Obituary

Schaeuble, German Minister and Fiscal Guardian, Dies at 81

  • Schaeuble oversaw balanced budgets, helped in reunification
  • Merkel appointed him as German finance minister in 2009
Wolfgang SchaeublePhotographer: Lisi Niesner/Getty Images
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Wolfgang Schaeuble, who helped forge German reunification before being toppled from party leadership in 2000 by Angela Merkel, only to re-emerge almost a decade later as her fiscally hawkish finance minister to steer Europe’s largest economy through the euro crisis, has died. He was 81.

Paralyzed from the chest down and confined to a wheelchair since a gunman shot him at a political rally in 1990, Schaeuble died late Tuesday.