Merkel: Gorbachev shows how 'single statesman can change the world'

Former German chancellor Angela Merkel has paid tribute to Russian Nobel Peace Prize laureate and former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, describing him as a "unique global politician."
"May the memory of his historic achievement make it possible to pause, especially in these terrible weeks and months of Russia's war against Ukraine," Merkel said in a statement posted on her website.
"Gorbachev wrote world history - he exemplified how a single statesman can change the world for the better," she said.
Without Gorbachev's courage for reform of the Soviet Union, "the peaceful revolution in the GDR [German Democratic Republic, or East Germany] would also not have been possible."
"I can still feel the fear I felt together with many people in the GDR in 1989, whether tanks would roll ... but this time, no tanks rolled, no shots were fired," she said.