Former Chancellor recovers after operation

Former West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt was recovering in hospital today after a heart attack forced doctors to perform an emergency bypass operation.

The University Clinic of Kiel said Schmidt was operated on successfully on Sunday “despite the critical situation at the start”.

The former chancellor’s condition is now becoming increasingly stable, the hospital said today.

Schmidt, who led West Germany from 1974 to 1982, had been on holiday at his summer home on the Brahmsee lake in the northern state of Schleswig-Holstein.

The 83-year-old Social Democrat, who is joint publisher of Germany’s influential Die Zeit weekly newspaper, helped shape the rebirth of his country as a major economic power and force for peace between its strongest ally, the United States, and the Soviet bloc.