Germany’s “unity chancellor” rarely makes news these days. Aged 86, wheelchair-bound and barely able to speak since suffering head injuries in a fall in 2008, Helmut Kohl mainly keeps to his bungalow in his home town of Ludwigshafen. But he can still cause a mighty fuss. Today he will receive a visit from Viktor Orban, Hungary’s proudly “illiberal” prime minister, who stands for a barbed-wire solution to the refugee crisis and is thus Angela Merkel’s main antagonist in Europe. Nobody is saying who arranged the meeting. But the German chancellor cannot be happy. Her political career took off in the 1990s as Mr Kohl’s protégée, but their relations have always been tense (he used to call her “my girl”). Mr Kohl stood for harmonious relations within the EU, whereas Mrs Merkel today appears isolated, especially in eastern Europe. One motivation for the meeting could be to embarrass her.