Former German chancellor Helmut Kohl takes dim view of Gorbachev, Merkel

Angela Merkel could barely hold a knife and fork properly, while Mikhail Gorbachev left behind a pretty forgettable legacy.

Such are the musings of Helmut Kohl according to a new book, which also shows the formidable former German chancellor in a less than charitable mood towards the East German civil rights activists who helped bring down the Berlin Wall 25 years ago.

In , a series of interview transcripts to be published without Kohl's consent this week, the longest-serving German chancellor cautions against overestimating the role of the civil rights movement, which sprung up in cities like Dresden and Leipzig in the late 1980s, in bringing about German reunification.

"It would be wrong to pretend that the Holy Ghost has suddenly descended over Leipzig and changed the world," Kohl said in reference to the 1989 protests that saw hundreds of thousands of citizens take to the street against the East German regime.

Instead, he said the fall of the wall was above all the result of the Soviet Union's struggling economy. "Gorbachev went through the books and had to concede that his game was up, and that he could not prop up the regime."

The former German chancellor's verdict on his Soviet counterpart is surprisingly reserved. "Gorbachev's legacy is that he called time on communism, partially against his will, but de facto he finished it off. Without violence. Without bloodshed. Beyond that I am struggling to think of much else in terms of real legacy."