A life for politics – Wolfgang Schäuble died
Published: Wednesday, Dec 27th 2023, 09:31
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Former German Bundestag President Wolfgang Schäuble is dead. The CDU politician fell asleep peacefully at home with his family on Tuesday evening at around 8 p.m., his family told the German Press Agency on Wednesday.
In his long political career, Schäuble has been a minister, CDU leader, CDU/CSU parliamentary group leader and President of the German Bundestag. No one has been a member of parliament longer than him.
Schäuble was born on September 18, 1942 in Freiburg (now Baden-Württemberg). He studied law, but was drawn to politics early on. He joined the CDU in 1965. In 1972, he won his first seat in the Bundestag, where he served without interruption until his death.
The name Schäuble is associated with decades of German politics. Under Chancellor Helmut Kohl (CDU), he was initially Head of the Federal Chancellery and Federal Minister for Special Tasks, and from 1989 to 1991 Federal Minister of the Interior.
Schäuble helped negotiate the unification treaty in the GDR after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Since the assassination attempt on his life by a mentally disturbed man in October 1990, Schäuble has been in a wheelchair, but his political career has continued. From 1991 to 2000, he led the CDU/CSU parliamentary group in the Bundestag. After the Christian Democrats lost power in 1998, Schäuble became party leader as part of the CDU's reorganization. Angela Merkel became Secretary General.
In the turmoil of the CDU donation scandal and following statements about a 100,000 mark cash donation, Schäuble resigned as CDU leader in February 2000. Merkel became party leader and in 2005, as Chancellor, she made Schäuble Minister of the Interior and four years later Minister of Finance. Schäuble held the post for two terms, achieving the "black zero", i.e. a federal budget without new debt.
After the 2017 Bundestag elections, Schäuble was elected to succeed Norbert Lammert as President of the Bundestag, the second-highest office in the state. Schäuble was denied the highest office in the state, that of Federal President.
After the CDU/CSU lost the 2021 Bundestag elections, Schäuble withdrew from the governing bodies. SPD politician Bärbel Bas became President of the Bundestag and Schäuble was now simply a member of parliament. In his speech as President for the elderly - the MP with the most years of service - he called for open debate and self-confident MPs.
In his party, Schäuble was more of a conservative politician, and behind the scenes his word always carried weight. On the other hand, he had called on the CDU to be open to alliances with the Greens earlier than others. As early as 2007, he told the "Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung": "Black-green is not our wish, but it is an option for the Union." In the battle for the 2021 chancellor candidacy, Schäuble sided with the then CDU leader Armin Laschet and stood against CSU leader Markus Söder. Laschet lost the election to Olaf Scholz (SPD).
Politics also often played a role in Schäuble's private life. His father Karl Schäuble was a CDU politician and a member of the Baden state parliament. Schäuble's younger brother Thomas was also a politician and served as a state minister in Baden-Württemberg for 13 years. He died in 2013 as a result of a heart attack.
The top CDU politician Thomas Strobl was Wolfgang Schäuble's son-in-law and his daughter Christine, the ARD program director, was Strobl's wife. Schäuble is survived by a total of four children and his wife Ingeborg, to whom he had been married since 1969.
©Keystone/SDA
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