Schäuble german finance minister wolfgang

Wolfgang Schäuble, who has died aged 81, was a giant of German public life, epitomising the successes, anxieties and obduracy of his postwar country. The longest-serving parliamentarian in German history, Schäuble played a pivotal role in two crucial events of the past four decades – the process that led to reunification in and the austerity measures imposed across much of Europe following the global financial crash of

To the German public, he will probably be best known as the politician who was shot while campaigning, by a man suffering from mental illness, and paralysed from the waist down, only to return to frontline politics within months. Seven years later, in , Schäuble was asked by an interviewer from Stern magazine how his use of a wheelchair might affect his chances of fulfilling his ultimate ambition. “A cripple as chancellor?” he replied. “You have every right to ask that question.” Bluntness and a lack of self-pity became his leitmotifs.

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Wolfgang Schäuble: Merkel's no-nonsense finance minister dies aged 81

German ex-finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble, who helped steer the eurozone through the debt crisis, has died at the age of

An MP for 51 years in Germany's Bundestag, he played a key role in negotiating German reunification after the fall of the Berlin Wall in

He then survived an attempt on his life by a mentally unstable gunman.

And although never chancellor, Schäuble was widely viewed as one of Germany's most influential post-war politicians.

Current Chancellor Olaf Scholz said he had shaped his country for more than half a century and Germany had lost "a sharp thinker, a passionate politician and a pugnacious Democrat".

Angela Merkel, whose cabinet he served in for 12 years, said when she was a young minister Wolfgang Schäuble was her "political mentor".

Posting on X, formerly Twitter,, external former UK Chancellor George Osborne praised Schäuble as "a great

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Wolfgang Schäuble

German politician (–)

Wolfgang Schäuble (German pronunciation:[ˈvɔlfɡaŋˈʃɔʏblə]; 18 September – 26 December ) was a German politician whose political career spanned more than five decades. A member of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), he was the longest-serving member of any democratic German parliament. Schäuble served as the 13th president of the Bundestag from to

Born in Freiburg im Breisgau in ,^[1] Schäuble studied at both the University of Freiburg and the University of Hamburg and subsequently began a career in law at the district court of Offenburg in His political career began in as a member of the Junge Union, the youth division of the CDU and CSU; in , Schäuble was elected to the Bundestag by winning the constituency seat of Offenburg, and he was a member of the Bundestag until his death. His ministerial career began in when he was appointed minister for special affairs by chancellor Helmut Kohl. In a reshuffle, Schäuble was