One of the most famous politicians in Germany at the beginning of the 21st century is Gerhard Schroeder (Gerhard Fritz Kurt Schroeder - that is his full name). His fate cannot be called simple and easy. All that he managed to achieve in life is completely his merit.
The beginning of life
Gerhard was born in Mossenberg, in Lower Saxony (now it is the federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia). The Schroeder family was among the poorest. As Gerhard himself once said, they were "asocial elements."
Parents had no education. Before the start of World War II, Fritz's father worked as a day laborer and received very little. There wasn’t enough money constantly, because children grew up in the family. Three girls (Gunhild, Hyderoze and Ilsa) and the boy Lothar were constantly in need. But this income also stopped after a man was called up for war in 1940. Once Fritz managed to escape home for a short visit. It was at the end of 1943. After this visit, another hungry mouth appeared in the family - on April 7, 1944, Gerhard was born. The wife informed the soldier about the birth of a son in a letter that he received in the summer. Father failed to see his son, a few months after his birth (October 4, 1944), the senior Schroeder was killed in Transylvania near the small village of Céanu Mare (Romania).
Gerhard's mother Eric worked on the farm. To feed the children, she undertook any additional work: washing the floors, washing clothes. After the war she remarried. My stepfather was sick with tuberculosis. In moments of relief I liked to drink hard. Handouts of good neighbors, social benefits and grandmother's pension helped to not starve to death.
School years
Gerhard Schroeder could not attend school for a long time. It was necessary to somehow earn a living. Classmates often offended the weak and little boy. Gerhard learned to use his pluses to mitigate the cons. There was no strength, but there were abilities. The boy, to the joy of his mother, studied well. He put his knowledge to his service: he gave it to the most powerful classmates in exchange in exchange for protection.
Gerhard Schroeder felt more courageous with the teachers. Being confident in his beliefs, he could argue with them for hours, proving his innocence. Noticing his oratorical abilities, even then the teachers predicted a great fate for him.
From the age of fourteen, the boy began to combine study and work. In 1958, he transferred to the evening department and began to look for jobs in a hardware store. Selling a variety of metal things (nails, screws, staples, hinges, hooks, latches and any trifle necessary for repair) did not bring a lot of income. Receiving 150 marks in a month, the persistent student sought to obtain a certificate. To spend his whole life among building materials was not the limit of his dreams. He decided for himself and promised his mother that he would definitely become a lawyer.
On the way to a dream
Gerhard Schroeder was able to fulfill his dream only at the age of 22. At this age, he enters the University of Gottingen at the Faculty of Law. Among students from prosperous families of doctors, lawyers and entrepreneurs, he was the only one forced to combine study with work. This did not affect academic performance; he studied almost perfectly.
Even before entering the University of Gottingen (in 1963), Schroeder became a member of the SPD. Work, study, political activity - the purposeful student managed everything.
Professional activity
Having received the long-awaited diploma in 1971, the future German politician remains in his native university. He works at the Department of Law. In 1978 he began to engage in private legal practice. A new place of life and work is the city of Hanover, the capital of Lower Saxony. Here he lingered until 1990. He began his career as a lawyer with protecting the rights of his clients in simple labor disputes. Gradually grew up to participate in criminal cases. He became a famous lawyer in Hanover and its environs.
It was this city that laid the foundation for the political career of a talented lawyer. Almost simultaneously with the formation of himself in the profession, he becomes the head of the Young Socialists. This is the name of the youth movement of the SPD party.
Career in politics
Work on the legal path soon became cramped. In 1980, Gerhard Schroeder was first elected to the Bundestag. The human biography from this time is closely connected with the history of Germany. Already in 1986, he became the head of the faction of the Social Democratic Party of Germany in Lower Saxony. Three years later, takes the place of member of the presidium of the SPD.
June 21, 1990 is a significant date in the life of a politician. Schroeder Gerhard is elected Prime Minister of Lower Saxony.
The mid-nineties brought a loss of voters for the SPD. Although Schroeder Gerhard was nominated for the post of Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Minister did not succeed. The party did not gain the required percentage of votes and did not participate in the formation of the government.
Germany led
The 1998 elections showed the effectiveness and correctness of the conclusions made after the defeat in previous elections. Having entered into an alliance with the Green Party, the Social Democrats came to power. The coalition was led by Gerhard Schroeder. The electorate believed in his promises to end unemployment and begin the economic development of the country. Moreover, the German Federal Chancellor promised to modernize the economy, supporting entrepreneurs and preserving the integrity of the social protection system.
The first term at the head of Germany was a test of the politician’s conviction. Schroeder was forced to choose between two possible ways of developing the country. Neoliberals proposed to carry out structural changes with cutting social programs for the population. Left Social Democrats insisted on increasing taxes for the richest sections of the population. It was on the first option that Schroeder Gerhard stopped, Minister of Economics Oscar Lafontaine followed the second path. This led to their rupture and decline in party authority among the population.
In September 2000, after sixteen years of rule, Helmut Kohl resigned . Schroeder holds the post of Chancellor of Germany.
The next election of 2002 almost ended in a new defeat. Unfulfilled promises led to dissatisfaction with Schroeder's policies. Only persistent opposition to the American invasion of Iraq helped to obtain a minimal advantage over the CDU. The floods in East Germany and the effective assistance of the government to the victims also played a role in the victory of the SPD. Although such a policy led to stagnation in relations between Germany and the USA, the reality of the formation of the Germany-Russia-France union appeared on the horizon.
The following year was the start of the Agenda 2010 program (Agenda 2010). The main goal of the program was the liberalization of labor legislation. In order to reduce unemployment, a policy of stimulating job creation began to be pursued, spending on pension and social benefits decreased, and allocations to health were limited. The chancellor fulfilled his campaign promise to combat unemployment: by the middle of 2007, the number of unemployed fell to 8.8% of the total working-age population, which amounted to about 3.7 million people.
The policy of the Federal Chancellor, not taking into account the wishes of the left social democrats, led to their withdrawal from the party. In 2005, the Left Party was created, consisting of the communists of the former GDR and the radicals who had left the SPD. The year before this event, Schroeder Gerhard, Chancellor of Germany, handed over the reins of the party to his successor, Franz MĂĽntefering.
In May 2005, the SPD was defeated in local elections. The 37.1% of the votes cast showed dissatisfaction with party politics. And although the party ruled in this land for the past thirty-nine years, the CDU (44.8%) got the majority of the votes. This arrangement led to the loss of the majority of the SPD in the Bundesrat, which passed to the Union of the CDU-CSU. Therefore, Schroeder took the initiative to hold early elections in September 2005, a year before the expiration of his term.
Elections were scheduled for September 18th. Nobody could predict their result. The Social Democratic Party and the CDU-CSU coalition gained almost equal numbers of votes. Neither block received the right to create a one-party government. The parties entered into negotiations and agreed to create a "big coalition" of the SPD-HDS-CSU. On October 10, 2005, Angela Merkel became Chancellor of Germany.
The SPD managed to get eight portfolios. The following ministries became key under the leadership of the Social Democrats: finance, justice, foreign affairs, economic cooperation and development, labor, healthcare, environmental protection, and transport. The former chancellor rejected the offer to occupy any position in the government of the Federal Republic of Germany, and announced his rejection of the mandate in the Bundestag.
Life after politics
Schroeder Gerhard (Chancellor of Germany in 1998-2005) moved away from politics and went deeper into business. According to him, the age of sixty-one years cannot be the reason for his removal from business. He does not intend to stay at home, unnerve his wife and raise children. Therefore, after the resignation, he occupies the most important posts in international projects.
Schroeder became the head of the committee of shareholders of the operator of the construction of the North European Gas Pipeline along the bottom of the Baltic Sea. Every year, only Gazprom pays him a quarter of a million euros. Since 2006, he has been working as an adviser on the advisory board of the European Investment Banking Group Rothschild Croup.
Family: consistency in unpredictability
Gerhard Schroeder tried to create his own family four times. This fact alone indicates its unpredictability. Gerhard himself considers this compliance with the sequence.
The first marriage was the shortest, only four years. Student love was quick, Eva Shubakh filed for divorce in 1972. Soon, Gerhard married again. The second wife, Anna Tashenmacher, has endured a family life with Schroeder for twelve years. In 1984, the family split up to create the conditions for a third attempt. The marriage with Hiltrud Hansen ended thirteen years later.
Schroeder is now married to Doris Köpf. This young journalist is nineteen years younger than her husband. From her first marriage, she has a daughter, Clara. Schroeder has no children of his own. The couple decided to adopt two children. Both children are from the Russian orphanage in St. Petersburg. Thus, in 2004, three-year-old Victoria appeared in their family, and in 2006 - a little orphan boy Gregor.
A large family enjoys tennis. Father is trying to instill in everyone a desire to master foreign languages, primarily English, which is the language of business communication. Gerhard loves jazz, so even the youngest member of the Gregor family knows him.
Gerhard did not know his father, but his worship of his ancestors was highly developed. On the politician's desktop is always a photograph of Fritz Schroeder in the shape of a Wehrmacht soldier. In 2004, Gerhard visited the mass grave for the first time in CĂ©anu Mare, where his father was buried. This happened when he became older than his father (at that time he was 60 years old).
An illiterate mother, who once did not believe in the words of her son, does not understand his life. He always tried to do everything for his mother.
Criticism of Schroeder's policy
The presence of dissatisfaction with the results of the politician’s activity speaks of him as an accomplished figure. Gerhard Schroeder, whose policy is full of contradictions, is no exception.
First of all, many leaders of the countries were at a loss after the signing of the NEGP (North European Gas Pipeline on the Baltic Sea) between Russia and Germany. Alexander Lukashenko even called this project “the most stupid” of Russia. The head of one of the German parties, Guido Westerwelle, suspected the chancellor of corruption. True, such an accusation was appealed by Schroeder in court, by the decision of which the ex-chancellor cannot be accused of personal interest in the NEGP.
The second direction of the policy that provoked the indignation was the refusal of the Schroeder government in 2004 to support the United States during their invasion of Iraq. Congressman Tom Lantos at the opening of a memorial dedicated to the victims of communism in Washington in 2007 called Schroeder’s actions “political prostitution.”
Voters began to complain after posting on Bild. The addiction to expensive wine from France, the love of Cuban cigars (about fifty euros apiece), the worship of chic Italian costumes for twenty thousand euros pushed the electorate away from the once beloved politician.
Schroeder certainly could not win the 2005 election. It would seem that this does not matter, but voters negatively reacted to the fact that the politician dyes his hair.
The results of the seven-year reign
The results of Schroeder’s reign are controversial laws. It was with him that prostitution was included in the list of professions, same-sex marriages became legal. At the same time, women gained the right to serve in the Bundeswehr. And the famous Hartz IV law was generally perplexing. Such an antisocial law could be expected from anyone, but not from a person who knew extreme poverty in childhood.
The inhabitants of the country reacted positively to the bold confrontation of the United States, when they refused to take part in the Iraq war through the mouth of the Federal Chancellor. The slogan “Make the world stable” is being implemented systematically. Germany harmonizes all its foreign policy steps with pan-European interests. As a binding element of the EU, the country does not represent itself outside the European context.
The ex-chancellor himself does not hide a positive assessment of his life path. From the half-starving fatherless father to the head of a united Germany - this is the result of his political career.