Gerhard Schröder

Biography

Gerhard Schröder was born in 1944 in Blomberg, Lippe; his father was killed in the Second World War a few months later. He left school for a retail apprenticeship, earned his university entrance qualification at night school, and studied law at the University of Göttingen from 1966 to 1971. He then practised as a lawyer until 1990.

A Social Democrat since 1963, he became federal chairman of the party's youth wing, the Jusos, in 1978 and entered the Bundestag in 1980. In 1990 he became Minister-President of Lower Saxony. In 1998 he defeated Helmut Kohl and became chancellor at the head of the first federal coalition of the SPD and the Greens, and from 1999 to 2004 he also led the SPD.

His governments began the phase-out of nuclear power, introduced civil unions for same-sex couples and passed the Agenda 2010 welfare and labour reforms, and he refused to join the 2003 invasion of Iraq. After narrowly losing the 2005 election he made way for Angela Merkel.

He then took senior posts with Russian state energy companies, chairing the shareholders' committee of Nord Stream AG and the board of Rosneft. These ties drew heavy criticism after Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and he gave up the Rosneft chairmanship that year.