Background
Helmut Schmidt was born in Hamburg in 1918, the only son of two teachers. He studied at Hamburg Lichtwark School, graduating in 1937. Schmidt's father was the illegitimate son of a German Jewish businessman, although this was kept a family secret for many years . This was confirmed publicly by Helmut Schmidt in 1984, after Valéry Giscard d'Estaing revealed the fact to journalists, apparently with Schmidt's assent. Schmidt himself is a non-practicing Lutheran.
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 – February 1945, died of meningitis), and Susanne (b. 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.
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“Silence is the universal refuge, the sequel to all dull discourses and all foolish acts, a balm to our every chagrin, as welcome after satiety as after disappointment; that background which the painter may not daub, be he master or bungler, and which, however awkward a figure we may have made in the foreground, remains ever our inviolable asylum, where no indignity can assail, no personality can disturb us.”
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