SINGAPORE — Former German chancellor Helmut Schmidt, who died on Tuesday at age 96, shared a deep and lasting friendship with fellow elder statesman, the late Mr Lee Kuan Yew.

The two men first met in 1978, when Mr Schmidt made a two-day visit to the Republic. According to Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong in a speech for a New York memorial held in Mr Lee’s memory in September, the pair would meet again in 1982 at Bohemian Grove, an American club for prominent individuals. There, the former US Secretary of State George Shultz introduced them to his predecessor, Dr Henry Kissinger.

The four men would go on to form a circle of power that spanned the US, Europe and Asia in reach.

Even in their twilight years, more than 40 years on, they continued to wield influence with their analysis and interpretation of world policy and developments.

PM Lee said in a Facebook post yesterday that he was “deeply saddened” to learn of Mr Schmidt’s death.

“Mr Lee Kuan Yew described him as a ‘clear-headed and tough-minded’ leader who had a thorough grasp of important issues. They found common ground on many issues, and were close friends for four decades,” added PM Lee.

In a statement yesterday, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said PM Lee has written a condolence letter to German Chancellor Angela Merkel and also conveyed a private message to the family of Mr Schmidt.

“He had a strategic view of the world, and was a strong supporter of closer relations between our two countries,” PM Lee wrote in his condolence note.

He also recalled how in May 2012, Mr Schmidt, then 93, made a 15-hour trip to Singapore to visit Mr Lee Kuan Yew, then 89, for a final time.

“They spent three days discussing world politics. It was, as always, a meeting of minds. Clear-headed and tough-minded, Mr Schmidt found common ground with Mr Lee on many key issues,” wrote PM Lee.

The contents of these conversations formed the final chapter of Mr Lee’s 400-page book, titled One Man’s View Of The World, which was published a year later.

Mr Schmidt had said of the occasion when he met Mr Lee Kuan Yew, whom he addresses by his Western name “Harry”, for the last time: “I have the feeling that in the end of my life, I wanted to see Harry Lee once again, and I wanted to see (former Chinese Premier) Zhu Rongji once more ... And then I’m satisfied with my life.”

In his memoirs, Mr Lee described Mr Schmidt as a “clear-headed and tough-minded” leader. He wrote: “We had the measure of each other and found much common ground. When we recorded a television interview for a German television station, the interlocutor was surprised that we seemed to think and talk alike on so many issues.”

Both men shared one other similarity: They were married for more than 60 years, and their wives died within three weeks of each other, in October 2010.

In Prime Minister Lee’s Facebook post, he also mentioned how Mr Schmidt, a pianist, had “an acute musical ear”.

“I recall one poolside dinner my parents hosted for him. As usual my mother had some classical chamber music playing in the background. That evening she had on JS Bach’s Goldberg Variations. In the midst of the conversation, he turned to my mother, and asked if the pianist was Glenn Gould, which indeed it was. My mother asked how he knew, and he said there was something unique about Glenn Gould’s playing style.”