Wolfgang Schäuble has died. The CDU politician, one of the most influential men of the last half century of German politics and the “hawk” who had a decisive influence on decisions in the Eurozone since the beginning of the 2000s, died “peacefully” last night surrounded by his family. The family announced this to the German Press Agency Dpa this morning.
His health condition was never discussed publicly. However, according to the authoritative German newspapers, he had appeared much less frequently recently. A few weeks ago he was seen again in the hallways around his Reichstag office. Schäuble, who was truly considered a giant of German conservative politics, went through the various phases of recent German history as a protagonist. He was Interior Minister and one of Helmut Kohl's confidants when on October 12, 1990, during the election campaign, a man shot him twice at close range, one of which hit him in the spine. Since then he lived in a wheelchair, but soon found the strength to return to political life. And what is rare for German politicians, he also spoke discreetly but openly about his invalid condition.
But especially during the eurozone crisis, his name became a symbol of “austerity” and intransigence towards the countries of the South. The extreme strictness and intransigence in dealing with the Greek crisis are due to some of his decisions when he was still Angela Merkel's finance minister. At the most dramatic moments of the crisis, he came close to calling for Athens to be excluded from the eurozone. His statement to this effect almost raised fears that Germany would adopt such positions. And it was more thanks to Angela Merkel's mediation skills, but also her desire to keep Europe united – and also the axis with the ECB, then ruled by Mario Draghi – that Greece stuck to the EUR train. Because of this strictness – which, however, always went hand in hand with enormous technical knowledge and great political skill – he was considered an opponent in many Eastern European countries and – in the growing continental populism – almost an “enemy”. Titles that probably didn't bother him.