Former Bundestag President Wolfgang Schäuble: CDU politician dies at the age of 81

2023-12-27 10:43:00

Former Bundestag President Wolfgang Schäuble, CDU politician, dies at the age of 81

Former Bundestag President Wolfgang Schäuble has died.

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Former Bundestag President Wolfgang Schäuble (CDU) died on Wednesday night. He was 81 years old.

Former Bundestag President Wolfgang Schäuble (1942-2023) is dead. This is reported by the “Tagesschau”, among others, citing his family. Accordingly, the CDU politician fell asleep peacefully at home with his family on Tuesday evening. The native of Freiburg (Breisgau) was 81 years old.

Distinguished career in politics

The grand seigneur of the Christian Democrats was the longest-serving parliamentarian who celebrated two anniversaries last year: on September 18th he turned 80 and on December 13th he had been a member of the German Bundestag for 50 years.

The doctorate in law, who clearly came from Breisgau in southern Baden, was initially a government councilor in the Freiburg tax office. A sensational career in politics followed: He was Federal Minister for Special Tasks and Head of the Federal Chancellery under Chancellor Helmut Kohl (1930-2017), Minister of the Interior (in the Kohl cabinet and Merkel cabinet), and Finance Minister under Chancellor Angela Merkel (69). Wolfgang Schäuble led the CDU as parliamentary group leader and federal chairman and was President of the Bundestag.

He will go down in history as one of the architects of German reunification, in which he played a key role in negotiating the unification treaty with the former GDR in 1990. On his initiative, Berlin became the new capital of the Federal Republic of Germany.

In a wheelchair after the attack

Despite these great achievements, he was denied the two highest political offices: Wolfgang Schäuble was never Federal Chancellor and never Federal President – which also has to do with the event of October 12, 1990. At an election campaign event in Oppenau, Baden, a mentally ill assassin shot him. A bullet hit him through the chest into the spinal cord; Wolfgang Schäuble, then 48 years old, was paralyzed from the third thoracic vertebra onwards and was confined to a wheelchair from then on.

Without his family, the life of the politician Schäuble would probably have been different. In an interview with the also handicapped actor and playwright Peter Radtke (80) and the “Süddeutsche Zeitung Magazin” in October 2019, Schäuble said that his wife Ingeborg (80) was also in a wheelchair “half of the time” because she wanted “this new life with me “shared”. “I don’t know whether I would have behaved the same way the other way around. I hope so. The children didn’t have any major problems with the new situation. Our dog had the most problems. We had a dog back then that never moved “I got used to the wheelchair and he just couldn’t get to me anymore. That was terrible.”

He was the senior president of parliament. “Of course I go to the group meetings, but I try to only give my advice when I’m asked for it. And not just like that. I can’t stand the old people who constantly interfere,” he told the “Süddeutsche Zeitung”. His mandate would have lasted until 2025; a year ago Schäuble announced in an interview with the “Tagesspiegel”: Then it would be “isch over”.

Wolfgang Schäuble leaves behind Ingeborg Schäuble, with whom he was married since 1969, as well as their four children and four grandchildren.

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