Wolfgang SchäubleMinister of the Interior under German Chancellor Helmut Kohl and head of Finance in the era of Angela Merkel, has died late Tuesday afternoon at his home surrounded by his family at 81 years of age.

Schäuble, born in 1942 in Freiburg, in the federal state of Baden-Würrtemberg (south), is considered one of the most prominent politicians of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), of which he became a member in 1965, marked federal politics for decades and was the oldest deputy in the Bundestag, where he obtained his first seat in 1972.

Since the eighties he held positions in the federal governmentas head of the Chancellery and Minister of Special Affairs, between 1984 and 1989, and as head of the Interior, between 1989 and 1991, during the Kohl era, a role in which he negotiated with the extinct German Democratic Republic ( GDR) the German reunification treaty.

During the government of Merkel returned to serve as Interior Minister between 2005 and 2009 and Minister of Finance between 2009 and 2017; In this role he became known beyond the borders of Germany during the euro crisis. Between 1991 and 2000, he was parliamentary group leader of the conservative bloc, formed by the CDU and the Bavarian Christian Social Union (CSU), in the Bundestag and was also leader of his party between 1998 and 2000.

After the 2017 general elections he was elected president of the Bundestag, the second highest position in state, after that of president. Schäuble retired from all government bodies after the defeat of the conservative bloc in the 2021 general elections and became simply a deputy.

In recent times, Schäuble has been retiring from the public scene to spend more time with his family – he leaves four children and four grandchildren -, especially after his wife, Ingeborg, suffered a serious bicycle fall last summer. In 1990 he was the victim of an attack at a CDU election rally in his district that raised fears for his life. Schäuble was left paralyzed and in a wheelchair.