Surgeons: Schmidt doing well

Doctors who treated Schmidt expressed optimism on Wednesday that Schmidt would leave in a few days.

"We are very satisfied with the result," said Karl-Heinz Kuck, chief heart surgeon at Hamburg's Asklepios Clinic, where Schmidt was admitted to intensive care on Tuesday.

Proper blood circulation had been restored in Schmidt's right leg, Kuck said.

Sedation had lasted only 15 minutes and shortly afterwards Schmidt was again communicable.

Schmidt's recovery follows the recent death of contemporary Egon Bahr.

Smoking in clinic taboo

"He's doing in generally well," Schmidt's own doctor Professor Heiner Greten said after the operation and added that Schmidt's hallmark gesture of smoking while giving interview had been taboo - at least for a few days.

"There is no smoking in the intensive care ward," Greten said.

Straight talker

Schmidt, who is still sought as a straight-talking political commentator and publicist, led former West Germany from 1974 until 1982.

During his tenure, the Social Democrat became best known for his stand against domestic terrorism and for European integration efforts during the Cold War era.

At the time, West Germany was grappling with a series of attacks by left-wing, anti-imperialist extremists from the Red Army Faction (RAF), which targeted politicians and other public figures.

Schmidt took over as chancellor after Willy Brandt, his Social Democrat (SPD) ally, was forced to resign over the unmasking of a close chancellery aide as an East German spy. Christian Democrat Helmut Kohl, himself in his 90s, succeeded Schmidt in 1982.

In an opinion poll for television program "Hör zu" [roughly: "Listen up"] three years ago, Schmidt was voted Germany's number one role model by 61 percent of those surveyed.

ipj/msh (Reuters, dpa, AFP)