Richard von Weizsäcker

Richard, Baron von Weizsäcker
Richard von Weizsäcker in 1984
President of the Federal Republic of Germany
In office
1 July 1984  30 June 1994*
Chancellor Helmut Kohl
Preceded by Karl Carstens
Succeeded by Roman Herzog
Governing Mayor of West Berlin
In office
11 June 1981  9 February 1984
Preceded by Hans-Jochen Vogel
Succeeded by Eberhard Diepgen
Personal details
Born 15 April 1920
Stuttgart, Germany
Died 31 January 2015 (aged 94)
Berlin, Germany
Nationality German
Political party Christian Democratic Union
Spouse(s) Marianne von Kretschmann
Children 4
Alma mater Balliol College, Oxford
University of Grenoble
University of Göttingen
Religion Lutheran
Signature
*From 1 July 1984 to 2 October 1990, Richard von Weizsäcker was Federal President of West Germany only. From 3 October 1990 until 30 June 1994, he was Federal President of the reunified Germany.

Richard Karl Freiherr von Weizsäcker ( listen ; 15 April 1920 – 31 January 2015) was a German politician (CDU). Born into the aristocratic Weizsäcker family, he took his first public offices in the Evangelical Church in Germany.

A member of the CDU since 1954, he was elected as member of parliament in 1969. He continued to hold a mandate as member of the Bundestag until he became Governing Mayor of West Berlin, following the 1981 state elections. In 1984, von Weizsäcker was elected President of the Federal Republic of Germany. During his presidency, German reunification was accomplished through the incorporation of the territory of the former German Democratic Republic into the Federal Republic of Germany on 3 October 1990.

He is considered the most popular of Germany's presidents,[1] held in high regard particularly for his impartiality.[2][3] His demeanor often saw him at odds with his party colleagues, particularly long-term chancellor Helmut Kohl. He was famous for his speeches, especially one he delivered at the 40th anniversary of the end of the Second World War in Europe on 8 May 1985.

Early life

Richard von Weizsäcker (left) with his father at the latter's post-war trial

Richard von Weizsäcker was born on 15 April 1920 in the New Castle in Stuttgart,[4] the son of diplomat Ernst von Weizsäcker, a member of the noted Weizsäcker family, and his wife Marianne (von Graevenitz) von Weizsäcker.[5] Ernst von Weizsäcker was a career diplomat and a high-ranking official in the Foreign Ministry in the 1930s.[6] Richard von Weizsäcker had two brothers, physicist and philosopher Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker and Heinrich von Weizsäcker, who was killed in action in World War II in 1939. In 1967, his sister Elisabeth married Dr. Konrad Raiser, the former General Secretary of the World Council of Churches (WCC).[7] His grandfather Karl von Weizsäcker was Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Württemberg, and was ennobled in 1897 and raised to the hereditary title of Baron (Freiherr) in 1916.[8] Because his father was a career diplomat, he spent much of his childhood in Switzerland and Scandinavia. The family lived in Basel 1920–24, in Copenhagen 1924–26, in Oslo 1931–33, and in Bern 1933–36, where Richard attended the Swiss Gymnasium Kirchenfeld. The family relocated to Berlin in 1936.[9]

When he was 17 years old, von Weizsäcker moved to Britain, where he studied philosophy and history at Balliol College, Oxford. He subsequently studied at the University of Grenoble in France.[10] After the outbreak of World War II, he served in the German army, ultimately as a Captain in the Reserves. He crossed over the border to Poland with his regiment on the very first day of the war.[11] His brother Heinrich fell just some hundred meters away from him on the second day. Von Weizsäcker watched over his brother's body throughout the night until he was able to bury him the next morning.[12] He was wounded in East Prussia in 1945 and transported home to Stuttgart. At the war's end he continued his study of history in Göttingen and eventually studied law.[13] In 1947, when Ernst von Weizsäcker was a defendant in the Ministries Trial for his role in the deportation of Jews from occupied France, Richard von Weizsäcker served as his father's assistant defence counsel.[14][15]

Von Weizsäcker took his first legal state exam in 1950, the second in 1953, and earned his doctorate (doctor juris) in 1955. In 1953 he married Marianne von Kretschmann; they have four children: Robert Klaus von Weizsäcker, a Professor of Economics at the Munich University of Technology, Andreas von Weizsäcker, an art professor at the Academy of Fine Arts Munich, Beatrice von Weizsäcker, a lawyer and journalist, and Fritz Eckart von Weizsäcker, a Professor of Medicine.

Von Weizsäcker worked for Mannesmann between 1950 and 1958, as a scientific assistant until 1953, as a legal counsel from 1953 and as head of the department for economic policy from 1957.[16] From 1958 to 1962, he was head of the Waldthausen Bank, a bank owned by relatives of his wife. From 1962 to 1966, he served on the board of directors of Boehringer Ingelheim, a pharmaceutical company.[17]

Between 1964 and 1970, Weizsäcker served as President of the German Evangelical Church Assembly. He was also a member of the Synod and the Council of the Evangelical Church in Germany from 1967–1984.[18]

Political career

Von Weizsäcker addressing a CDU party convention in 1972.

Weizsäcker joined the CDU in 1954. Subsequent Chancellor Helmut Kohl offered von Weizsäcker a safe seat for the 1965 elections, even going so far as to have Konrad Adenauer write two letters urging him to run, but Weizsäcker declined due to his work in the German Evangelical Church Assembly, wanting to avoid a conflict of interest.[19] He became a member of the Bundestag (Federal Diet) as a result of the 1969 federal elections, serving until 1981.[20]

In 1974 Weizsäcker was the Presidential candidate of his party for the first time, but he lost out to the Free Democrat Walter Scheel, who was supported by the ruling center-left coalition.[21] Ahead of the 1976 elections, CDU chairman Helmut Kohl included him in his shadow cabinet for their party’s campaign to unseat incumbent Helmut Schmidt as chancellor. Between 1979 and 1981, Weizsäcker served as Vice President of the Bundestag.[4]

Governing Mayor of West Berlin, 1981–1984

Weizsäcker served as the Governing Mayor (Regierender Bürgermeister) of West Berlin (1981–1984). During his tenure, he tried to keep alive the idea of a cultural nation called Germany divided into two states. In speeches and writings, he repeatedly urged his compatriots in the Federal Republic to look upon themselves as a nation firmly anchored in the Western alliance, but with special obligations and interest in the East.[21] Weizsäcker irritated the United States, France and Britain, the half-city's occupying powers, by breaking with protocol and visiting Erich Honecker, the East German Communist Party chief, in East Berlin.[22]

From 1981 to 1983, von Weizsäcker headed a minority government after the CDU had only amassed 48 per cent of seats in the diet. His government was tolerated by the Free Democratic Party, who were in a coalition with the Social Democrats on federal level at the time. After Helmut Kohl won the federal election in 1983 and formed a government with the Free Democrats, von Weizsäcker did the same in Berlin.[23]

President of West Germany, 1984–1990 and Germany, 1990-1994

In 1984, Weizsäcker was elected President of West Germany by the German Federal Convention, succeeding Karl Carstens and drawing unusual support from both the governing center-right coalition and the opposition Social Democratic Party;[21] he defeated the Green Party’s candidate, Luise Rinser.

Richard von Weizsäcker (then Mayor of West Berlin), with US President Ronald Reagan and West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, at Checkpoint Charlie in 1982

Speech on the 40th anniversary of the end of the Second World War in Europe on 8 May 1945

Weizsäcker is known for his speeches. In 1985 he gave a famous speech in the Bundestag about the 40th anniversary of the end of the Second World War in Europe on 8 May 1945[24][25] where he articulated the historic responsibility of Germany and Germans for the crimes of Nazism. In contrast to the way the end of the war was still perceived by a majority of people in Germany at the time, he defined 8 May as a day of liberation.[26] Weizsäcker pointed out the inseparable link between the Nazi takeover of Germany and the tragedies caused by the Second World War.[24] In a passage of striking boldness, he took issue with one of the most cherished defenses of older Germans. "When the unspeakable truth of the Holocaust became known at the end of the war," he said, "all too many of us claimed they had not known anything about it or even suspected anything."[26]

Most notably,[27] in the wake of U.S. President Ronald Reagan's controversial visit to the Bitburg military cemetery in May 1985, Weizsäcker spoke of the danger of forgetting and distorting. "There is no such thing as the guilt or innocence of an entire nation. Guilt is, like innocence, not collective but personal. There is discovered or concealed individual guilt. There is guilt which people acknowledge or deny. . . . All of us, whether guilty or not, whether young or old, must accept the past. We are all affected by the consequences and liable for it. . . . We Germans must look truth straight in the eye – without embellishment and without distortion. . . . There can be no reconciliation without remembrance."[26]

Weizsäcker declared that younger generations of Germans "cannot profess a guilt of their own for crimes they did not commit."[22]

Also in 1985, Weizsäcker was one of the first representatives of Germany to remember homosexual victims of Nazism as a "victim group."[28]

Travels

Richard von Weizsäcker and his wife visiting Jordan in 1985.

On his trip to Israel in October 1985, Weizsäcker was greeted on arrival by his Israeli counterpart, President Chaim Herzog. The president was given a full honor-guard welcome at Ben-Gurion Airport; among Cabinet ministers who lined up to shake his hand were right-wingers of the Herut party, the main faction of Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir's Likud party, who had previously refused to greet German leaders. Weizsaecker's visit was the first by a head of state, it is not the first by a West German leader. Chancellor Willy Brandt had paid a visit to Israel in June 1973.[29]

During a four-day state visit to the United Kingdom in July 1986, Weizsäcker addressed a joint session of the Houses of Parliament, the first German to be accorded that honor.[30]

Role in the Historians’ Dispute

Speaking to a congress of West German historians in Bamberg in October 1988, Weizsäcker rejected the attempts by some historians to compare the systematic murder of Jews in Nazi Germany to mass killings elsewhere – like those in Cambodia under Pol Pot or in Stalin's purges – or to seek external explanations for it. Thereby he declared an end to a historians' dispute that had sharply divided German scholars and journalists for two years, stating "Auschwitz remains unique. It was perpetrated by Germans in the name of Germany. This truth is immutable and will not be forgotten."[31]

In his remarks to the historians, Weizsäcker said their dispute had prompted accusations that they sought to raise a "multitude of comparisons and parallels" that would cause "the dark chapter of our own history to disappear, to be reduced to a mere episode."[31] Andreas Hillgruber, a historian at Cologne University and one of the instigators of the debate with a book he published in 1986 in which he linked the collapse of the eastern front and the Holocaust, declared himself in full agreement with Weizsäcker, insisting that he had never tried to "relativize" the past.[31]

Unification of Germany

Weizsäcker delivering a speech during the act of state for the Reunification of Germany on 3 October 1990 at Berliner Philharmonie.

Because of the high esteem in which he was held by Germany's political establishment and in the population,[32] Weizsäcker is so far the only candidate to have stood for elections for the office of President uncontested; he was elected in such a way to a second term of office on 23 May 1989.

Weizsäcker took office for his second presidential term on 1 July 1989. His second term oversaw the end of the Cold War and Reunification of Germany. Upon reunification, Weizsäcker became the first all-German Head of State since Karl Dönitz in May 1945. At midnight on 3 October 1990, during the official festivities held before the Reichstag building in Berlin to mark the moment of the reunification of Germany, President Weizsäcker delivered the only speech of the night, immediately after the raising of the flag, and before the playing of the National Anthem. His brief remarks, however, were almost inaudible, due to the sound of the bells marking midnight, and of the fireworks that were released to celebrate the moment of reunification.[33] In those remarks he praised the accomplishment of German unity in freedom and in peace. He gave a longer speech at the act of state at Berliner Philharmonie later that day.[34]

In 1990, Weizsäcker became the first West German head of state to visit Poland. During his four-day visit, he reassured Poles that the newly unified German state would treat their western and northern borders, which include prewar German lands, as inviolable.[35]

In 1992, Weizsäcker gave the eulogy at the state funeral of former Chancellor Willy Brandt at the Reichstag, the first state funeral for a former chancellor in Berlin since the death of Gustav Stresemann in 1929. The funeral was attended by an array of leading European political figures, including French President François Mitterrand, Spanish Prime Minister Felipe Gonzalez and former Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev.[36]

Weizsäcker stretched the traditionally ceremonial position of Germany’s president to reach across political, national, and generational boundaries to address a wide range of controversial issues. He is credited with largely being responsible for taking the lead on an asylum policy overhaul after the arson attack by neo-Nazis in Mölln, in which three Turkish citizens died in 1993.[37] He also earned recognition at home and abroad for attending memorial services for the victims of neo-Nazi attacks in Mölln and Solingen. The services were snubbed by Chancellor Helmut Kohl, who dismayed Germans by saying it was not necessary for the government to send a representative.[38]

In March 1994, Weizsäcker attended the Frankfurt premiere of Schindler's List along with the Israeli ambassador, Avi Primor, and the head of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Ignatz Bubis.[39]

During the debate over the change of the seat of government from Bonn to Berlin, the president spoke out in favor of Berlin. In a memorandum released in February 1991, he declared that he would not act as a mere "decoration of a so-called capital",[40] urging the diet to move more constitutional organs to Berlin.[41] To compensate for the delay in the government's move to transfer both the government and the parliament, Weizsäcker declared in April 1993 that he would be performing an increased share of his duties in Berlin.[42] He decided not to wait for the renovation and conversion as the presidential seat of the Kronprinzenpalais (Crown Prince's Palace) at Berlin's Unter den Linden boulevard, and to use instead his existing official residence in West Berlin, the Bellevue Palace beyond Tiergarten park.[42]

Critique of party politics

In an interview book released in 1992, midway through his second term, von Weizsäcker voiced a harsh critique of the leading political parties in Germany, claiming that they took a larger role in public life than awarded to them by the constitution. He critizised the high number of career politicians (Berufspolitiker), who "in general are neither expert nor dilettante, but generalists with particular knowledge only in political battle".[43]

The immediate reactions toward the interview were mixed. Prominent party politicians such as Rainer Barzel or Johannes Rau critizised the remarks, as did Minister of Labour Norbert Blüm, who asked the president to show more respect towards the work done by normal party members. Former chancellor Helmut Schmidt on the other hand conceded that von Weizsäcker was "essentially right". While comments from politicians were mainly negative, a public poll conducted by the Wickert-Institut in June 1992 showed that 87.4 per cent of the population agreed with the president.[44] Political commentators generally interpreted the remarks as a hidden attack of incumbent chancellor Helmut Kohl, since von Weizsäcker's relationship with his former patron had cooled over the prior years.[44] In a column for the German newspaper Der Spiegel chief-editor Rudolf Augstein critizised the president for his attack, writing: "You cannot have it both ways: on the one hand giving a right and seminal political incentive, but on the other hand insulting the governing class and its chief".[45]

Post-presidency

Richard von Weizsäcker in 2009

As an elder statesman, Weizsäcker long remained involved in politics and charitable affairs in Germany. He was the chair of a commission installed by the then Social Democratic-Green government for reforming the Bundeswehr. Along with Henry A. Kissinger, he supported Richard Holbrooke in creating the American Academy in Berlin in 1994.[46] He was also a member of the Board of Trustees of the Robert Bosch Stiftung.

Weizsäcker served as a member of the Advisory Council of Transparency International.[47] In a letter addressed to Nigeria's military ruler Sani Abacha in 1996, he called for the immediate release of General Olusegun Obasanjo, the former head of state of Nigeria, who had become the first military ruler in Africa to keep his promise to hand over power to an elected civilian government but was later sentenced to 15 years imprisonment.[48]

Weizsäcker also served on many international commissions. He was chairman of the Independent Working Group on the future of the United Nations and was one of three "Wise Men" appointed by European Commission President Romano Prodi to consider the future of the European Union. From 2003 until his death, he was a member of the Advisory Commission on the return of cultural property seized as a result of Nazi persecution, especially Jewish property, led by the former head of the Federal Constitutional Court, Jutta Limbach. In November 2014, Weizsäcker retired as chairman of the Bergedorf Round Table, a discussion forum on foreign policy issues.[49]

Death and funeral

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Weizsäcker died in Berlin on 31 January 2015. He was survived by his wife, Marianne, and three of their four children.[50] Upon his death, there was general praise for his life and political career. In their obituary, the New York Times called von Weizsäcker "a guardian of his nation’s moral conscience",[50] while The Guardian commented that Germany was "uniquely fortunate" in having had him as a leader.[51]

He was honored with a state funeral on 11 February 2015 held at Berlin Cathedral. Eulogies were given by incumbent president Joachim Gauck, foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier (SPD), finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble (CDU) and former vice president of the Bundestag, Antje Vollmer (Green Party). Steinmeier lauded Weizsäcker's role in foreign politics, where he worked towards reconciliation with France and Poland and supported a dialogue with the communist regimes in the East, often against his own party.[52] The funeral was attended by many serving high-ranking politicians in Germany, including chancellor Angela Merkel. Also in attendence were former presidents Roman Herzog, Horst Köhler and Christian Wulff as well as former chancellors Helmut Schmidt and Gerhard Schröder. Princess Beatrix, former Queen of the Netherlands was present, as was former Polish president Lech Wałęsa.[53] After the ceremony, soldiers stood salute as von Weizsäcker's coffin was brought to its resting place at Waldfriedhof Dahlem.[52] In the subsequent days, many Berliners visited von Weizsäcker's grave to pay tribute and lay down flowers.[54]

Relationship with his party and Helmut Kohl

Von Weizsäcker (center) and Kohl (right) during a CDU press conference in June 1975.

Richard von Weizsäcker, who had joined the CDU in 1954, was known for often publicly voicing political views different from his own party line, both in and out of the presidential office. While he was himself sceptical of Willy Brandt's Ostpolitik, he urged his party not to block it entirely in the lower diet, the Bundestag, since rejection would be met with disgruntlement abroad. When the CDU took a sweeping victory in the state elections in Baden-Württemberg in April 1972, his party decided to take the opportunity to dispose of chancellor Brandt with a vote of no confidence, replacing him with Rainer Barzel. Von Weizsäcker was one of only three CDU MPs to speak out against the proposal.[55]

Helmut Kohl, who served as Chancellor of Germany from 1982 to 1998, was an early patron of von Weizsäcker's, effectively helping him into parliament. However, their relationship took a first strain in 1971, when von Weizsäcker supported Rainer Barzel over Kohl for the CDU-chairmanship. Subsequently, Kohl unsuccessfully tried to deny Weizsäcker the chance to become president in 1983.[56] After he had taken office, von Weizsäcker critizised Kohl's government on numerous occasions, taking liberties not previously known from someone in a ceremonial role such as his. For instance, he urged the chancellor to recognize the Oder–Neisse line[57] and spoke out for a more patient approach on the way towards German reunification.[56] Other examples include the aforementioned speech in 1985 and his critique of party politics in 1992. Following a critical interview von Weizsäcker gave the Spiegel magazine in September 1997, Kohl reacted during a meeting of his parliamentary group by saying von Weizsäcker (whom he called "that gentleman")[40] was no longer "one of us".[58] This was followed by CDU spokesman Rolf Kiefer stating the CDU had removed von Weizsäcker from its membership database, since the former president had not paid his membership fees in a long time. Von Weizsäcker took the matter to the party's arbitrating body and won. The tribunal ruled that he was allowed to let his membership rest indefinitely.[58]

After his presidency ended, von Weizsäcker remained vocal in daily politics, e.g. speaking for a more liberal immigration policy, calling the way his party handled it "simply ridiculous".[59] Towards the former East-German leading party, the PDS (today called Die Linke), von Weizsäcker urged his party colleagues to enter into a serious political discussion. He went as far as speaking in favor of a coalition government between Social Democrats and the PDS in Berlin after the 2001 state election.[60]

Other activities (selection)

Richard von Weizsäcker at a Transparency International event in 2013

Publications

Weizsäcker's publications include Von Deutschland aus (From Germany Abroad); Die deutsche Geschichte geht weiter (German History Continues); Von Deutschland nach Europa (From Germany to Europe) and Vier Zeiten (Four Times). His memoirs have been published as From Weimar to the Wall: My Life in German Politics (1999).

Recognition

Weizsäcker received many honours in his career, including honorary membership in the Order of Saint John (Bailiwick of Brandenburg);[61] an honorary doctorate from Johns Hopkins University in 1993; creation of the Richard von Weizsäcker Professorship at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) of Johns Hopkins University and the Robert Bosch Foundation of Stuttgart in 2003; and more than eleven other honorary doctorates, ranging from the Weizmann Institute in Israel to Oxford, Cambridge and Harvard universities, the Charles University in Prague, and the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras,[62] the Leo Baeck Prize from the Central Council of Jews in Germany, and the Buber-Rosenzweig Medallion from the Society for Christian-Jewish Cooperation. After his death, deputy director of Poland's international broadcaster, Rafal Kiepuszewski, called von Weizsäcker "the greatest German friend Poland has ever had".[63]

Both chancellor Angela Merkel as well as president Joachim Gauck lauded von Weizsäcker, with the latter declaring upon the news of his death: "We are losing a great man and an outstanding head of state."[64] French president François Hollande highlighted Weizsäcker's "moral stature."[64]

Other honours include:

Ancestry

References

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  2. "Gauck würdigt "großen Deutschen"" (in German). Deutschlandfunk. 11 February 2015. Retrieved 20 April 2015.
  3. Schäuble, Wolfgang (11 February 2015). "Er ist immer unser Präsident geblieben" (in German). Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Retrieved 20 April 2015.
  4. 4.0 4.1 "Richard von Weizsäcker (1984–1994)". bundespraesident.de. Bundespräsidialamt. Retrieved 1 February 2015.
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  7. "Konrad Raiser - Former WCC General Secretary (from 1993–2003)". WCC Press Corner - Biographies. World Council of Churches. January 2004. Retrieved 13 April 2015.
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  11. Rudolph 2010, p. 39.
  12. Rudolph 2010, p. 40.
  13. Rudolph 2010, p. 54.
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  20. Rudolph 2010, p. 119.
  21. 21.0 21.1 21.2 James M. Markham (24 May 1984), A Patrician President in Bonn; Richard von Weizsacker New York Times.
  22. 22.0 22.1 James M. Markham (23 June 1994), Facing Up To Germany’s Past The New York Times Magazine.
  23. Thomas, Sven (2005). Die informelle Koalition. Richard von Weizsäcker und die Berliner CDU-Regierung (1981-1983). Wiesbaden: Deutscher Universitäts-Verlag. ISBN 3-8244-4614-6.
  24. 24.0 24.1 Speech in the Bundestag on 8 May 1985 during the Ceremony Commemorating the 40th Anniversary of the End of War in Europe and of National-Socialist Tyranny, Landesmedienzentrum Baden-Württemberg, retrieved on 31 January 2014 (PDF, 123 KB).
  25. Saxon, Wolfgang (31 January 2015). "Richard von Weizsäcker, 94, Germany’s First President After Reunification, Is Dead". nytimes.com. New York Times. Retrieved 1 February 2015.
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  28. "Denkmal für die im Nationalsozialismus verfolgten Homosexuellen". gedenkort.de. Memorial site for the persecuted homosexual victims of National Socialism. Retrieved 1 February 2015.
  29. Weizsaecker Urges Openness to Truth of the Past : W. German President Makes Rare Israel Visit Los Angeles Times, 9 October 1985.
  30. Bonn Official in Britain Los Angeles Times, 2 July 1986.
  31. 31.0 31.1 31.2 Serge Schmemann (22 October 1988), Bonn Journal; Facing the Mirror of German History New York Times.
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  33. Rudolph 2010, p. 245.
  34. "Ansprache von Bundespräsident Richard von Weizsäcker beim Staatsakt zum "Tag der deutschen Einheit"". bundespraesident.de. Bundespräsidialamt. Retrieved 11 April 2015.
  35. Borders Will Stay, Bonn's President Says in Poland Los Angeles Times, 3 May 1990.
  36. Tyler Marshall (18 October 1992), Germans Lay Beloved Statesman Brandt to Rest Los Angeles Times.
  37. Jochen Thies (14 January 1993), A New German Seriousness on the Asylum Problem International Herald Tribune.
  38. Mary Williams Walsh (23 May 1994), German Electoral College to Pick New President Los Angeles Times.
  39. Germans Applaud "Schindler's List" International Herald Tribune, 2 March 1994.
  40. 40.0 40.1 Translated by User:Zwerg Nase
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  42. 42.0 42.1 Michael Farr (21 April 1993), Economic Slide Rekindles Debate on Capitals International Herald Tribune.
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  46. Sarah Means Lohmann (25 December 2003), In Berlin, a Showcase of American Talent and Thought Marks an Anniversary New York Times.
  47. Advisory Council Transparency International.
  48. Kinkel, Weizsäcker call for release of Nigeria’s Obasanjo – An international campaign led by TI is to increase the pressure on Nigeria’s rulers Transparency International, press release of 29 September 1996.
  49. Abschiedsfeier für Alt-Bundespräsident von Weizsäcker Hamburger Abendblatt, 7 November 2014..
  50. 50.0 50.1 Saxon, Wolfgang (31 January 2015). "Richard von Weizsäcker, 94, Germany’s First President After Reunification, Is Dead". The New York Times. Retrieved 1 February 2015.
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  60. Rudolph 2010, pp. 270–271.
  61. Verzeichnis der Mitglieder der Balley Brandenburg des Ritterlichen Ordens St. Johannis vom Spital zu Jerusalem; Berlin: Johanniterorden, 2011; page 18.
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  65. Icelandic Presidency Website (Icelandic), Order of the Falcon, Weizsäcker, Richard von, 4 July 1988, Grand Cross with Collar
  66. Prime Minister of Malta Website, Honorary Appointments to the National Order of Merit

Bibliography

  • Gill, Ulrich (ed.) (1986). Eine Rede und ihre Wirkung. Die Rede des Bundespräsidenten Richard von Weizsäcker vom 8. Ma 1985 anläßlich des 40. Jahrestages der Beendigung des Zweiten Weltkrieges (in German). Berlin: Verlag Rainer Röll. ISBN 3-9801344-0-7.
  • Hofmann, Gunter (2010). Richard von Weizsäcker. Ein deutsches Leben (in German). Munich: C.H. Beck. ISBN 978-3-406-59809-8.
  • Pflüger, Friedbert (2010). Richard von Weizsäcker. Mit der Macht der Moral (in German). Munich: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt. ISBN 978-3-421-04445-7.
  • Rudolph, Hermann (2010). Richard von Weizsäcker. Eine Biographie (in German). Berlin: Rowohlt. ISBN 978-3-87134-667-5.
  • von Weizsäcker, Richard (1997). Vier Zeiten. Erinnerungen (in German). Berlin: Siedler Verlag. ISBN 3-88680-556-5.

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Political offices
Preceded by
Karl Carstens
President of the Federal Republic of Germany
1984–1994
Succeeded by
Roman Herzog
Preceded by
Hans-Jochen Vogel
Mayor of West Berlin
1981–1984
Succeeded by
Eberhard Diepgen