2023-12-27 08:06:32
– Wolfgang Schäuble is dead
Former CDU politician Wolfgang Schäuble fell asleep peacefully at home with his family on Tuesday evening around 8 p.m.
Published today at 9:06 am
Member of the Bundestag since 1972: The former German Bundestag President Wolfgang Schäuble died at the age of 81.
Photo: Kay Nietfeld (Keystone)
Former German Bundestag President Wolfgang Schäuble is dead. The CDU politician fell asleep peacefully at home with his family on Tuesday evening around 8 p.m., the family told the German Press Agency on Wednesday. We did one of his last big interviews with him: “Putin will – to put it sarcastically – help Europe find itself.”
In his long political career, Schäuble was a minister, CDU leader, CDU/CSU parliamentary group leader and President of the German Bundestag. Nobody 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 a mandate for the Bundestag for the first time, where he served without interruption until his death.
Decades of German politics are associated with the name Schäuble. 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.
Resignation after a cash donation of 100,000 marks
Schäuble helped negotiate the unification treaty in the GDR after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Since the assassination attempt on him by a mentally disturbed man in October 1990, Schäuble has been in a wheelchair, but his political career continued. From 1991 to 2000 he led the CDU/CSU parliamentary group. After the Christian Democrats lost power in 1998, Schäuble became party leader as part of the CDU’s realignment. Angela Merkel became Secretary General.
In the turmoil of the CDU donations affair and after 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 interior minister, and four years later, finance minister. Schäuble held the office for two electoral terms and created the “black zero”, i.e. a federal budget without new debts.
After the 2017 federal election, Schäuble was elected President of the Bundestag, the second highest office in the state, as the successor to Norbert Lammert. Schäuble was denied the highest office in the state, that of Federal President.
After the 2021 federal election, which the CDU/CSU lost, Schäuble withdrew from the leadership committees. In the Bundestag, the SPD politician Bärbel Bas became president, Schäuble was now a member of parliament. In his speech as Senior President – the MP with the most years of service – he promoted open discourse and self-confident MPs.
Called for alliances with the Greens early on
In his party, Schäuble was one of the conservative politicians; behind the scenes, his words always carried weight. On the other hand, he had earlier than others called on the CDU to be open to alliances with the Greens. 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 struggle for the 2021 candidacy for chancellor, Schäuble sided with the then CDU leader Armin Laschet and opposed CSU leader Markus Söder. Laschet lost the election against Olaf Scholz (SPD).
Politics also often played a role in Schäuble’s private life. Father Karl Schäuble was already a CDU politician and a member of the Baden state parliament. Schäuble’s younger brother Thomas was also a politician; he was state minister in Baden-Württemberg for 13 years. He died in 2013 as a result of a heart attack.
The CDU top politician Thomas Strobl was Wolfgang Schäuble’s son-in-law, daughter Christine, the ARD program director, and Strobl’s wife. Schäuble leaves behind a total of four children and his wife Ingeborg, to whom he had been married since 1969.
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