Offenburg (dpa) – Former Bundestag President Wolfgang Schäuble has died at the age of 81. In the course of his long political career, the CDU politician was Minister of the Interior, Finance Minister, CDU leader, CDU parliamentary group leader in the Bundestag and President of the Bundestag. He was the longest-serving member of parliament in German history: having won his first seat in the Bundestag in 1972, he held it without interruption until his death. In 2017 Schäuble was elected President of the Bundestag, which according to the constitution is the second highest office in the state after that of Federal President.
Schäuble has been in a wheelchair ever since being the victim of an assassination attempt carried out by a mentally disturbed man in October 1990. In one of his books he described his political philosophy as follows: “We have the freedom to make the world we live in a better place and to achieve great things.”