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Helmut Schmidt

Helmut Heinrich Waldemar Schmidt (23 December 1918 – 10 November 2015) was a German politician and member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), who served as the chancellor of West Germany from 1974 to 1982.

Before becoming chancellor, he served as the minister of defence (1969–1972) and the minister of finance (1972–1974) in the government of Willy Brandt. In the latter role he gained credit for his financial policies. He had also briefly been minister of economics and acting foreign minister.

As chancellor, he focused on international affairs, seeking "political unification of Europe in partnership with the United States" amidst the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and issuing proposals that led to the NATO Double-Track Decision in 1979 to deploy U.S. Pershing II missiles to Europe. He was an energetic diplomat who sought European co-operation and international economic co-ordination and was the leading force in creating the European Monetary System in 1978. He was re-elected chancellor in 1976 and 1980, but his coalition fell apart in 1982 with the switch by his coalition allies, the Free Democratic Party.

He retired from Parliament in 1986, after clashing with the SPD's left-wing, which opposed him on defence and economic issues. In 1986, he was a leading proponent of European monetary union and a European Central Bank.

Background, family, early life and education
Helmut Schmidt was the elder of two sons of teachers Ludovica Koch (10 November 1890 – 29 November 1968) and Gustav Ludwig Schmidt (18 April 1888 – 26 March 1981) in Barmbek, a working-class district of Hamburg, in 1918. Schmidt studied at Hamburg Lichtwark School, graduating in 1937. Schmidt's father was born the biological son of a German Jewish banker, Ludwig Gumpel, and a Christian waitress, Friederike Wenzel, and then covertly adopted, although this was kept a family secret for many years. This was confirmed publicly by Schmidt in 1984, after Valéry Giscard d'Estaing revealed the fact to journalists, apparently with Schmidt's assent. Helmut Schmidt was a non-practising Protestant.

Schmidt was a group leader (Scharführer) in the Hitler Youth organisation until 1936, when he was demoted and sent on leave because of his anti-Nazi views. However, documents from 1942 praise his "Impeccable national socialist [Nazi] behaviour", and in 1944 his superiors mentioned that Schmidt "stands the ground of national socialist ideology, knowing that he must pass it on." On 27 June 1942, he married his childhood sweetheart Hannelore "Loki" Glaser (3 March 1919 – 21 October 2010). They had two children: Helmut Walter (26 June 1944 – 19 February 1945, died of meningitis), and Susanne Schmidt (journalist) (born 8 May 1947), who works in London for Bloomberg Television. Schmidt resumed his education in Hamburg after the war, graduating in economics and political science in 1949.

Military service
Schmidt had planned to study without interruption. Therefore, he volunteered at age 18 for military service in 1937. He began serving with an anti-aircraft battery of Luftwaffe at Vegesack near Bremen.

In World War II, after brief service on the Eastern Front during the invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 (including the Siege of Leningrad), he returned to Germany in 1942 to work as a trainer and advisor at the Ministry of Aviation. During his service in World War II, Schmidt was awarded the Iron Cross 2nd Class.

He attended the People's Court as a military spectator at some of the show trials for officers involved in the 20 July plot, in which an unsuccessful attempt was made to assassinate Hitler at Rastenburg, and was disgusted by Judge Roland Freisler's conduct.

Toward the end of the war, from December 1944 onwards, he served as an Oberleutnant in the Flak artillery on the Western Front during the Battle of the Bulge and the Ardennes Offensive. He was captured by the British in April 1945 on Lüneburg Heath, and was a prisoner of war until August of that year in Belgium. In 1958 Schmidt was promoted to Hauptmann of the Bundeswehr reserve.

Post-WWII
Schmidt joined the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) in 1946, and from 1947 to 1948 was the leader of the Socialist German Student League, the student organisation of the SPD. Upon graduating from the University of Hamburg, where he read economics, he worked for the government of the city-state of Hamburg, working in the department of Economic Policy. Beginning in 1952, under Karl Schiller, he was a senior figure heading up the Behörde für Wirtschaft und Verkehr (the Hamburg State Ministry for Economy and Transport).

He was elected to the Bundestag in 1953, and in 1957 he became a member of the SPD parliamentary party executive. A vocal critic of conservative government policy, his outspoken rhetoric in parliament earned him the nickname Schmidt-Schnauze ("Schmidt the Lip"). In 1958, he joined the national board of the SPD (Bundesvorstand), and campaigned against nuclear weapons and the equipping of the Bundeswehr with such devices. He alarmed some in his party by taking part in manoeuvres as a reserve officer in the newly formed Bundeswehr. In 1962, he gave up his seat in parliament to concentrate on his tasks in Hamburg.

Senator
The government of the city-state of Hamburg is known as the Senate of Hamburg, and from 1961 to 1965, Schmidt was the Innensenator: the senator of the interior. He gained a reputation as a Macher – someone who gets things done regardless of obstacles – by his effective management during the emergency caused by the 1962 flood, during which 300 people drowned. Schmidt used all means at his disposal to alleviate the situation, even when that meant overstepping his legal authority, including employing the federal police and army units (ignoring the German constitution's prohibition on using the army for "internal affairs"; a clause excluding disasters was not added until 1968). Describing his actions, Schmidt said, "I wasn't put in charge of these units – I took charge of them!" He saved a further 1,000 lives and swiftly managed the re-housing of thousands of the homeless.

Return to federal politics
In 1965, he was re-elected to the Bundestag. In 1967, after the formation of the Grand Coalition between the SPD and the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), he became chairman of the Social Democratic parliamentary party, a post he held until the elections of 1969. In 1968, he was elected deputy party chairman, a post that he held until 1983. Unlike Willy Brandt and Gerhard Schröder, he never became chairman of the party.

In October 1969, he entered the government of Willy Brandt as defense minister. During his term in office, the military conscription time was reduced from 18 to 15 months, while at the same time increasing the number of young men being conscripted. Additionally, Schmidt decided to introduce the Bundeswehr universities in Hamburg and Munich to broaden the academic education of the German officer corps, and the situation of non-commissioned officers was improved. In July 1972, he succeeded Karl Schiller as Minister for Economics and Finance, but in November 1972, he relinquished the Economics department, which was again made a separate ministry. Schmidt remained Minister of Finance and faced the prospect of rising inflation. Shortly before the Oil Shock of 1973, which rattled Britain and United States, Schmidt agreed that European currencies should be floated against the US Dollar. He remained in charge of finance until May 1974.

Chancellor of Germany, 1974–1982

Schmidt became Chancellor of West Germany on 16 May 1974, after Brandt's resignation in the wake of an espionage scandal. The worldwide economic recession was the main problem his administration faced, and Schmidt took a tough and disciplined line, in reduction of public spending. Schmidt was also active in improving relations with France. Together with the French President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, he was one of the fathers of the world economic summits, the first of which assembled in 1975. In 1975, he was a signatory of the Helsinki Accords to create the Conference for Security and Co-operation in Europe, the precursor of today's OSCE. In 1978, he helped set up the European Monetary System (EMS).

He remained as Chancellor after the 1976 federal election, in coalition with the liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP). He adopted a tough, uncompromising line with the indigenous Red Army Faction (RAF) extremists. In October 1977, he ordered an anti-terrorist unit of Bundesgrenzschutz policemen to end the Palestinian terrorist hijacking of a Lufthansa aircraft named Landshut, staged to secure the release of imprisoned RAF leaders, after it landed in Mogadishu, Somalia. Three of the four kidnappers were killed during the assault on the plane, but all 86 passengers were rescued unharmed.

Schmidt was re-elected as Chancellor in November 1980. Concerned about the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and the Soviet superiority regarding missiles in Central Europe, Schmidt issued proposals resulting in the NATO Double-Track Decision, concerning the deployment of medium-range nuclear missiles in Western Europe, should the Soviets not disarm. This decision was unpopular with the German public. A mass demonstration against the deployment mobilised 400,000 people in October 1981.

At the beginning of his period as chancellor, Schmidt was a proponent of Keynesian economics, and pursued expansionary monetary and fiscal policies during his tenure. Between 1979 and 1982, the Schmidt administration pursued such policies in an effort to reduce unemployment. These were moderately successful, as the fiscal measures introduced after 1977, with reductions in income and wealth taxes and an increase in the medium-term public investment programme, were estimated to have created 160,000 additional jobs in 1978–79, or 300,000 if additional public sector employment was included in the figure. The small reduction in the unemployment rate, however, was achieved at the cost of a larger budget deficit (which rose from 31.2 billion DM to 75.7 billion DM in 1981), brought about by fiscal expansion. During the 1970s, West Germany was able to weather the global financial storm far better than almost all the other developed countries, with unemployment and inflation kept at comparatively low levels. During the 1976 election campaign, the SPD/FDP coalition was able to win the battle of statistics, whether the figures related to employees' incomes, strikes, unemployment, growth, or public sector debts. Amongst other social improvements, old age pensions had been doubled between 1969 and 1976, and unemployment benefits increased to 68% of previous earnings.

Whilst visiting Saudi Arabia in April 1981, Schmidt made some unguarded remarks about the Israel-Palestine conflict that succeeded in aggravating the delicate relations between Israel and West Germany. Asked by a reporter about the moral aspect of German-Israeli relations, he stated that Israel was not in a position to criticise Germany due to its handling of Palestinians, and "That won't do. And in particular, it won't do for a German living in a divided nation and laying moral claim to the right of self-determination for the German people. One must then recognize the moral claim of the Palestinian people to the right of self-determination." On 3 May, Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin denounced Schmidt as "unprincipled, avaricious, heartless, and lacking in human feeling", and stated that he had "willingly served in the German armies that murdered millions." Begin was also upset over remarks that Schmidt had made on West German television the previous week, in which he spoke apologetically about the suffering Germany inflicted on various nations during World War II; but made no mention of the Jews. On his flight home from Riyadh, Schmidt told his advisers that war guilt could not continue to affect Germany's foreign relations.

Schmidt was the first world leader to call upon newly elected French president François Mitterrand, who visited Bonn in July 1981. The two found themselves in "complete agreement" on foreign policy matters and relations with the United States and the Soviet Union, but differed on trade and economic issues.

By the end of his term, however, Schmidt had turned away from deficit spending, due to a deteriorating economic situation, and a number of welfare cuts were carried out, including smaller increases in child benefits and higher unemployment and health contributions. Large sections of the SPD increasingly opposed his security policy, while most of the FDP politicians strongly supported that policy. While representatives of the left-wing of the Social Democratic Party opposed reduction of the state expenditures, the FDP began proposing a monetarist economic policy. In February 1982, Schmidt won a motion of confidence; however on 17 September 1982, the coalition broke apart, with the four FDP ministers leaving his cabinet. Schmidt continued to lead a minority government composed only of SPD members, while the FDP negotiated a coalition with the CDU/CSU. During this time, Schmidt also headed the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. On 1 October 1982, the FDP supported a CDU-proposed constructive vote of no confidence, ousting Schmidt in favour of CDU chairman Helmut Kohl as the new chancellor. This was the only time in the history of the Federal Republic that a chancellor was removed from office in this way.

Domestic reforms
Although Schmidt did not feel that he was in a position to substantially extend the social reforms of the Brandt Administration, due to the economic problems he encountered during his time as chancellor, a wide range of reforms were nevertheless carried out under his administration. Increases were made to pensions, which went up in numerical terms. Adjusted for changes in the annual price index, pensions went up in real terms. However the rate of pension was not changed in 1978 (even though prices increased by 2.7%), and in 1980 and 1981 the real value of pensions fell by 1.5% and 2.3%, respectively. Improvements were made in family allowances, with monthly subsidies for children increased by over 100% in 1975.

Improvements were made to invalidity and old-age pension provision for the unemployed, who (from 1977 onwards) were technically insured free of charge under the old-age pension and invalidity scheme. Previously, there had only existed partial and restricted coverage for the unemployed. The Law to Improve Occupational Old Age Pensions (1974) extended coverage of occupational pensions, whilst also "co-ordinating them more closely with state pensions and setting minimum standards as regards benefit levels and the preservation of pension rights". By 1976, as a result of this legislation, 65% of private sector employees were covered by occupational schemes, and over two-thirds of these workers were eligible for benefits equal to more than 15% of their earnings at retirement. This legislation also acquired that entitlements to occupational pensions must not expire after leaving a firm, and that occupational pensions must not be reduced as a result of receipt of benefits under the public insurance system. The Social Insurance Law for the Handicapped (1975) extended compulsory coverage to disabled persons working in special establishments for the disabled (medical benefits and cash benefits to replace earnings from work). In 1976, a new declaration of social rights was made, and in 1979, an Act was passed which lowered the pensionable age for severely disabled persons to 61 years, and to 60 years as from 1980.

In October 1974, a Rehabilitation Benefits Alignment Act was passed, with the intention of promoting rehabilitation of the disabled by extending certain benefits to them. To meet the need for more uniform medical treatment in rural areas and on the peripheral of cities due to a lack of panel doctors in those areas, a bill was passed in December 1976 which improved the possibilities of panel doctors' associations by ensuring that panel doctors were available to provide treatment, while also providing for planning according to need and the participation of the sickness insurances. An Act of August 1975 on criminal law reform introduced "other forms of assistance" such as medical advice on contraception, together with assistance pertaining to sterilisation and abortion. New assistance benefits were created in 1975 for family planning and maternity consultations, whilst a constant attendance allowance was increased. Housing renovation and energy savings legislation was introduced in 1977, while a constitutional reform of 1981 increased federal powers in health and education.

In July 1974, special benefits were introduced to compensate for wages not paid as a result of bankruptcy for a maximum of up to three months. Increases in income-limits for housing allowances were carried out, together with housing allowance rates, while major improvements were made in welfare provision for the elderly. By 1982, the purchasing power of the average pension was 2.5% better than in 1975. In 1975, tax allowances were replaced by child benefits, while payment for the first child was introduced. A tax relief act reduced income taxes and provided additional tax benefits for housing allowances. The Schmidt administration also introduced social policy legislation in the late 1970s, which increased family allowances (though by a smaller amount than in 1974) and maternity leave benefits. The increases in benefits under the Schmidt administration arguably had a positive impact on reducing inequalities, with the percentage of West Germans living in poverty (according to one measurement) falling between 1978 and 1982.

Under the law of June 1974, the residents could participate in the management of the establishment through a consultative committee. A law of June 1975 amended the Employment Protection Law and the Law on the provision of temporary workers which improved the legal protection of temporary migrants workers in West Germany. A law of December 1975 gave the right to claim under the sickness insurance scheme for medical consultations for family planning purposes. A law of May 1975 extended social security to disabled persons according to various procedures.

A law of April 1976 on youth employment limited working hours to 40 hours in a 5-day week, raised the minimum working age from 14 to 15, increased leave, improved conditions for release from work for day attendance at vocational training school and for periods of weeks under the block release system, and improved protection at work by restrictions on employment in dangerous or unhealthy work. A law on protection against dismissal was amended by abolishing the minimum age limit of 18, so that young workers under eighteen were now also protected against dismissal. The Ministry for Youth, Family Affairs and Health encouraged a pilot scheme, of a scientific nature, aimed at promoting the development of qualified advisory services on family planning, sexual problems and problems linked with pregnancy. A regulation of June 1976 laid down detailed rules governing 'aid to overcome particular social difficulties'. This measure was specially aimed at marginal social groups, such as former convicts and the homeless, and consisted of providing information, personal guidance, help in obtaining and maintaining a home and in obtaining and keeping a job, in addition to guidance as regards training and the organization of leisure time. The general section of the Social Code, which came into effect in January 1976, introduced basic measures concerning the social services. It laid down an obligation to establish the services and institutions needed by the population and to provide them with information and advice on their social rights. These provisions had already had certain effects, in particular a considerable growth in home help services and social centres. A regulation in application of a 1974 law on old people's homes and adult hostels was introduced, according to which compulsory consultative committees could be set up by the residents to ensure their participation in the running of these establishments in a greater measure than in the past. A law passed in August 1974 supplemented the protection provided for handicapped people under a law passed during the Brandt Administration in April 1974 by providing that, henceforth, the benefits for the purposes of medical and occupational rehabilitation would be the same for all the categories of persons concerned: war victims, the sick, the victims of industrial accidents, congenitally handicapped persons: a total of about 4 million persons in all.

The 1976 Act for the Promotion of Urban Development and the 1977 Housing Modernisation Act, together with the 1971 Act for the Promotion of Urban Development passed by the Brandt Administration, enabled most West German cities by the end of the Seventies to introduce programmes aimed at renovating their pre-war residential areas. Additional tax reforms were introduced that lowered the tax burden on low-income households, and which played an important role "in pre-empting a real decline in the income and purchasing power of workers". A law was passed to encourage low-income home ownership, while 250 million marks was provided in 1978 for the promotion of sports and physical education. That same year, entitlement to educational allowances was extended to all tenth-grade pupils in vocational education.

The Introductory Tax Reform Law (1974) increased bad weather payments, part-time workers' benefits and insurance benefits to 68% of net wages, fixed special benefits during vocational training at 90% of net earnings, increased assistance benefits to 58% of net earnings, and abolished special family benefits "in favour of the inclusion of the unemployed under general child allowance scheme". A special tax credit was introduced in 1978 in cases of particular financial burden due to children, while a substantial increase in the child allowance was made in 1979. Several policy changes were carried out between 1976 and 1982, such as tax credits and family allowances, which compensated unions for wage restraint and "guaranteed the maintenance of a constant income level for employed persons and their families". Increases were made in child benefits, which rose on a regular basis (particularly for families with more than one child) for most of the years that the Schmidt Administration was in office.

Various measures were also carried out to mitigate the effects of unemployment. Employment creation schemes were introduced to help young workers. The Training Opportunities Act (1976) helped (over a four-year period) to increase the number of vocational training places from 450,000 to 630,000 a year. In 1976, a provisional law was introduced to boost the number of apprentices, which reduced the numbers of young people out of work. An experimental retraining programme was launched on the shop floor (lasting from 1979 to 1981), which benefited 45,680 people.

In June 1974, a reformed food law was passed into law, which aimed to safeguard consumers from physical harm. The Students' Sickness Insurance Law (1975) extended compulsory coverage to students (medical benefits only), while the Artists' Social Insurance Law (1981) introduced compulsory insurance for artists below a certain income-limit. The Detergents Law (1975) and the Effluency Levies Act (1978) were passed to encourage environmental protection. In 1975, the allowable duration of unemployment benefit payment was extended to twenty-four months during periods of general recession. The 1976 law on standard terms of sale gave consumer groups the right to file suits against companies employing unfair terms of sale. The Higher Education Framework Act of 1976 pronounced that scientific continuing education was a task to be implemented by the institutions of the system of higher education, thus exceeding their traditional tasks of research and lecturing. In 1977, an "investment programme for the future" was decided upon by the Schmidt Administration, which provided DM 16 thousand million for the improvement of the transport system, an efficient and ecological energy supply, provisions for water supply, vocational training, and the safeguarding of the environment.

Under a regulation of December 1976, four new occupational diseases were recognised. To expand training opportunities for girls, a pilot scheme was launched in 1978 to open up certain skilled industrial and technical occupations to them. Laws restricting the access of migrant workers to certain regions were repealed in 1977, and the existing provisions were made more flexible in order to allow the children of migrant workers who had entered the Federal Republic of Germany in 1975/76 access to employment. Legislation governing old people's homes and adult assistance establishments was further supplemented by two regulations, one imposing minimum requirements concerning premises, and the other laying down rules for financial management to ensure that residents were not financially exploited.

The Fifth Amendment of July 1979 to the Employment Promotion Law provided among other things for an improvement in conditions governing financial support towards basic vocational training for unemployed young people with at least one year's vocational experience, the expansion of training activities for jobs in which there is a shortage of skilled workers and easier access to further vocational training facilities for problem groups (such as the unskilled, the unemployed, and women generally). In 1979, the Federal Minister for Education and Science made funds available for a new further education establishment to train instructors. Under a law amending the law respecting technical working media and the Industrial Code of August 1979, machines and equipment which had been voluntarily submitted for testing and passed by an established body may bear the marking 'GS' (=safety-tested). For medical equipment, the Federal Minister of Labour and Social Affairs was authorized to issue orders containing further safety provisions, while the resale of hazardous equipment and its display at exhibitions may be prohibited in future by factory inspectors even in the case of trading companies.

In 1979 DM 219 million was set aside for about 80,000 dwellings under the modernisation programme for dwellings worthy of preservation run jointly by the Federal authorities and the individual Länder (50% of this money was earmarked for modernization priority areas). In addition, DM 2,350 million was made available under a five-year programme to improve the housing stock. Loans and higher tax rebates were also used to encourage modernisation of dwellings and energy-saving measures. 577 slum clearance and urban development schemes in 459 municipalities were also accorded financial support amounting to DM 183.5 million under a law on the promotion of urban development. A law of October 1979 granted a lump-sum allowance for the winter of 1979/80 to help low-income groups to meet the additional outlay incurred by the rise in fuel costs. In August 1979, a programme was adopted for foreign refugees, with resources allocated for aid concerning information, legal advice, psycho-social and medical assistance and for measures to facilitate the integration of refugees or their emigration to other countries.

Under a law of July 1980, a farmer's surviving spouse wishing to continue working on the farm could obtain a helper or temporary aid from the agricultural pension fund. Any spouse choosing not to do so was entitled to a survivor's allowance if he or she was no longer able to find suitable paid employment either for reasons of age (over 45) or because there were children to bring up. In other cases, the allowance was designed to facilitate reintegration into working life. This allowance guaranteed the spouse protection under the agricultural sickness insurance scheme, which also covered self-employed fishermen and beekeepers.

A special programme was introduced, specially designed for young people who, because of their poor level of education and language ability, were unable to find a suitable job or training place. The young people were offered a one-year full-time course of training to qualify them for a training place or job, and in September 1980, approximately 15,000 young people were participating in these courses. From 1980 onwards, parents could deduct the cost of day care for their children (in day nurseries and nursery schools in particular) from their taxable income up to an annual maximum of DM 600 or DM 1,200 depending on whether the income of a single parent or that of a married couple was involved. Major additions were also made to the regulations on dangerous substances, while comprehensive new regulations concerning installations requiring supervision were introduced. The Federal Ministry for Youth, Family Affairs and Health gave particular attention to assisting parents in assuming their educational responsibilities towards their children. For instance, special 'letters to parents' were distributed free of charge to parents of children under 8, with some 3 million sent in 1979. A determined effort was also made to provide better education for socially disadvantaged children by supporting pilot schemes and research projects. Public funds had been allocated from 1979 onwards to a pilot scheme entitled 'Aid to children in need' under which children's communities were set up in Berlin and Gütersloh to protect and care for children who had been or were at risk of being ill-treated by their parents, while at the same time the family education and advisory services were assigned the task of educating these parents.

In terms of workplace rights, a "parity" system was introduced (although in a weakened form) on the supervisory boards of all companies employing over 2,000 workers, a reform which West German trade unions had long fought for. This law improved employee representation on the supervisory boards of companies outside the steel and coal industries. The main provision of this new piece of legislation was that in the 650 major companies that accounted for 70% of West Germany's output, employee representation on the supervisory boards rose from one-third to one-half. In 1976, the Young Persons (Protection of Employment) Act was passed, which forbade the employment of children and young persons required to attend full-time education, with minor exceptions.

The social protection of civil servants and judges (Bund and Länder) was standardised and improved by a law of August 1974. Under a law of May 1976, victims of acts of violence and their survivors would in future have the right to compensation in respect of the physical and economic consequences in the same manner as protection for war victims. In 1977, DM 8 million was made available by the federal government to welfare bodies to build and modernise holiday homes for families. That same year, the conditions for investment in the privately financed construction of rented dwellings were improved by the reintroduction of decreasing depreciation for buildings. In order to take the situation of the unemployed into account to the maximum possible extent in asset formation policy, certain legal provisions were amended so that in the event of unemployment, personal payments could be made to continue savings plans which entailed employers contributions. In addition, workers who had been unemployed for a year or more could unblock savings plans before the end of the freeze without losing the financial benefits offered by the State. A new special programme with funds of DM 100 million was launched at the start of 1978 to improve training and job opportunities for the disabled. The budget of the Federal Labour Office was increased exceptionally by more than 20%, whilst special emphasis was placed on measures to promote vocational training, job creation, advanced training and retraining. The aim was to reduce the high proportion of unemployed persons lacking training and increase the chances of this group to obtain employment.

A wide range of social liberal reforms were also carried out during Schmidt's time in office. A marriage and divorce law of 1976 instituted the principle of maintenance obligations of each economically stronger partner, That same year, a reform of naming for partners after marriage was carried out, together with a reform of marriage law, which eliminated "moral guilt" as a criterion for alimony payment obligations. The First Marriage Reform Law of 1976 stated that pension entitlements acquired during marriage must be shared with the economically weaker spouse following divorce. In 1977, a law was introduced which enabled married women to enter employment without the permission of their husbands, while prison reforms guaranteed inmates access to courts for any violations of their rights, limited sentences in all but the gravest cases to 15 years, and proclaimed rehabilitation to be the objective of incarceration. In 1977, a Sex Discrimination Act was passed. In 1981, a legal aid system was established to facilitate access to courts of law.

Life after politics
In 1982, along with his friend Gerald Ford, he co-founded the annual AEI World Forum. The following year he joined the nationwide weekly Die Zeit newspaper as co-publisher, also acting as its director from 1985 to 1989. In 1985, he became managing director. With Takeo Fukuda he founded the Inter Action Councils in 1983. He retired from the Bundestag in 1986. In December 1986, he was one of the founders of the committee supporting the EMU and the creation of the European Central Bank.

Contrary to the line of his party, Schmidt was a determined opponent of Turkey's bid to join the EU. He also opposed phasing out nuclear energy, something that the Red-Green coalition of Gerhard Schröder supported. In 2007, Schmidt described the climate debate as "hysterically overheated". When asked about social media, Schmidt said he perceived the internet as "threatening". He was particularly concerned about the superficiality of communication on the web.

On 16 May 2014, Schmidt said the Russo-Ukrainian War was dangerous, because, "Europe, the Americans and also Russia are behaving in a way that Christopher Clark described in his book The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914 that's very much worth reading, as the beginning of World War I: like sleepwalkers." Clark later disputed comparisons between the Russo-Ukrainian War and World War I, saying in 2022, "The first world war began in an incredibly complex, around-the-houses way. Whereas in the case of the invasion of Ukraine, in 2014 and this year, it's quite clearly a case of the breach of the peace by just one power."

Schmidt was the author of numerous books on his political life, on foreign policy, and political ethics. He made appearances in numerous television talk shows, and remained one of the most renowned political publicists in Germany until his death.

In his later years, Schmidt gained a positive reputation as an elder statesman across party lines in Germany.

Friendships

Schmidt described the assassinated Egyptian president Anwar Sadat as one of his friends from the world of politics, and maintained a friendship with ex-president Valéry Giscard d'Estaing of France. His circle also included former Singapore Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew and former U.S. Secretaries of State George Shultz and Henry Kissinger. Kissinger went on record as stating that he wished to predecease Helmut Schmidt, because he would not wish to live in a world without him.

He was also good friends with former Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. At the 4th G7 summit in 1978, the two discussed strategies for the upcoming Canadian federal election, and Schmidt gave him advice on economic policy. In 2011, Schmidt made a pilgrimage to the Trudeau family vault in St-Rémi-de-Napierville Cemetery, accompanied by Jean Chrétien and Tom Axworthy.

Personal life
Schmidt admired the philosopher Karl Popper, and contributed a foreword to the 1982 Festschrift in Popper's honour.

Schmidt was a talented pianist, and recorded piano concertos of both Mozart and Bach with German pianist and conductor Christoph Eschenbach. Schmidt recorded Mozart's piano concerto for three pianos, K. 242, with the London Philharmonic Orchestra directed by Eschenbach in 1982 with pianists Eschenbach and Justus Frantz for EMI Records (CDC 7 47473 2). In that recording, according to the CDs liner notes, Schmidt played the part written for Countess Antonia Lodron's youngest daughter Giuseppina, "almost a beginner" who commissioned the work. The part brilliantly "enables any reasonably practiced amateur to participate in a performance". The same musical notes also indicate that Schmidt and Frantz had played duets during Frantz's student days. In 1990 Schmidt joined Eschenbach, Frantz, Gerhard Oppitz and the Hamburg Philharmonic Orchestra in Deutsche Grammophon's recording of Bach's Concerto in A minor for four harpsichords, BWV 1065.

All his adult life, Schmidt was a heavy smoker. He was well known for lighting up during TV interviews and talk shows. On 13 October 1981, Schmidt was fitted with a cardiac pacemaker. On 24 August 2002, he suffered a heart attack and subsequently underwent bypass surgery.

On 25 January 2008, German police launched an inquiry after an anti-smoking initiative charged that Schmidt was defying the recently introduced smoking ban. The initiative claimed that Schmidt had been flagrantly ignoring anti-smoking laws. Despite pictures in the press, the case was subsequently dropped after the public prosecutor's office ruled that Schmidt's actions had not been a threat to public health.

On 6 April 2010, with a lifespan of 33,342 days, he surpassed Konrad Adenauer in terms of longevity, and at the time of his death was the oldest former chancellor in German history.

His wife of 68 years, Loki Schmidt, died on 21 October 2010, aged 91.

At the beginning of August 2012, Schmidt gave an interview on German television and revealed that at 93 years of age, he had fallen in love again. His new life-partner was his associate of over 57 years, Ruth Loah (27 September 1933 – 23 February 2017).

Illness, death and state funeral
On 2 September 2015, Schmidt underwent surgery for a vascular occlusion in his right leg. On 17 September, he was discharged from hospital. After initial improvement, his condition worsened again on 9 November, with his doctor saying he "feared for the worst". Schmidt died in his Hamburg home on the afternoon of 10 November 2015, aged 96. At the time of his death, he was the longest-lived German Chancellor.

A state funeral for Schmidt was held on 23 November at the Protestant (Lutheran) St. Michael's Church, Hamburg, where Loki Schmidt's funeral had been held. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, in remarks to mourners, said, "He will be missed. He was an astute observer and commentator, and it was with good reason that he had a reputation for dependability." Others who spoke included former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Speaking in German, he lauded Schmidt for "vision and courage", based on the principles of "reason, law, peace and faith", and said Schmidt had been "a kind of world conscience".

Among the 1,800 who attended were German President Joachim Gauck, former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and former French President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, whose tenure in office paralleled Schmidt's as German chancellor. Other guests included former chancellor Gerhard Schröder, former presidents Christian Wulff, Horst Köhler, Roman Herzog and Hamburg's mayor Olaf Scholz. A flag-draped coffin containing the remains of the former chancellor, also a former German defense minister, was escorted by the German Army's Wachbataillon from St. Michael's to Ohlsdorf Cemetery for a private interment ceremony. Helmut Schmidt's remains were buried there one day later, in the family grave alongside the remains of his parents and his wife, Loki.

Honours and awards
Helmut Schmidt received a number of accolades. Among those offered was the Grand Cross Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, which he chose not to accept in Hanseatic tradition in line with the history of independence of Hamburg.

In 2003, the university of Germany's federal armed forces in Hamburg was renamed Helmut Schmidt University – University of the Federal Armed Forces Hamburg in 2003, in honour of the politician who – as minister of defense – had introduced mandatory academic education for German career officers.

In November 2016, Hamburg Airport was renamed "Hamburg Airport Helmut Schmidt" in his honour.

Freedom of the City

 * 1983: Hamburg
 * 1983: Bonn
 * 1983: Bremerhaven
 * 1989: Berlin
 * 1995: Güstrow
 * 1998: State of Schleswig-Holstein

Honorary degrees
Throughout his tenure as chancellor, and even thereafter, Helmut Schmidt received 24 honorary degrees. They include degrees from the British universities Oxford and Cambridge, Paris Sorbonne, the American Harvard and Johns Hopkins universities, the Belgian Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, and the Keio University in Japan.

Foundations
The Bundeskanzler-Helmut-Schmidt-Stiftung was established in 2016 by the German Bundestag as one of six non-partisan foundations commemorating politicians. Its aim is to honour Helmut Schmidt's historic achievements and to work on political issues Helmut Schmidt was concerned with throughout his political life and which have lost none of their relevance today. The foundation's headquarters are located in Hamburg.

Awards

 * 1978: Theodor Heuss Prize for his crisis management in the time of RAF-Terror
 * 1978: Peace Prize of the Louise Weiss Foundation in Strasbourg
 * 1986: Athena Award of the Alexander S. Onassis Foundation
 * 1988: Red Cross Four Freedoms Award
 * 1989: Prize "The Political Book" award of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation for Men and Powers
 * 1990: Friedrich-Schiedel-Literaturpreis for Men and Powers
 * 1996: Spanish journalism prize Godo
 * 1998: Carlo Schmid Prize
 * 2001: Gold Medal of the Foundation Jean Monnet, for his dedication in the service of the European Monetary Union (together with his friend, the former French President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing)
 * 2002: Martin Buber Plaque
 * 2002: Dolf Sternberger Prize
 * 2005: Prix des Generations of the initiative VIVA 50plus
 * 2005: Oswald von Nell-Breuning Prize of the city of Trier
 * 2005: Adenauer-de Gaulle Prize, for his work at the Franco-German cooperation (along with Valéry Giscard d'Estaing)
 * 2007: Henry Kissinger Prize of the American Academy in Berlin
 * 2007: Global Economy Prize of the Kiel Institute for the World Economy
 * 2008: Osgar Media Award of the Bild Zeitung
 * 2009: Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy Prize
 * 2010: Point Alpha Prize
 * 2010: Henri Nannen Prize for his journalistic lifetime achievement
 * 2011: Millennium-Bambi
 * 2012: Eric M. Warburg Prize
 * 2012: Westphalian Peace Prize
 * 2013: Hanns Martin Schleyer Prize. The Schleyer family's decision to award him this prize 36 years after Schleyer's death deeply moved him.
 * 2014: German-French Journalists Prize
 * 2015: Gustav Stresemann Prize of the Grand Lodge of Ancient Free and Accepted Masons of Germany

Controversies over service in World War II
In 2017, after Minister of Defense Ursula von der Leyen issued an order to remove Wehrmacht memorabilia from barracks and other institutions of the Bundeswehr, a photo of the young Lieutenant Helmut Schmidt in Wehrmacht uniform was removed from the military's Helmut Schmidt University in Hamburg. Although the photo is now displayed again, the initial decision has caused a debate over Schmidt's service in the Wehrmacht. According to Der Spiegel, von der Leyen initially distanced herself from this decision, yet after a few days, she explained that Schmidt, as Minister of Defense and later Chancellor, was important in the formation of the Bundeswehr as a democratic army, but his time in the Wehrmacht had nothing to do with this. Historian Michael Wolffsohn argues that Schmidt avoided explaining about "what he had done between 1940 and 1945." He further comments that the whole Schmidt affair reveals that while the Bundeswehr is not "a state within state", there is an uncritical milieu in the Bundeswehr that does not correspond to the spirit of the majority in the German society and might get larger if unchecked. He recommends that the photo be displayed again, but with explanations. Theo Sommer, a prominent journalist and former Chief of Planning Staff for the Ministry of Defence, while agreeing that the military leadership should pay attention to extremism within the Bundeswehr, criticizes von der Leyen for her overreaction and Wolffsohn for false representation of Schmidt's attitude. According to Sommer, Schmidt had always been frank about his service on the Eastern Front: while he denied that he had ever seen or known about mass extermination of Jews in Russia, Schmidt admitted he often had to shoot at villages and then recognized the smell of burnt flesh. Schmidt said the troops were never taught about the Geneva Conventions, and by standards of today, he would have to go to court "a dozen times". According to Der Spiegel, Schmidt dated his departure from "idea and practice of National Socialism" to 1942 and his recognition of the criminal character of the regime to 1944.

Memoirs

 * Menschen und Mächte (Men and Powers), Siedler, Berlin 1987. Memoirs with focus on cold war politics.
 * Die Deutschen und ihre Nachbarn (The Germans and Their Neighbours), Siedler, Berlin 1990. Strong focus on European politics.
 * Kindheit und Jugend unter Hitler, with Willi Berkhan et al. (Childhood and Youth Under Hitler). Siedler, Berlin 1992.
 * Weggefährten (Companions), Siedler, Berin 1996. Personal memoirs, with focus on personal relations with domestic and foreign politicians.

title: Helmut Schmidt


text:
Ludwig Erhard

Ludwig Wilhelm Erhard (4 February 1897 – 5 May 1977) was a German politician and economist affiliated with the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), and chancellor of West Germany from 1963 until 1966. He is known for leading the West German postwar economic reforms and economic recovery (Wirtschaftswunder, German for "economic miracle") in his role as Minister of Economic Affairs under Chancellor Konrad Adenauer from 1949 to 1963. During that period he promoted the concept of the social market economy (soziale Marktwirtschaft), on which Germany's economic policy in the 21st century continues to be based.

In his tenure as Chancellor, however, Erhard lacked support from Adenauer, who remained chairman of the CDU party until 1966. Erhard failed to win the German public's confidence in his handling of a budget deficit and lacked public support for his direction of foreign policy. His popularity waned, and he resigned his chancellorship on 30 November 1966.

Early life
Ludwig Erhard was born in Fürth, then in the Kingdom of Bavaria, on 4 February 1897. His father Wilhelm Erhard (born 1859) was a Catholic Church clothing store proprietor, while his mother Augusta adhered to Protestantism. Ludwig had two brothers and a sister, all of whom were raised as Protestants. Ludwig suffered from infantile paralysis in his third year, resulting in a deformed right foot and forcing him to wear orthopedic shoes for the remainder of his life.

Erhard entered primary school in Fürth at the age of six in 1903 and performed poorly. In 1907, he entered Fürth's Royal Bavarian Vocational High School, where his grades were average. He received his secondary school certificate in 1913. In the following years, he was a commercial apprentice at the Georg Eisenbach textile company in Nuremberg until 1916 and worked thereafter as a retail salesman in his father's draper's shop.

Military service and university
In 1916, Erhard volunteered for the German military. During World War I he was transferred to the 22nd Royal Bavarian Artillery Regiment and trained as a gunner. He first served in the quiet Vosges sector on the Western Front. The regiment was then deployed in the Romanian Campaign on the Eastern Front. He personally saw little combat, but contracted typhus and was sent back to Germany. After he managed a recovery Erhard returned to his unit. He was badly wounded on his left shoulder, side and leg by an Allied artillery shell on 28 September 1918 during the Fifth Battle of Ypres. Erhard was committed to a military hospital in Recklinghausen, where he underwent seven operations until June 1919. His left arm ended up permanently shorter than his right one.

Due to his injury he could no longer work as a draper so Erhard started learning economics in late 1919 at a business college in Nuremberg. He passed the school's exit examination on 22 March 1922 and received a degree in business administration. During his time at school, he developed a friendship with the economist and professor Wilhelm Rieger, to whom Erhard owed much of his convictions of economic liberalism. Thanks to Rieger's intervention, Erhard was able to enroll at the Goethe University Frankfurt in the autumn of 1922. He received his PhD from the university on 12 December 1925 for a dissertation finished in the summer of 1924 under Franz Oppenheimer. Oppenheimer's liberal socialist ideology had a heavy influence on Erhard, especially Oppenheimer's opposition to monopolies. In Frankfurt he married Luise Schuster, a fellow economist, on 11 December 1923. They had known each other since childhood.

Early career
After his graduation they moved to Fürth and he became an executive in his father's company in 1925. Erhard spent the next three years as a mostly unemployed academic. His father retired in 1928. The same year, thanks to the help of Rieger and Oppenheimer, Erhard became a part-time research assistant at the Institut für Wirtschaftsbeobachtung der deutschen Fertigware (Economic Observation of the German Finished Goods Industry), a marketing research institute founded by Wilhelm Rudolf Mann and de:Wilhelm Vershofen. Later, he became deputy director of the institute.

During World War II he worked on concepts for a postwar peace; however, officially such studies were forbidden by the Nazis, who had declared 'total war'. As a result, Erhard lost his job in 1942, but continued to work on the subject by order of the Reichsgruppe Industrie. He wrote War Finances and Debt Consolidation (orig: Kriegsfinanzierung und Schuldenkonsolidierung) in 1944; in this study he assumed that Germany had already lost the war. He sent his thoughts to Carl Friedrich Goerdeler, a central figure in the German resistance to Nazism, who recommended Erhard to his comrades. Erhard also discussed his concept with Otto Ohlendorf, deputy secretary of state in the Reichsministerium für Wirtschaft. Ohlendorf himself spoke out for "active and courageous entrepreneurship (aktives und wagemutiges Unternehmertum)", which was intended to replace bureaucratic state planning of the economy after the war.

Post-war career
When the war had finished, Erhard became an economic consultant. Under the Bizone established by the American and British administration in 1947, he led the Sonderstelle Geld und Kredit ("Special Office for Money and Credit"), an expert commission preparing the currency reform in Germany's western zones of occupation. The commission began its deliberations in October 1947, and the following April produced the so-called Homburg plan, elements of which were adopted by the Allies in the currency reform that set the stage for the recovery of the economy.

In April 1948, Erhard was elected director of economics by the Bizonal Economic Council. On 20 June 1948, the Deutsche Mark was introduced. Erhard abolished the price-fixing and production controls that had been enacted by the military administration. This exceeded his authority, but he succeeded with this step. In July 1948, a group of southwest German businessmen attacked the restrictive credit policy of Erhard as Economic Director. While Erhard had designed this policy to assure currency stability and stimulate the economy via consumption, business feared the scarcity of investment capital would retard economic recovery.

Minister of Economic Affairs
In the first free elections of the federal parliament in September 1949, Erhard was elected in a Baden-Württemberg district as candidate of the Christian Democratic Union. He was appointed Federal Minister for Economic Affairs, a position he would hold for the next 14 years; from 1957 to 1963 he was also the vice-chancellor of Germany. Erhard's financial and economic policies soon proved widely popular as the German economy made a miracle recovery to rapid growth and widespread prosperity in the 1950s, overcoming wartime destruction and successfully integrating millions of refugees from the east.

A staunch believer in economic liberalism, Erhard joined the Mont Pelerin Society in 1950, and used this influential body of liberal economic and political thinkers to test his ideas for the reorganization of the West German economy. Some of the society's members were members of the Allied High Commission and Erhard was able to make his case directly to them. The Mont Pélerin Society welcomed Erhard because this gave its members a welcome opportunity to have their ideas tested in real life. Alfred Müller-Armack, the secretary of state of Erhard's ministry, helped him guide German economy with theories until the beginning of 1960s.

Late in the 1950s, Erhard's ministry became involved in the struggle within the society between the European and the Anglo-American factions, and sided with the former. Erhard viewed the market itself as social and supported only a minimum of welfare legislation. However, Erhard suffered a series of decisive defeats in his effort to create a free, competitive economy in 1957; he had to compromise on such key issues as the anti-cartel legislation. Thereafter, the West German economy evolved into a conventional welfare state from the basis that had been already laid in the 1880s by Bismarck. According to Alfred Mierzejewski the generally accepted view is that Germany has a social market economy, that the post-war German economy has evolved since 1948, but the fundamental characteristics of that economic system have not changed, while in his opinion the social market economy had begun to fade in 1957, disappearing entirely by the late 1960s.

Erhard was also deeply critical of a bureaucratic-institutional integration of Europe on the model of the European Coal and Steel Community.

Chancellor
After the resignation of Adenauer in 1963, Erhard was elected chancellor with 279 against 180 votes in the Bundestag on 16 October. In 1965, he was re-elected. From 1966 to 1967, he also headed the Christian Democratic Union as de facto chairman, despite the fact that he was never a member of that party (which made his election to the chairmanship irregular and void de jure), as he never formally filed a membership application despite pressure from Chancellor Adenauer. The reasons for Erhard's reluctance are unknown, but it is probable that they stemmed from Erhard's general scepticism about party politics. However, Erhard was regarded and treated as a long-time CDU member and as the party chairman by almost everyone in Germany at the time, including the vast majority of the CDU itself. The fact that he was not a member was known only to a very small circle of party leaders, and it did not become known to the public until 2007, when the silence was finally broken by Erhard's close advisor Horst Wünsche.

Domestically, a number of progressive reforms were carried out during Erhard's time as chancellor. In the field of social security, Housing Benefit was introduced in 1965.

Foreign policy and international trips
Erhard considered using money to bring about the reunification of Germany, which would have broken a diplomatic stalemate that had existed since the end of the Second World War regarding the status of West and East Germany. Despite Washington's reluctance, Erhard envisaged offering Nikita Khrushchev, the leader in Moscow, massive economic aid in exchange for more political liberty in East Germany and eventually for reunification. Erhard believed that if West Germany were to offer a "loan" worth $25 billion US to the Soviet Union (which Erhard did not expect to be repaid), then the Soviet Union would permit German reunification. Erhard did not have a specific, concrete plan in mind, however, believing that reality, and especially negotiations over such a major proposition, were too complex to be forecasted in advance with any accuracy, and as a result, he prepared to negotiate without any predetermined agenda. The acting American Secretary of State George Wildman Ball described Erhard's plan to essentially buy East Germany from the Soviet Union as "half-baked and unrealistic." Erhard's objective coincided with Khrushchev rethinking his relations with West Germany. The Soviet leader secretly encouraged Erhard to present a realistic proposal for a modus vivendi and officially accepted the Chancellor's invitation to visit Bonn. However, Khrushchev fell from power in October 1964, and nothing developed out of Erhard's envisioned idea for the reunification of Germany. Perhaps more importantly, the Soviet Union had received a vast series of loans from the international money markets by late 1964, and no longer felt the need for Erhard's money.

Support for the American role in the Vietnam War proved fatal for Erhard's coalition. Through his endorsement of the American goal of military victory in Vietnam, Erhard sought closer collaboration with Washington and less with Paris. Erhard's policy complicated Allied initiatives toward German unification, a dilemma that the United States placed on the back burner as it focused on Southeast Asia. Erhard failed to understand that American global interests—not Europe's needs—dictated policy in Washington, D.C., and he rejected Adenauer's policy of fostering good relations with both the United States and France in the pursuit of West German national interest. Faced with a dangerous budget deficit in the 1966–1967 recession, Erhard fell from office in part because of concessions that he made during a visit to U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson.

Erhard's fall suggested that progress on German unification required a broader approach and a more active foreign policy. Chancellor Willy Brandt in the late 1960s abandoned the Hallstein Doctrine of previous chancellors and employed a new Ostpolitik, seeking improved relations with the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe and thereby laying the groundwork for détente and coexistence between East and West. In the 1980s Chancellor Helmut Kohl, however, reverted to Erhard's approach in collaborating with the Reagan administration in its hard-line anti-Soviet policy.

Under Erhard's government the Federal Republic entered into diplomatic relations with Israel in 1965.

Resignation and retirement
On 26 October 1966, Minister Walter Scheel (FDP) resigned, protesting against the budget released the day before. The other ministers who were members of the FDP followed his example — the coalition was broken. On 30 November 1966, Erhard resigned. His successor was Kurt Georg Kiesinger (CDU), who formed a grand coalition with the SPD.

Erhard continued his political work by remaining a member of the West German parliament until his death in Bonn from heart failure on 5 May 1977. He was buried in his living place Gmund at the Tegernsee in Upper Bavaria. The Ludwig Erhard-Berufsschule (professional college) in Paderborn, Fürth and Münster are named in his honour.

Publications by Erhard

 * Wesen und Inhalt der Werteinheit [Essence and content of the unit of value]. Doctoral thesis, 1925
 * Kriegsfinanzierung und Schuldenkonsolidierung [War Financing and Debt Consolidation]. 1944
 * Deutschlands Rückkehr zum Weltmarkt [Germany's return to the world market]. 1953
 * Wohlstand für Alle, Econ Verlag 1957. (Engl. "Prosperity Through Competition"), Thames & Hudson 1958
 * Deutsche Wirtschaftspolitik, 1962. (Engl. "The Economics of Success"), Thames & Hudson 1963
 * Grenzen der Demokratie? [Limits of democracy?]. Düsseldorf 1973

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Ludwig Erhard


text:
Talk:12th century BC

[Untitled]
I think we can add here for the fall of Troy the date 1184 BC that is traditional and that we can find everywhere, for exemple here: http://www.sarissa.org/troy.htm - Noises

 * Sorry. That's speculation, based on all kinds of deductions and assumptions. MichaelTinkler

 * I'm with Noises with reservations - where a date's "traditional" but lacking independent foundation, I think it should be entered, but in the form: "Traditional date (given by/based on ...) for .... There is no real evidence for the date, and the event may have occurred some/many years/decades/centuries earlier/later/earlier or later" - or something like that, so that users who look up the date (assuming it's supported) can get an idea of the extent to which it isn't. - User:David Parker

Real dates of Rameses III
In the wiki article concerning the 12th century BC (New Section) we find the following;

"1197 BC: Ramses III of Egypt repels attacks by northern invaders (the "Sea-Peoples")."

However Wikipedia also has an entry concerning Ram. III, which gives a differing view of his dates! Should not someone make the corrections or offer a reason for the disconnections?69.92.23.64 (talk) 19:28, 27 April 2010 (UTC)Ronald L. Hughes

By the way the Wikipedia article concerning R. III, says; "Ramesses III is believed to have reigned from March 1186 to April 1155 BC. He was born approximately 1220 BC [1]. This is based on his known accession date of I Shemu day 26 and his death on Year 32 III Shemu day 15, for a reign of 31 years, 1 month and 19 days.[2] (Alternate dates for this king are 1187 to 1156 BC)." 69.92.23.64 (talk) 19:37, 27 April 2010 (UTC)Ronald L. Hughes

You might well notice this; "April 24, 1184 BC: Traditional date for the fall of Troy, Asia Minor to the Mycenaeans and their allies. This marks the end of the Trojan War of Greek mythology. 1181 BC: Menestheus, legendary King of Athens and veteran of the Trojan War, dies after a reign of 23 years and is succeeded by his..." Thus, it seems that there exists the possibility that the Peoples of the Isles or Sea, both invaded Egypt and took Troy at about the same time? But, wait, it was the Greeks who took Troy, and the mysterious Sea People failed to take Egypt?69.92.23.64 (talk) 19:42, 27 April 2010 (UTC)Ronald L. Hughes

title: Talk:12th century BC


text:
Storage

Storage may refer to:

Containers

 * Dry cask storage, for storing high-level radioactive waste
 * Food storage
 * Intermodal container, cargo shipping
 * Storage tank

Facilities

 * Mail storage, storage by mail or delivery service
 * Self storage, a public storage facility
 * Storage room or storeroom, a room for storing objects
 * Garage (residential), a storage space normally used to store cars
 * Overhead storage, for example overhead storage bins, racks, shelves, cabinets or track systems in aircraft, trains or buildings
 * Warehouse, a commercial building for storage of goods

Technology

 * Cloud storage
 * Computer data storage, a means to retain digital data
 * Data storage, general recording and retention of information
 * Energy storage
 * Specific storage, of groundwater in an aquifer

Arts and entertainment

 * Storage (film), a 2009 Australian horror film
 * The Storage, a 2011 Finnish film
 * Storage (album), a 1988 album by Merzbow
 * Storage Wars, a reality television show
 * "Storage Wars", an episode of One Day at a Time (2017 TV series)

Other

 * Storage (memory), a psychological and physiological process

title: Storage


text:
Al Pacino

Alfredo James Pacino (born April 25, 1940) is an American actor. Considered one of the greatest and most influential actors of the 20th century, Pacino has received numerous accolades including an Academy Award, two Tony Awards, and two Primetime Emmy Awards, achieving the Triple Crown of Acting. He has also received four Golden Globe Awards, a BAFTA, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, and was honored with the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 2001, the AFI Life Achievement Award in 2007, the National Medal of Arts in 2011, and the Kennedy Center Honors in 2016.

A method actor, Pacino studied at HB Studio and the Actors Studio, where he was taught by Charlie Laughton and Lee Strasberg. Pacino went on to receive the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in Scent of a Woman (1992). His other Oscar-nominated roles were in The Godfather (1972), Serpico (1973), The Godfather Part II (1974), Dog Day Afternoon (1975), ...And Justice for All (1979), Dick Tracy (1990), Glengarry Glen Ross (1992), and The Irishman (2019). His other notable roles include The Panic in Needle Park (1971), Scarecrow (1973), Cruising (1980), Scarface (1983), The Godfather Part III (1990), Carlito's Way (1993), Heat (1995), Donnie Brasco, The Devil's Advocate (both 1997), The Insider, Any Given Sunday (both 1999), Insomnia (2002), Ocean's Thirteen (2007), Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019), and House of Gucci (2021).

On television, Pacino has acted in multiple productions for HBO, including Angels in America (2003) and the Jack Kevorkian biopic You Don't Know Jack (2010), winning a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie for each. Pacino starred in the Amazon Prime Video series Hunters (2020–23). He has also had an extensive career on stage. He is a two-time Tony Award winner, winning Best Featured Actor in a Play in Does a Tiger Wear a Necktie? (1969) and Best Actor in a Play for The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel (1977).

Pacino made his directing debut with the documentary Looking for Richard (1996); Pacino had played the lead role on stage in 1977. He has also acted as Shylock in a 2004 feature film adaptation and 2010 stage production of The Merchant of Venice. Pacino directed and starred in Chinese Coffee (2000), Wilde Salomé (2011), and Salomé (2013). Since 1994, he has been the joint president of the Actors Studio.

Early life and education
Alfredo James Pacino was born in the East Harlem neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, on April 25, 1940, the only child of Sicilian Italian-American parents Rose (Gerardi) and Salvatore Pacino. His parents divorced when he was two years old. He then moved with his mother to the South Bronx to live with her parents, Kate and James Gerardi, who were Italian emigrants from Corleone. Pacino's father was from San Fratello and moved to work as an insurance salesman and restaurateur in Covina, California.

In his teenage years, Pacino was known as "Sonny" to his friends. He had ambitions to become a baseball player and was also nicknamed "The Actor". He attended Herman Ridder Junior High School, but soon dropped out of most of his classes except for English. He subsequently attended the High School of Performing Arts, after gaining admission by audition. His mother disagreed with his decision and, after an argument, he left home. To finance his acting studies, Pacino took low-paying jobs as a messenger, busboy, janitor, and postal clerk, as well as once working in the mailroom for Commentary.

Pacino began smoking and drinking at age nine, and used marijuana casually at age 13, but he abstained from hard drugs. His two closest friends died from drug abuse at the ages of 19 and 30. Growing up in the South Bronx, Pacino got into occasional fights and was considered somewhat of a troublemaker at school. He acted in basement plays in New York's theatrical underground, but was rejected as a teenager by the Actors Studio. Instead, Pacino joined the HB Studio, where he met acting teacher Charlie Laughton, who became his mentor and best friend. In this period, he was often unemployed or homeless, and sometimes slept on the street, in theaters, or at a friend's home.

In 1962, Pacino's mother died at the age of 43. The following year, his maternal grandfather also died. Pacino recalled it as the lowest point of his life and said, "I was 22 and the two most influential people in my life had gone, so that sent me into a tailspin."

After four years at HB Studio, Pacino successfully auditioned for the Actors Studio. The Actors Studio is a membership organization of professional actors, theater directors, and playwrights in the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood of Manhattan. Pacino studied "method acting" under acting coach Lee Strasberg, who appeared with Pacino in the films The Godfather Part II and in ...And Justice for All.

During later interviews, he spoke about Strasberg and the Studio's effect on his career. "The Actors Studio meant so much to me in my life. Lee Strasberg hasn't been given the credit he deserves ... Next to Charlie, it sort of launched me. It really did. That was a remarkable turning point in my life. It was directly responsible for getting me to quit all those jobs and just stay acting." In another interview he added, "It was exciting to work for him [Lee Strasberg] because he was so interesting when he talked about a scene or talked about people. One would just want to hear him talk, because things he would say, you'd never heard before ... He had such a great understanding ... he loved actors so much."

In 2000, Pacino was co-president of the Actors Studio, along with Ellen Burstyn and Harvey Keitel.

Stage career

In 1967, Pacino spent a season at the Charles Playhouse in Boston, performing in Clifford Odets' Awake and Sing! (his first major paycheck: US$125 a week); and in Jean-Claude Van Itallie's America Hurrah. He met actress Jill Clayburgh on this play. They had a five-year romance and moved back to New York City.

In 1968, Pacino starred in Israel Horovitz's The Indian Wants the Bronx at the Astor Place Theatre, playing Murph, a street punk. The play opened January 17, 1968, and ran for 177 performances; it was staged in a double bill with Horovitz's It's Called the Sugar Plum, starring Clayburgh. Pacino won an Obie Award for Best Actor for his role, with John Cazale winning for Best Supporting Actor and Horowitz for Best New Play. Martin Bregman saw the play and became Pacino's manager, a partnership that became fruitful in the years to come, as Bregman encouraged Pacino to do The Godfather, Serpico, and Dog Day Afternoon. About his stage career, Pacino said, "Martin Bregman discovered me ... I was 26, 25 ... he discovered me and became my manager. And that's why I'm here. I owe it to Marty, I really do".

Pacino took the production of The Indian Wants the Bronx to Italy for a performance at the Festival dei Due Mondi in Spoleto. It was Pacino's first journey to Italy; he later recalled that "performing for an Italian audience was a marvelous experience". Pacino and Clayburgh were cast in "Deadly Circle of Violence", an episode of the ABC television series NYPD, premiering November 12, 1968. Clayburgh at the time was also appearing on the soap opera Search for Tomorrow, playing the role of Grace Bolton. Her father would send the couple money each month to help with finances.

On February 25, 1969, Pacino made his Broadway debut in Don Petersen's Does a Tiger Wear a Necktie? at the Belasco Theater, produced by A&P Heir Huntington Hartford. It closed after 39 performances on March 29, 1969, but Pacino received rave reviews and won the Tony Award on April 20, 1969. Pacino continued performing onstage in the 1970s, winning a second Tony Award for The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel and performing the title role in Richard III. In the 1980s, Pacino again achieved critical success on stage while appearing in David Mamet's American Buffalo, for which Pacino was nominated for a Drama Desk Award. Since 1990, Pacino's stage work has included revivals of Eugene O'Neill's Hughie, Oscar Wilde's Salome and in 2005 Lyle Kessler's Orphans.

In 1983, Pacino became a major donor for The Mirror Theater Ltd, alongside Dustin Hoffman and Paul Newman, matching a grant from Laurance Rockefeller. The men were inspired to invest by their connection with Lee Strasberg, as Strasberg's daughter-in-law Sabra Jones was the founder and Producing Artistic Director of The Mirror. In 1985, Pacino offered the company his production of Hughie by Eugene O'Neill, but the company was unable to do it at the time due to the small cast.

In October 2002, Pacino starred in Bertolt Brecht's The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui for the National Actor's Theater and Complicite. Directed by Simon McBurney, the production starred a host of Hollywood names, including John Goodman, Charles Durning, Tony Randall, Steve Buscemi, Chazz Palminteri, Paul Giamatti, Jacqueline McKenzie, Billy Crudup, Lothaire Bluteau, Dominic Chianese and Sterling K. Brown. The production was a critical success in which "Pacino grabs and holds the attention like a coiled spring about to snap. He is all brooding menace and crocodile grimace, butchering his way to the top with unnervingly sinister glee."

Pacino returned to the stage in the summer of 2010, playing Shylock in the Shakespeare in the Park production, The Merchant of Venice. The acclaimed production moved to Broadway at the Broadhurst Theatre in October, earning US$1 million at the box office in its first week. The performance also garnered him a Tony Award nomination for Best Leading Actor in a Play.

Pacino starred in the 30th-anniversary Broadway revival of David Mamet's play, Glengarry Glen Ross, which ran from October 2012 to January 20, 2013. He starred on Broadway in China Doll, a play written for him by Mamet, which opened on December 5, 2015, and closed on January 21, 2016, after 97 performances. The previews were done in October 2015.

Screen career
Pacino found acting enjoyable and realized he had a gift for it while studying at The Actors Studio. However, his early work was not financially rewarding. After his success on stage, Pacino made his film debut in 1969 with a brief appearance in Me, Natalie, an independent film starring Patty Duke. In 1970, Pacino signed with the talent agency Creative Management Associates (CMA).

1970s

His role as a heroin addict in The Panic in Needle Park (1971) brought Pacino to the attention of director Francis Ford Coppola, who cast him as Michael Corleone in what became a blockbuster Mafia film, The Godfather (1972). Although Jack Nicholson, Robert Redford, Warren Beatty, and the little-known Robert De Niro tried out for the part, Coppola selected Pacino, to the dismay of studio executives who wanted someone better known.

Pacino's performance earned him an Academy Award nomination, and offered a prime example of his early acting style, described by Halliwell's Film Guide as "intense" and "tightly clenched". Pacino boycotted the Academy Award ceremony, insulted at being nominated for the Supporting Acting award, as he noted that he had more screen time than co-star and Best Actor winner Marlon Brando—who also boycotted the awards, but for unrelated reasons.

In 1973, Pacino co-starred in Scarecrow with Gene Hackman, and won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. That same year, Pacino was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor after starring in Serpico, based on the true story of New York City policeman Frank Serpico, who went undercover to expose the corruption of fellow officers. In 1974, Pacino reprised his role as Michael Corleone in The Godfather Part II, which was the first sequel to win the Best Picture Oscar; Pacino was nominated a third time for an Oscar, this second nomination for the Corleone role being in the lead category. Newsweek has described his performance in The Godfather Part II as "arguably cinema's greatest portrayal of the hardening of a heart". In 1975, he enjoyed further success with the release of Dog Day Afternoon, based on the true story of bank robber John Wojtowicz. It was directed by Sidney Lumet, who had directed him in Serpico a few years earlier, and Pacino was again nominated for Best Actor.

In 1977, Pacino starred as a race-car driver in Bobby Deerfield, directed by Sydney Pollack, and received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama for his portrayal of the title role. His next film was the courtroom drama ...And Justice for All. Pacino was lauded by critics for his wide range of acting abilities, and nominated for the Best Actor Oscar for a fourth time. He lost out that year to Dustin Hoffman in Kramer vs. Kramer—a role that Pacino had declined.

During the 1970s, Pacino had five Oscar nominations, including four for Best Actor for his performances in Serpico, The Godfather Part II, Dog Day Afternoon, and ...And Justice for All.

1980s
Pacino's career slumped in the early 1980s; his appearances in the controversial Cruising, a film that provoked protests from New York's gay community, and the comedy-drama Author! Author!, were critically panned. However, his performance in Scarface (1983), directed by Brian De Palma, proved to be a career highlight and a defining role. Upon its initial release, the film was critically panned due to violent content, but later received critical acclaim. The film did well at the box office, grossing over US$45 million domestically. Pacino earned a Golden Globe nomination for his role as Cuban drug lord Tony Montana.

In 1985, Pacino worked on his personal project, The Local Stigmatic, a 1969 off-Broadway play by the English writer Heathcote Williams. He starred in the play, remounting it with director David Wheeler and the Theater Company of Boston in a 50-minute film version. The film was not released theatrically, but was later released as part of the Pacino: An Actor's Vision box set in 2007.

His 1985 film Revolution about a fur trapper during the American Revolutionary War, was a commercial and critical failure, which Pacino blamed on a rushed production, resulting in a four-year hiatus from films. At this time Pacino returned to the stage. He mounted workshop productions of Crystal Clear, National Anthems and other plays; he appeared in Julius Caesar in 1988 in producer Joseph Papp's New York Shakespeare Festival. Pacino remarked on his hiatus from film: "I remember back when everything was happening, '74, '75, doing The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui on stage and reading that the reason I'd gone back to the stage was that my movie career was waning! That's been the kind of ethos, the way in which theater's perceived, unfortunately." Pacino returned to film in 1989's Sea of Love, when he portrayed a detective hunting a serial killer who finds victims through the singles column in a newspaper. The film earned solid reviews.

1990s
Pacino received an Academy Award nomination for playing Big Boy Caprice in the box office hit Dick Tracy in 1990, of which critic Roger Ebert described Pacino as "the scene-stealer". Later in the year he followed this up in a return to one of his most famous characters, Michael Corleone, in The Godfather Part III (1990). The film received mixed reviews, and had problems in pre-production due to script rewrites and the withdrawal of actors shortly before production.

In 1991, Pacino starred in Frankie and Johnny with Michelle Pfeiffer, who co-starred with Pacino in Scarface. Pacino portrays a recently paroled cook who begins a relationship with a waitress (Pfeiffer) in the diner where they work. It was adapted by Terrence McNally from his own off-Broadway play Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune (1987), that featured Kenneth Welsh and Kathy Bates. The film received mixed reviews, although Pacino later said he enjoyed playing the part. Janet Maslin in The New York Times wrote, "Mr. Pacino has not been this uncomplicatedly appealing since his Dog Day Afternoon days, and he makes Johnny's endless enterprise in wooing Frankie a delight. His scenes alone with Ms. Pfeiffer have a precision and honesty that keep the film's maudlin aspects at bay."

For his portrayal of the irascible, blind U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel Frank Slade in Martin Brest's Scent of a Woman (1992) Pacino won the Academy Award for Best Actor next year. He was also nominated for Best Supporting Actor for Glengarry Glen Ross, making Pacino the first male actor ever to receive two acting nominations for two movies in the same year, and to win for the lead role.

Pacino starred alongside Sean Penn in the crime drama Carlito's Way in 1993, in which he portrayed Carlito Brigante, a gangster released from prison with the help of his corrupt lawyer (Penn) and vows to go straight. Pacino starred in Michael Mann's Heat (1995), in which he and Robert De Niro appeared on-screen together for the first time (though both Pacino and De Niro starred in The Godfather Part II, they did not share any scenes).

In 1996, Pacino starred in his theatrical docudrama Looking for Richard, a performance of selected scenes of William Shakespeare's Richard III and a broader examination of Shakespeare's continuing role and relevance in popular culture. The cast brought together for the performance included Alec Baldwin, Kevin Spacey, and Winona Ryder. Pacino played Satan in the supernatural thriller The Devil's Advocate (1997) which co-starred Keanu Reeves. The film was a success at the box office, taking US$150 million worldwide. Roger Ebert wrote in the Chicago Sun-Times, "The satanic character is played by Pacino with relish bordering on glee."

In 1997's Donnie Brasco, Pacino played gangster "Lefty" in the true story of undercover FBI agent Donnie Brasco (Johnny Depp) and his work in bringing down the Mafia from the inside. In 1999, Pacino starred as 60 Minutes producer Lowell Bergman in the multi-Oscar nominated The Insider opposite Russell Crowe, and in Oliver Stone's Any Given Sunday.

2000s
Pacino won three Golden Globes since 2000; the first being the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 2001 for lifetime achievement in motion pictures.

In 2000, Pacino starred alongside Jerry Orbach in a low-budget film adaptation of Ira Lewis' play Chinese Coffee, which was released to film festivals. Shot almost exclusively as a one-on-one conversation between two main characters, the project took nearly three years to complete and was funded entirely by Pacino. Chinese Coffee was included with Pacino's two other rare films he was involved in producing, The Local Stigmatic and Looking for Richard, on a special DVD box set titled Pacino: An Actor's Vision, which was released in 2007. Pacino produced prologues and epilogues for the discs containing the films.

Pacino turned down an offer to reprise his role as Michael Corleone in the computer game version of The Godfather. As a result, Electronic Arts was not permitted to use Pacino's likeness or voice in the game, although his character does appear in it. He did allow his likeness to appear in the video game adaptation of 1983's Scarface, the quasi-sequel Scarface: The World is Yours.

Director Christopher Nolan worked with Pacino on Insomnia, a remake of the Norwegian film of the same name, co-starring Robin Williams. Newsweek stated that "he [Pacino] can play small as rivetingly as he can play big, that he can implode as well as explode". The film and Pacino's performance were well received, gaining a favorable rating of 93 percent on the review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes. The film did moderately well at the box office, taking in $113 million worldwide. His next film, S1m0ne, however, did not receive much critical praise or box office success.

He played a publicist in People I Know, a small film that received little attention despite Pacino's well-received performance. Rarely taking a supporting role since his commercial breakthrough, he accepted a small part in the critical and box office flop Gigli, in 2003, as a favor to director Martin Brest. The Recruit, released in 2003, featured Pacino as a CIA recruiter and co-stars Colin Farrell. The film received mixed reviews, and has been described by Pacino as something he "personally couldn't follow". Pacino next starred as lawyer Roy Cohn in the 2003 HBO miniseries Angels in America, an adaptation of Tony Kushner's Pulitzer Prize winning play of the same name. For this performance, Pacino won his third Golden Globe, for Best Performance by an Actor, in 2004.

Pacino starred as Shylock in Michael Radford's 2004 film adaptation of The Merchant of Venice. Critics praised him for bringing compassion and depth to a character traditionally played as a villainous caricature. In Two for the Money, Pacino portrays a sports gambling agent and mentor for Matthew McConaughey, alongside Rene Russo. The film was released on October 8, 2005, to mixed reviews. Desson Thomson wrote in The Washington Post, "Al Pacino has played the mentor so many times, he ought to get a kingmaker's award ... the fight between good and evil feels fixed in favor of Hollywood redemption."

On October 20, 2006, the American Film Institute named Pacino the recipient of the 35th AFI Life Achievement Award. On November 22, 2006, the University Philosophical Society of Trinity College Dublin awarded Pacino the Honorary Patronage of the Society.

Pacino starred in Steven Soderbergh's Ocean's Thirteen, alongside George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Elliott Gould and Andy García, as the villain Willy Bank, a casino tycoon targeted by Danny Ocean and his crew. The film received generally favorable reviews.

88 Minutes was released on April 18, 2008, in the United States, after having been released in various other countries in 2007. The film co-starred Alicia Witt and was critically panned, although critics found fault with the plot, and not Pacino's acting. In Righteous Kill, Pacino and Robert De Niro co-star as New York detectives searching for a serial killer. The film was released to theaters on September 12, 2008. While it was an anticipated return for the two stars, it was not well received by critics.

2010s
Pacino played Jack Kevorkian in an HBO Films biopic titled You Don't Know Jack, which premiered April 2010. The film is about the life and work of the physician-assisted suicide advocate. The performance earned Pacino his second Emmy Award for lead actor and his fourth Golden Globe award. He co-starred as himself in the 2011 comedy film Jack and Jill. The film was panned by critics, and Pacino "won" the Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Supporting Actor at the 32nd ceremony.

He was presented with Jaeger-LeCoultre Glory to the Filmmaker Award on September 4, 2011, prior to the premiere of Wilde Salomé, a 2011 American documentary-drama film written, directed by and starring Pacino. Its US premiere on the evening of March 21, 2012, before a full house at the 1,400-seat Castro Theatre in San Francisco's Castro District, marked the 130th anniversary of Oscar Wilde's visit to San Francisco. The event was a benefit for the GLBT Historical Society. Pacino, who plays the role of Herod in the film, describes it as his "most personal project ever". In February 2012, President Barack Obama awarded Pacino the National Medal of Arts.

Pacino starred in a 2013 HBO biographical picture about record producer Phil Spector's murder trial, titled Phil Spector. He took the title role in the comedy-drama Danny Collins (2015). His performance as an aging rock star garnered him a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy nomination. In 2016, Pacino received the Kennedy Center Honor. The tribute included remarks by his former costars Sean Penn, Kevin Spacey, Bobby Cannavale and Chris O'Donnell.

In September 2012, Deadline Hollywood reported that Pacino would play the former Penn State University football coach Joe Paterno in the television film Paterno based on a 2012 biography by sportswriter Joe Posnanski. Paterno premiered on HBO on April 7, 2018.

Pacino starred alongside Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio in Quentin Tarantino's comedy-drama Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, which was released on July 26, 2019. Later in 2019, Pacino played Teamsters chief Jimmy Hoffa, alongside Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci, in Martin Scorsese's Netflix film The Irishman, based on the 2004 book I Heard You Paint Houses by Charles Brandt; this was the first time Pacino was directed by Scorsese, and he received an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor nomination. Pacino's performance received positive reviews. Peter Bradshaw described it as "glorious" in The Guardian. Justin Chang wrote, "De Niro, Pesci and Pacino are at the top of their game, in part because they aren't simply rehashing the iconic gangster types they've played before."

2020s
In February 2020, Pacino starred as Meyer Offerman, a fictional Nazi hunter, in the Amazon Prime Video series Hunters. This is Pacino's first television series since Angels in America (2003). Hunters was renewed for a second season in August 2020.

In 2021, Pacino played Aldo Gucci in Ridley Scott's House of Gucci. The film received mixed to positive reviews, with Pacino's performance being highlighted as a standout, along with Lady Gaga's and Jared Leto's. That same year, he played the lead defense attorney in American Traitor: The Trial of Axis Sally.

In August 2022, Pacino was set to produce Modì, a film about Amedeo Modigliani, which he will co-produce alongside Johnny Depp and Barry Navidi. The film is based on a play by Dennis McIntyre, which was previously adapted for the 2004 film of the same name. Principal photography commenced in September 2023. On March 10, 2024, Pacino presented the Academy Award for Best Picture at the 96th Academy Awards.

Relationships
Pacino has four children. The eldest, Julie Marie (born October 16, 1989), is his daughter with acting coach Jan Tarrant. He has twins, son Anton James and daughter Olivia Rose (born January 25, 2001), with actress Beverly D'Angelo, with whom he had a relationship from 1997 until 2003. He has a son, Roman (born June 15, 2023) with his producer girlfriend Noor Alfallah, who is 54 years younger than he is. Pacino, at age 83, is one of the oldest fathers on record. He has never been married.

Pacino had a relationship with his The Godfather Trilogy co-star Diane Keaton. Their on-again, off-again relationship ended after the filming of The Godfather Part III. Keaton said of Pacino, "Al was simply the most entertaining man... To me, that's, that is the most beautiful face. I think Warren [Beatty] was gorgeous, very pretty, but Al's face is like whoa. Killer, killer face." He has had relationships with Jill Clayburgh, Tuesday Weld, Marthe Keller, Veruschka von Lehndorff, Kathleen Quinlan, Lyndall Hobbs, and Penelope Ann Miller. Pacino had a ten-year relationship with Argentine actress Lucila Polak from 2008 to 2018.

Substance abuse issues
Pacino has admitted to abusing drugs and alcohol early in his career, partly because he found his sudden fame after The Godfather difficult to cope with. He achieved sobriety in 1977.

Acting credits and accolades
Pacino has won and been nominated for many awards during his acting career, including nine Oscar nominations (winning one) and five BAFTA nominations (winning one) for his film work; 19 Golden Globe nominations (winning four) and seven SAG Award nominations (winning two), each recognizing both his film and TV work; three Primetime Emmy Award nominations (winning two) solely for his work on television; and three Tony Award nominations (winning two) for his stage work. In 2007, the American Film Institute awarded Pacino with a lifetime achievement award and, in 2003, British television viewers voted Pacino as the greatest film star of all time in a poll for Channel 4.

title: Al Pacino