Walter Scheel

Walter Scheel
File:Walter Scheel BriefmarkeTeil - nachbearbeitet.jpg
4th President of the Federal Republic of Germany
In office 1 July 1974 – 28 June 1979
Chancellor	Helmut Schmidt
Preceded by	Gustav Heinemann
Succeeded by	Karl Carstens
Acting Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany
In office 7 May 1974 – 16 May 1974
President	Gustav Heinemann
Preceded by	Willy Brandt
Succeeded by	Helmut Schmidt
6th Vice-Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany
In office 21 October 1969 – 16 May 1974
Chancellor	Willy Brandt
Preceded by	Willy Brandt
Succeeded by	Hans-Dietrich Genscher
5th Federal Minister of the Foreign Affairs
In office 21 October 1969 – 16 May 1974
Chancellor	Willy Brandt
Preceded by	Willy Brandt
Succeeded by	Hans-Dietrich Genscher
Personal details
Born	(1919-07-08) 8 July 1919 Solingen, Germany
Political party	FDP
Spouse	Mildred Scheel (1932-1985)

Walter Scheel (born 8 July 1919) is a German politician (FDP). As of 2008, he is the oldest German president alive and the second longest-lived German head of state after Emperor Wilhelm I.

Biography

Scheel was born in Solingen. During World War II, he served in the Luftwaffe, the last years of the war as a Radar operator on a Me 110 night fighter.

As federal minister of economic cooperation and development (1961-1966), he brought about the downfall of the Erhard government in late 1966, when he took the Free Democratic Party, which he led, out of the coalition government.

In 1969, he enabled his party to form a new coalition with the Social Democrats. He returned to government as Foreign Minister and Vice Chancellor. Due to a change in Bonn's foreign policy deviced by Scheel together with Chancellor Willy Brandt, the Federal Republic of Germany gave up claims on former territories ceded to Poland, Czechoslowakia and the USSR in 1945 and officially recognized the existence of the GDR. This caused a massive public debate that led to early elections in 1972 also because some parliamentarians from the conservative wing of Scheel's party threatened to withdraw their support for the SPD/FDP coalition. The coalition was convincingly reelected and the efforts to improve relations with the countries on the other side of the iron curtain continued.

On 7 May 1974, Brandt resigned as Chancellor after one of his personal assistants, Günter Guillaume, was arrested as a spy for the East German state. Though this had been internally suspected since 1973, Brandt accepted responsibility and resigned. Scheel, as acting chancellor, chaired the government meetings for a little over a week, until Helmut Schmidt was elected Chancellor.

At that time, Scheel was elected Federal President of West Germany, a post he held from July 1974 until June 1979. He largely retreated to private life after his term of office expired, though he sometimes appears on political talk shows or events. At the funeral of Hanns Martin Schleyer in October 1977, Scheel gave a speech entitled shame.

Walter Scheel, Portrait by Günter Rittner 1996

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