Wolfgang Schäuble: A veteran heavyweight of German politics

Born in 1942, Wolfgang Schäuble was something of the embodiment of Germany's political history, first that of West Germany and then the reunited country. The Christian Democrat was a member of the Bundestag continuously since 1972 — a record in the roughly 150-year history of German nationwide parliaments. A life without politics was unimaginable for Schäuble. 

"I am a parliamentarian out of passion," he always said. When asked in an interview how it felt to have shaped politics in the Bundestag for half a century, Schäuble replied with a touch of his typical intellectual irony: "You can see how much fun politics is."

Wolfgang Schäuble died on December 26, 2023 at the age of 81.

Schäuble's key moments

Two key moments shaped Schäuble's political and private life. The first was an attempted assassination in 1990, which put him in a wheelchair for the rest of his life.

A decade later, he had to relinquish the chairmanship of the center-right Christian Democrats (CDU) and with it the prospect of one day becoming German chancellor.

The son of a CDU local politician from Freiburg, Schäuble studied economics and became a lawyer with a doctorate. In 1984, the newly-elected Chancellor Helmut Kohl called him to the center of government in Bonn. Schäuble became the head of the Federal Chancellery and with that, the organizer of power. Everything went through him.

In 1989, Schäuble became Germany's interior minister and the events of that year catapulted him into the limelight. After the fall of the Berlin Wall , he played a key role in negotiating the reunification of the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) and the German Democratic Republic (East Germany).

Only a few weeks later, on October 12, 1990, he was shot by a man with mental illness at an election meeting. Schäuble sustained life-threatening injuries, and was paralyzed from the third vertebra downwards. He had to use a wheelchair for the rest of his life, but giving up wasn't an option.

Schäuble once recalled that he did not bemoan his fate for too long, saying to himself "I cannot change what happened, but as long as I live, I'll live." Six weeks after the attack, he gave his first press conference from his new wheelchair.

CDU party donations scandal a 'massive blow'

In 1998, Schäuble became chairman of the CDU. Chancellor Kohl stressed repeatedly that he wanted Schäuble to be his successor, but it didn't turn out that way in the end.

Toward the end of 1999, it became known that during Kohl's term illegal donations had been made to the party, and the existence of secret bank accounts were revealed . A few weeks later, Schäuble admitted to having received 100,000 deutsche marks for the illicit CDU accounts from an arms dealer. He resigned as party chairman — a "massive blow," Schäuble said in an interview with the Swiss newspaper Neue Zürcher Zeitung.

In the years when the CDU was in opposition, from 1998 to 2005, Schäuble concentrated on foreign and security policy.

In the CDU-led grand coalition government from 2005, Schäuble became interior minister and then finance minister. "A tough dog," was how the opposition described him. For example, Schäuble supported an aviation security law that would have made it possible to shoot down an aircraft that had been hijacked by terrorists. The proposal ultimately failed.

When he was finance minister, the coalition government — of the Christian Democrats, the CDU's Bavarian sister party the Christian Social Union, and the neoliberal Free Democrats — enacted the biggest austerity package in the history of modern Germany. During the uncertainty that arose in 2009 about the future of the common euro currency, Schäuble became a bogeyman for many Greeks because he prescribed strict austerity measures for the country.

Schäuble's dream job — president of the parliament

In October 2017, Schäuble became president of Germany's federal parliament, the Bundestag. Symbolically, it's the second-highest political position in the country.

In this role, he was respected as one of parliament's best speakers. With his sharp mind, his deep fundamental understanding of German democracy and his humor, he led Bundestag sessions like no other. The "passionate parliamentarian" seemed to have found his dream job and was reconciled with the intrigues of power that he had repeatedly experienced up close.

Schäuble confidently forced even the far-right populist and rebellious Alternative for Germany (AfD) to comply with parliamentary conventions — with sharp objections, reprimands and fines. Even former Chancellor Angela Merkel was not immune from his rebuke if she exceeded her speaking time. He was the undisputed authority in parliament.  

And Schäuble remained a relevant figure, even when he returned to the German Bundestag as a "regular lawmaker" after the September 2021 election.

Influential in his older age

Schäuble remained a conservative political visionary well into his senior years, always looking for an intellectual challenge. In early 2021, he published a book titled "Borderline Experiences: How We Grow in Crises." The book is something of a credo for his life as a politician. It shows Schäuble's curiosity, his delight in arguments and his fun in innovation.

During the COVID pandemic, Schäuble saw an opportunity to overcome the "immobility" in Germany. "Many people in our country feel that change is needed," he said.

One of his quotes sums him up well: "We have the freedom to make the world we live in better, to be able to achieve great things." It was something that Schäuble believed in his whole life.

This article was originally written in German.

Correction: An earlier version of this article stated that in 1999 "Schäuble admitted to having received €100,000 for the illicit CDU accounts from an arms dealer." The euro did not exist yet at the time, and Germany's currency was the deutsche mark. This article has been updated to reflect the correction.

While you're here: Every Tuesday, DW editors round up what is happening in German politics and society. You can sign up here for the weekly email newsletter Berlin Briefing.