Ronald Reagan was a victim of the ailment first identified in 1906 by the German neuropathologist and psychiatrist Alois Alzheimer (1864-1915). In 1906 Alzheimer published a paper on a case in which a woman had died of "eine eigenartige Krankheit der Hirnrinde" ("a peculiar disease of the cerebral cortex") five years after Alzheimer had first examined her. Amazingly, his discovery might have been forgotten if a colleague named Emil Kraepelin (1856-1926) had not later brought it to the medical community's attention and named the disease for Alzheimer, who died of an infection at the relatively young age of 51.
In 1994, when Ronald Reagan's touching letter announced that he was beginning "the journey that will lead me into the sunset of my life" ("die Reise, die mich zum Sonnenuntergang meines Lebens führt"), he helped bring more attention to an incurable disease that afflicts millions of people around the world. Only weeks before the death of her husband, Nancy Reagan made an urgent public plea for more research, particularly stem cell research, that could lead to a cure for Alzheimer's disease. It was only in 1996 that Germany established the first Zentrum zur Erforschung der Alzheimer-Krankheit (Center for Alzheimer's Disease Research) in Frankfurt am Main.
Before we look at some Reagan quotes in English and German, there is yet another German connection for Ronald Reagan that we should mention. Both George Bush (senior) and President Reagan commissioned portrait busts by the German sculptor Kurt Arentz (1934- ) while they were in office. The Reagan bronze sculpture is now a part of his memorial archive in California. Reagan also received two bronze eagle sculptures ("Liberty" and "Peace") as a gift from Arentz and the West German government in 1987.
After learning of Ronald Reagan's death, former chancellor Helmut Kohl said of his American counterpart: "Er war für die Welt und insbesondere für Europa ein Glücksfall." ("For the world and especially for Europe he was a stroke of luck.")
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