Kohl never forgot a favour. He seldom forgot a slight.
The laid-back, highly personalised approach to wielding and keeping power paid off handsomely when he needed it most. For in the defining moment of the Kohl years, 1989-1990 and the swiftly accomplished unification of Germany, the chancellor, despite his utter and lifelong commitment to the European idea, ignored the rest of Europe.
Mr Mitterrand had strong reservations about unification. He was out-manoeuvred. Baroness Thatcher was utterly opposed. She was brusquely ignored. The Dutch were ambivalent. No matter, and Dr Kohl later took his revenge on the Dutch prime minister, Mr Ruud Lubbers. The Poles were alarmed about the implications for their border with Germany. But Dr Kohl and Mr HansDiet rich Genscher kept Warsaw out of the negotiations.
From Warsaw and The Hague to London and Paris, these things still rankle. But Dr Kohl got what he wanted by winning the unalloyed support of the US and Mr George Bush and by buying off Russia and Mr Gorbachev.
Mr Kurt Biedenkopf, the popular CDU prime minister of the eastern state of Saxony and one of the party rivals outwitted and weakened by Dr Kohl, recently described the Kohl years as two chancellorships - the first successful two terms culminating in the annus mirabilis of 1989-1990, and the second period since 1990, when Dr Kohl has appeared increasingly inattentive and not up to tackling the challenges created by his very success, most notably in completing the difficult process of unification.
Above all, he ignored mass German hostility to forfeiting the Deutschmark, the paramount symbol of post-war German success and patriotism, and defied public opinion to impose the euro on Germany by dint of sheer willpower and commitment.
Mr Kenneth Clarke, the former British cabinet minister, recently observed that Dr Kohl was a master at persuading other European leaders to do his bidding against their wills. He performed the same trick on the Germans with the euro. It is inconceivable that Germans would have sacrificed the cherished Deutschmark unless Dr Kohl asked them to.
He has long been laughed at and seldom been loved. But Germans admire, respect, and trust Dr Kohl and not a few last night reflected that they will never see his like again.