Dr Helmut Kohl's wife urged her husband to keep fighting for his reputation, in excerpts from her suicide note published in a German newspaper yesterday, writes Derek Scally in Berlin .
"I love you and admire your strength . . . You have so much yet to do," wrote Hannelore Kohl. On July 5th she killed herself, reportedly with an overdose of painkillers, after an eight-year struggle with a rare skin condition. "I have fought light and sun for many years, sadly in vain," she said in the note, published yesterday with the permission of the Kohl family. They decided to allow publication of extracts to end speculation by the German media that Dr. Kohl had contributed to his wife's depression.