Connecticut - Henry Kissinger, the former secretary of state whose promotion of raw American power helped shape the post-World War II world and led to the hundreds of thousands of deaths, passed away Wednesday at the age of 100, his consulting firm said.

"Dr. Henry Kissinger, a respected American scholar and statesman, died today at his home in Connecticut," Kissinger Associates announced in a statement late Wednesday.

It said that Kissinger's family would hold a private funeral, with a memorial service to take place later in New York.

It did not provide a cause of death. Kissinger had remained active even as a centenarian, traveling to China in July to meet President Xi Jinping.

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China was at the center of one of Kissinger's most notable diplomatic interventions. Hoping to shake up the Cold War fight against the Soviet Union, Kissinger secretly reached out to China, culminating in a historic 1972 visit by President Richard Nixon and later the US establishment of relations with Beijing.

After the Watergate scandal brought down Nixon, Kissinger – who escaped the toxic legacy of the affair despite being involved in illegal wiretapping of his own – served under his successor, Gerald Ford. In an unprecedented arrangement, Kissinger served both as secretary of state and national security advisor.

Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for negotiations to end the Vietnam War, even though the US and its client South Vietnam prolonged the conflict long afterward. His North Vietnamese counterpart, Le Duc Tho, declined to accept the prize.

Just as he became a laureate, Kissinger was masterminding murderous US bombing campaigns in Cambodia and Laos.

Declassified documents showed that he also gave his blessing to the undermining of Chile's elected socialist president, Salvador Allende, and later the 1973 CIA-backed coup by General Augusto Pinochet.

Kissinger also supported Indonesia, a close anti-communist ally, as it seized East Timor in 1975 through a brutal invasion, and turned a blind eye to Pakistan's mass atrocities as Bangladesh won independence in 1971.

Despite a litany of decisions that led directly and indirectly to possible war crimes, the native Bavarian remained greatly admired and feted on both sides of the US political aisle.