The first chancellor of a unified Germany left office reluctantly after 19 years, bitter, burnt-out and deeply unpopular. Otto von Bismarck united the German lands but divided its people and was ultimately sacrificed by the Prussian royal family he had served so faithfully.
Konrad Adenauer, the first chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, rebuilt his country after the horrors of the second World War, presided over an economic miracle and dominated the political scene for 14 years before he was edged out of office by erstwhile allies.
As the first Chancellor of a unified Germany, Dr Helmut Kohl has already overtaken Adenauer as the country's longest-serving post-war leader and, if he wins a fifth term in office tomorrow, he could outstrip Bismarck's record, too.
Dr Kohl has much in common with Bismarck and Adenauer, both of whom were conservative, intellectually undistinguished and lacked interest in economic affairs. Like them, however, Dr Kohl has secured his place in history by seizing a fleeting opportunity to redefine his country's position in the world.
This week, as the politicians made their final pitch for the voters' attention, unusually sunny autumn weather has bathed Germany in a quiet, almost melancholic mood. It is as if the German people are pausing for reflection before they say farewell to the Chancellor who has become a symbol of national stability during his 16 years in power.
Of course, Dr Kohl could yet win tomorrow's election, and the final opinion polls are showing the gap between the two main parties to be so small as to be below the pollsters' margin of error.
Throughout his political career, he has been underestimated at home and abroad and he believes he is about to defy the political doomsayers yet again.
Dr Kohl was born in Ludwigshafen in the Rhineland-Palatinate in 1930, the youngest son of a minor tax official who had served in a mounted artillery regiment in the first World War. He was too young to serve in the second World War, but his older brother died in action in 1944, and the memory of the destruction wrought by war was to have a defining influence on his life.
A founder member of the youth wing of the Christian Democrats in 1946, Dr Kohl has spent his entire adult life in politics, serving as prime minister of the Rhineland-Palatinate from 1969 until he moved to Bonn in 1976. Loyal to his allies but notoriously slow to forgive those who offend him, he has ruled the Christian Democrats with an iron fist since becoming party leader in 1973.
Dr Kohl's control over his party has been a key element in his political success, and it enabled him to crush internal opposition the moment it presented itself.
When Dr Kohl ousted Helmut Schmidt as chancellor in 1982, he appeared dull and lumbering in comparison with the sophisticated, intellectually agile Social Democrat. He spoke no foreign languages and, even in German, his thick lisp made him sound almost inarticulate.
"I was the village idiot from the Palatinate," he recalled bitterly in an interview earlier this month.
The Chancellor forged important personal friendships with the US president, Mr Ronald Reagan, and, above all, the French president, Mr Francois Mitterrand. But his diplomatic gaffes were as noteworthy as his successes in the early years; he alarmed Germany's neighbours by taking Mr Reagan to visit a war cemetery containing SS graves in 1985 and he almost wrecked relations with Moscow by comparing the Russian leader, Mr Mikhail Gorbachev, to Hitler's propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels.
The twin goals of uniting Europe in peace and securing Germany's place as a normal, reliable partner in the western alliance underpinned Dr Kohl's foreign policy. At home, he was able to ignore economic questions because Germany's prosperity was such that the country could spend its way out of most difficulties.
Then, on November 9th, 1989, the Berlin Wall fell and everything changed.
Dr Kohl was in Warsaw when the crowds started pouring through from East Berlin into the West. Like most Germans, he did not immediately grasp the significance of the event.
On December 12th, 1989, he flew to Dresden to meet the new East German prime minister, Mr Hans Modrow. He had only been in the east twice before in his life, once in Dresden and once in Leipzig, where his wife, Hannelore, was born. The moment Dr Kohl's plane landed, he realised, as he recalled in his memoirs, that unification was going to happen.
The airport was full of cheering people waving red, black and gold flags, while Mr Modrow stood stony-faced on the tarmac.
As he came down the aircraft steps, Dr Kohl turned to Mr Rudolf Seiters, his chancellery minister, and said: "Rudi, it's all over."
Grateful easterners saved Dr Kohl from defeat in the 1990 federal election and again four years later. But there have been increasing signs in recent years that the Chancellor is losing touch with the electorate and that his legendary political antennae are blunted.
Delegates at recent party conferences have been alarmed as Dr Kohl confuses the names of Christian Democrat state prime ministers and sometimes even forgets which city he is in.
Only the German people can end Dr Kohl's political career and, as they reflect on his achievements over the past 16 years, many will feel an uncomfortable shudder of remorse before they mark their ballot papers and seal the Chancellor's fate.