Wolfgang Schäuble,
MdB (born September 18, 1942) is a
GermanGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium,...
politicianA politician or political leader is an individual who is involved in influencing public decision making. This includes people who hold decision-making positions in government, and people who seek those positions, whether by means of election, coup d'état, appointment, electoral fraud, conquest,...
. He is a member of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). He presently is Minister of the Interior of the Government of Germany.
From 1984 to 1991 he was a member of
Helmut KohlHelmut Josef Michael Kohl is a German conservative politician and statesman. He was Chancellor of Germany from 1982 to 1998 and the chairman of the Christian Democratic Union from 1973 to 1998...
's cabinet, first as
Chief of the ChancelleryThe Chancellor's Office is the office of the Chancellor, the head of the German federal government . The chief of the Chancellery holds the rank of either a state secretary or a federal minister ...
and then as Minister of the Interior. Between 1991 and 2000, he was chairman of the CDU/CSU group in the parliament, and from 1998 to 2000 also CDU party chairman.
Education and career
Schäuble was born in Freiburg im Breisgau as the son of a tax finance advisor. After completing his
AbiturAbitur is a designation used in Germany and Finland for final exams that pupils take at the end of their secondary education, usually after 12 or 13 years of schooling...
(highest German school-leaving examination for university entrance) in 1961, Schäuble studied law and economics in Freiburg im Breisgau and
HamburgHamburg is the second-largest city in Germany and the sixth-largest city in the European Union...
, which he completed in 1966 and 1970 by passing the First and Second State Examinations respectively, becoming a fully qualified lawyer.
In 1971 Schäuble obtained his doctorate in law, with a dissertation called "The public accountant's professional legal situation within accountancy firms".
He entered the tax administration of the state of
Baden-WürttembergBaden-Württemberg is one of the 16 states of the Federal Republic of Germany. Baden-Württemberg is in the southwestern part of the country to the east of the Upper Rhine—but one which has some of its major cities straddling the banks of the Neckar River...
, eventually becoming a senior administration officer in the Freiburg tax office.
Subsequently Schäuble became a practising registered lawyer at the district court of
OffenburgOffenburg is a city located in the state of Baden-Württemberg, Germany. With about 60,000 inhabitants, it is the largest city, and also the capital of the Ortenaukreis.Offenburg also houses The Graduate School of Offenburg University of Applied Sciences.
...
, from 1978 to 1984.
Family
Schäuble has been married to economist Ingeborg Schäuble since 1969. They have four children, three daughters, Christine, Juliane and Anna, and one son, Hans-Jörg.
His brother Thomas Schäuble was Interior Minister of
Baden-WürttembergBaden-Württemberg is one of the 16 states of the Federal Republic of Germany. Baden-Württemberg is in the southwestern part of the country to the east of the Upper Rhine—but one which has some of its major cities straddling the banks of the Neckar River...
, and has been executive chairman of the Baden Württemberg state brewery "
RothausThe Badische Staatsbrauerei Rothaus is a brewery located 1000m above sea level in the town of Rothaus in Germany's Black Forest, in the vicinity of Grafenhausen and the Schluchsee...
" since 2004.
Political involvement
Schäuble's political career began in 1961 with him joining the
Junge UnionThe Junge Union Deutschlands or JU is the jointyouth organisation of the two conservative German political parties CDU and CSU. To be a member one has to be between 14 and 35 years old.-Philosophy:...
("Young Union"), the youth division of the CDU. During his studies he served as chairman of the
Ring Christlich-Demokratischer Studenten (Association of Christian-Democrat Students, RCDS), in Hamburg and Freiburg. In 1965 Schäuble also became a member of the CDU. From 1969 to 1972 he was district chairman of the Junge Union in South Baden. From 1976 to 1984 he served as chairman of the CDU National Committee for Sport.
After the CDU was defeated in the 1998 federal election, Schäuble became chairman of the CDU. He gave up this post in 2000 in the wake of the
party financing scandalIn late 1999, it was discovered that the German Christian Democratic Union political party had accepted illegal donations while under the control of Chancellor Helmut Kohl in the 1990s...
, over the acceptance of cash donation over DM 1 Million contributed by the arms dealer and lobbyist
Karlheinz SchreiberKarlheinz Schreiber Karlheinz Schreiber Karlheinz Schreiber (born March 25, 1934 in Petersdorf (Thüringen) is a German and Canadian citizen, an industrialist, lobbyist, fundraiser, arms dealer and businessman...
back in 1994. Schäuble's successor was
Angela Merkel' is the current Chancellor of Germany. Merkel, elected to the German Parliament from Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, has been the chairwoman of the Christian Democratic Union since 10 April 2000, and Chairwoman of the CDU-CSU parliamentary party group from 2002 to 2005...
.
Member of Parliament
Schäuble has been a member of the Bundestag since 1972. From 1981 to 1984 he was parliamentary whip of the CDU/CSU coalition and in November 1991 he became the chairman of the coalition. However, Schäuble gave up this position as well in 2000, as another consequence of the financing scandal. Since October 2002 Schäuble has been deputy chairman of the CDU/CSU.
Wolfgang Schäuble has always been elected to the Bundestag by means of winning an electorate seat, rather than through a list placing in Germany’s system of proportional political representation. At the 2005 federal election he received 50.5% of all direct votes cast within his electoral district No. 285 in
OffenburgOffenburg is a city located in the state of Baden-Württemberg, Germany. With about 60,000 inhabitants, it is the largest city, and also the capital of the Ortenaukreis.Offenburg also houses The Graduate School of Offenburg University of Applied Sciences.
...
, slightly lower than the 52.2% he received at the 2002 election.
Public office
On 15 November 1984 Schäuble was appointed Minister for Special Tasks and head of the
ChancelleryThe Chancellor's Office is the office of the Chancellor, the head of the German federal government . The chief of the Chancellery holds the rank of either a state secretary or a federal minister ...
by Chancellor
Helmut KohlHelmut Josef Michael Kohl is a German conservative politician and statesman. He was Chancellor of Germany from 1982 to 1998 and the chairman of the Christian Democratic Union from 1973 to 1998...
. In this capacity he was put in charge of the preparations for the first official state visit of
Erich HoneckerErich Honecker was a German Communist politician who led the German Democratic Republic from 1971 until 1989....
,
ChairmanThe first constitution of the German Democratic Republic in October 1949 created the office of . Upon the death of President Wilhelm Pieck on 7 September 1960, the office of President was abolished and replaced by a collective head of state, the ...
of the
State CouncilThe State Council of the German Democratic Republic was officially the highest organ of the German Democratic Republic, and for many years the collective president of the country , which was created by the law concerning the formation of the Council of State dated 12 September 1960 as a follow-up to...
of the
German Democratic RepublicThe German Democratic Republic was a Communist state that originated from the Soviet Zone of occupied Germany and the Soviet sector of occupied Berlin...
(GDR), in 1987.
In a cabinet reshuffle Schäuble was made Minister of the Interior on 21 April 1989. In this role he also led the negotiations on behalf of the Federal Republic of Germany for reunification with the GDR in 1990.
In the 1990s Schäuble was one of the most popular politicians in Germany and there was constant speculation that he would replace Kohl as Chancellor, who lost more and more of his popularity. In 1997 Helmut Kohl stated that Schäuble was his desired candidate to succeed him, but he didn’t want to hand over power until 2002 when the European monitary union would be completed with the introduction of the Euro. However, as the CDU/CSU lost the 1998 election, Schäuble never became Chancellor.
After
Eberhard DiepgenEberhard Diepgen is a German politician of the CDU. He studied law at the Free University of Berlin. He was mayor of West Berlin from 1984 to 1989 and a reunited Berlin from 1991 to 2001....
was voted out as mayor of Berlin, Schäuble was in talks to be the top candidate for the early election on 21 October 2001, but was rejected by the Berlin branch of the CDU in favour of Frank Steffel.
Some quarters of the CDU and CSU wanted to put Schäuble forward as their candidate for the office of German President, the largely ceremonial head of state, at the beginning of March 2004, due to his extensive political experience. In spite of support from the Premiers of
BavariaBavaria , with an area of and almost 12.5 million inhabitants, is located in the southeast of Germany and is the largest state of Germany by area, forming almost 20% of the total land area of Germany...
(Edmund Stoiber (CSU)) and
HesseHesse is a state of Germany with an area of and just over six million inhabitants. The state capital is Wiesbaden. Hesse's largest city is nearby Frankfurt am Main.Hesse contributes the largest share to the Rhine Main Area....
(Roland Koch (CDU)), Schäuble did not receive the party’s nomination in the end because CDU leader Angela Merkel, other CDU politicians and the liberal FDP party spoke out against him. This was because the election contributions scandal involving Schäuble that first came to light in late 1999 had never been entirely resolved.
In November 2005, Schäuble once again became Federal Minister of the Interior, this time in the
grand coalitionA grand coalition is a coalition government in a multi-party parliamentary system where the two largest political parties unite in a coalition. The term is most commonly used in countries where there are two dominant parties with different ideological orientations, and a number of smaller parties...
under Chancellor
Angela Merkel' is the current Chancellor of Germany. Merkel, elected to the German Parliament from Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, has been the chairwoman of the Christian Democratic Union since 10 April 2000, and Chairwoman of the CDU-CSU parliamentary party group from 2002 to 2005...
.
Political views
In 1999 Schäuble initiated a CDU/CSU petition campaign against the reform of German citizenship law under the slogan "Integration: yes - double citizenship: no".
During the
Iraq WarThe Iraq War, also known as the Occupation of Iraq or Operation Iraqi Freedom, is an ongoing military campaign which began on March 20, 2003 with the invasion of Iraq by a multinational force led by troops from the United States and the United Kingdom.Prior to the war, the governments of the United...
in 2003 Schäuble, in contrast to many German politicians, strongly defended the United States' decision to invade Iraq.
He accused the then Chancellor
Gerhard Schröder' is a German politician, and was Chancellor of Germany from 1998 to 2005. A member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany , he led a coalition government of the SPD and the Greens. Before becoming a full-time politician, he was a lawyer, and before becoming Chancellor he was Minister-president...
of lacking an appropriate historical conscience because he accepted alleged human rights violations by the Russian Government without criticism.
Schäuble is also of the view that Europe's problem is not the
European UnionThe European Union is an economic and political union of 27 Member States, located primarily in Europe. Committed to regional integration, the EU was established by the Treaty of Maastricht on 1 November 1993 upon the foundations of the pre-existing European Economic Community...
, but rather certain national governments that cannot resist the temptation to make the EU and Europe the scapegoat for their own national problems. Examples pointed out by Schäuble include the EU's
Stability and Growth PactThe Stability and Growth Pact is an agreement by European Union member states related to their conduct of fiscal policy, to facilitate and maintain Economic and Monetary Union of the European Union....
and the Ministry of Finance's view that the introduction of the
EuroThe euro is the official currency of 16 of the 27 Member States of the European Union . The states, known collectively as the Eurozone, are Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia and Spain...
would damage the German economy.
In March 2007, Schäuble declared in an interview that the application of
presumption of innocenceThe presumption of innocence being considered innocent until proven guilty is a legal right that the accused in criminal trials has in many modern countries...
should not be relevant for the authorization of counter-terrorist operations.
Later the same year (2007), Schäuble proposed the introduction of legislation that would allow the German Federal Government to carry out preventive assassinations of what Schäuble labels terrorist suspects, as well as outlawing the use of the Internet and cell phones for people suspected of being terrorist sympathizers.
In February 27, 2008, he called all European newspapers to print the
Muhammad cartoonsThe Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy began after twelve editorial cartoons, most of which depicted the Islamic prophet Muhammad, were published in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten on 30 September 2005...
with the explanation, "We also think they're pathetic, but the use of press freedom is no reason to resort to violence."
Criticism
Recently, criticism of Schäuble centers on his
law and orderIn politics, law and order refers to a political platform which supports a strict criminal justice system, especially in relation to violent and property crime, through harsher criminal penalties...
politics, especially in the field of
counter-terrorismCounter-terrorism is the practices, tactics, techniques, and strategies that governments, militaries, police departments and corporations adopt in response to terrorist threats and/or acts, both real and imputed....
, for which he is denounced by some
civil rightsCivil and political rights are a class of rights and freedoms that protect individuals from unwarranted government action and ensure one's ability to participate in the civil and political life of the state without discrimination or repression....
activists. Vocal opponents include the
open-source softwareOpen source software is computer software for which the source code and certain other rights normally reserved for copyright holders are provided under a software license that meets the Open Source Definition or that is in the public domain. This permits users to use, change, and improve the...
community. The latest decisions of his ministry have led to a campaign dubbed
Stasi 2.0The Term Stasi 2.0 is the catchphrase of a civil rights campaign currently under way in Germany.The term is a portmanteau that originated in the Blogosphere. The term combines the name of East Germany's former Ministry of State Security, commonly known as the "Stasi", with the concept of software...
by its initiators, claiming intentional resemblance to the East German Ministerium für Staatssicherheit.
Controversy was sparked by Schäuble's recommendation in a 2007 interview of a book by
Otto DepenheuerOtto Depenheuer is a German law professor and organist.Depenheuer studied law in Bonn, where he attained his doctorate in in 1985 and his habilitation in 1992. After teaching law in Münster and Halle/Saale, Depenheuer was appointed to the chair for public law and philosophy of law at the...
, who defended the Guantanamo Bay detention camp as a "legally permissible response in the fight of constitutional civilisation against the barbarity of terrorism".
As a protest against his support for the increasing use of
biometric dataBiometrics refers to methods for uniquely recognizing humans based upon one or more intrinsic physical or behavioral traits. In information technology, in particular, biometrics is used as a form of identity access management and access control...
, the
hackerIn common usage, a hacker is a person who breaks into computers, usually by gaining access to administrative controls. The subculture that has evolved around hackers is often referred to as the computer underground...
group
Chaos Computer ClubThe Chaos Computer Club is one of the biggest and most influential hacker organizations. The CCC is based in Germany and other German-speaking countries and currently has over 4,000 members....
published one of Wolfgang Schäuble's
fingerprintA fingerprint is an impression of the friction ridges on all parts of the finger. A friction ridge is a raised portion of the epidermis on the palmar or digits or plantar skin, consisting of one or more connected ridge units of friction ridge skin...
s in the March 2008 edition of its magazine
Datenschleuder. The magazine also included the print on a film that readers could use to fool fingerprint readers.
In November 2008, a bill giving the
Federal Criminal Police OfficeFederal Criminal Police Office, or Bundeskriminalamt , can refer to:*Federal Criminal Police Office *Federal Criminal Police Office...
(BKA) more authority failed when the some states declared to abstain from the vote in the
BundesratThe German Bundesrat is a legislative body that represents the sixteen Länder of Germany at the federal level...
, the legislative representative of the states. Subsequently, Schäuble suggested to change Bundesrat's voting procedures to discount abstention votes from the total. Many ministers in the opposition criticized his proposal and some called for his resignation.
In February 2009, Wolfgang Schäuble's homepage got hacked due to a security flaw in the TYPO3 CMS and the unsecure password "gewinner" (winner). The hack consisted of a defacement which placed a large, easily visible link to
the homepage of the German Working Group on Data Retention on the front page.
Assassination attempt and its consequences
On 12 October 1990, Schäuble was the target of an assassination attempt by Dieter Kaufmann, who fired three shots at Schäuble after an election campaign event in
OppenauOppenau is a town located in the state of Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It has a population of 5,200 inhabitants.- Geography :Oppenau is situated in the Rench valley in the Black Forest. The nearest major cities are Offenburg and Freudenstadt.- History :...
, injuring a bodyguard and Schäuble's
spinal cordThe spinal cord is a long, thin, tubular bundle of nervous tissue and support cells that extends from the brain. The brain and spinal cord together make up the central nervous system. It is around 45 cm long in men and around 43 cm long in women. The length of the spinal cord is much shorter than...
and face severely. Schäuble has been paralysed and confined to a wheelchair ever since. The assassin was declared mentally ill by the judges and committed to a clinic because of psychoneurosis.
External links