(b. Wuppertal, 16 Jan. 1931) German; Minister-President of North Rhine-Westphalia 1978 – 99; federal president 1999 – Rau was the son of an Evangelical pastor of the anti-Nazi Confessing church and followed his father's beliefs. He completed an apprenticeship in the book trade but developed an early interest in politics. Through personal association with Heinemann he joined the GVP in opposition to German rearmament and when the party was dissolved he followed Heinemann into the SPD. In 1958 he was elected to the parliament (Landtag) of North Rhine-Westphalia and in 1962 to the executive of the SPD Landtag group, becoming the chairman in 1967. After serving briefly as mayor of Wuppertal he was appointed Minister of Science and Research in the SPD government of North Rhine-Westphalia. He was elected Minister-President in 1978. Successful regional election campaigns in 1980 and 1985 secured the SPD an absolute majority in the Landtag and helped his election as deputy chairman of the national SPD and adoption as the party's candidate to oppose Kohl in the 1987 election. The SPD gained a smaller share of the vote than in 1983 and lost ground to the Greens, whom Rau had vigorously opposed. Rau, however, managed to maintain his, and the SPD's, grip on North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany's most populous region.
Johannes Rau
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Johannes Rau (born 1931) served as deputy chairman of the German Social Democratic Party (SPD), as minister-president of the powerful state of North Rhine-Westphalia, and in 1994 as candidate for chancellor and the federal presidency.
Johannes Rau was born on January 16, 1931, in Wuppertal-Barmen, the son of a businessman who became a Protestant minister and the grandson of a stonemason. He was one of five children, all of whom had close relationships with their parents. Early on, young Rau was attracted to the church and to the study of the Bible. His religious interest earned him, in his political career, the nickname "Brother Rau."
In 1949, after having attended secondary school, Rau became an apprentice in a publishing house. Three years later he was a sales representative for nine Protestant publishers. From 1954 to 1967 he served as executive director and director of a Protestant youth publishing house in Wuppertal.
In the early 1950s his interest in politics surfaced, especially when the conservative government led by Chancellor Konrad Adenauer decided to establish a German army. Opposed to the decision, Rau joined the newly-founded German People's Party, which stood for pacifism and neutrality in the East-West confrontation. The party was headed by Gustav Heinemann, who eventually became federal president and whom Rau admired for his devout Protestant and pacifist convictions.
When the small party was dissolved in 1957, Rau, following Heinemann's example, joined the Social Democratic Party (SPD), the chief left-of-center opposition party to Adenauer's government. Although initially Rau had some doubts about joining the SPD, which in the past had been anti-clerical, he and other applicants from the defunct German People's Party were assured that the party welcomed religious progressives who supported the SPD's moderate reformist and non-Marxist program, which was then being formulated.
As a result of his many acquaintances and friendships with politicians and religious leaders, Rau, as a new SPD member, rose swiftly in state politics. Already in 1958, less than one year after he joined the SPD, he won a seat in the state legislature. There he served for a time as chairman of the youth and cultural committees. In 1967 he was elected chairman of the SPD parliamentary group. From 1969 to 1970 he was also mayor of the Ruhr city of Wuppertal. In 1970, following a renewed victory of the SPD in the state election, the SPD minister-president appointed him head of the Ministry of Education and Research. As a result of severe overcrowding in universities in North Rhine-Westphalia, Rau founded six new universities, including an open university giving degrees to students studying by mail. In 1978 Rau became minister-president, a post that he had long coveted. Despite severe economic problems and high unemployment in the ailing coal and steel industries, Rau proved to be a popular minister-president who was repeatedly reelected to his post, gaining a sizable number of votes for his party. His record was the more remarkable when compared to the party's many electoral setbacks in other states.
Rau's climb up the ladder in the SPD was as swift as that in state politics. Soon after joining the SPD he served for four years as the chairman of the Young Socialists in Wuppertal and for six years as deputy chairman of the regional SPD. Beginning in 1968 he was a member of the party's national executive committee; from 1977 chairman of the North Rhine-Westphalia state branch of the SPD; from 1978 a member of the party's national presidium, the top policymaking body; and beginning in 1982 - the period in which the SPD once again was in opposition at the national level - he served as one of the deputy chairmen of the party. Thus Rau, a pragmatic leader in the party's centrist-rightist wing who was an effective conciliator between the party's warring factions, remained one of the few party veterans still active in the inner circle of policymakers in the early 1990s.
The party nominated Rau to be its chancellor candidate for the 1987 election, but it lost the election, as it had in 1983, to the Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union (CDU/CSU), headed by Chancellor Helmut Kohl. Although Rau, a populist and folksy leader, was popular in his home state and among trade union members, whose backing the party needed, he could not gain enough support among the increasing number of "floating" voters, many of whom were civil servants and salaried employees. The party also could not recapture support from dissatisfied voters on the left who had voted for the environmentalist Green Party. Rau supported environmental protection but was a staunch opponent of the Greens, considered to be too radical. Thus, he opposed any national coalition with them should the two parties have enough parliamentary seats to form a government.
When Willy Brandt, former SPD chancellor and party chairman, resigned his party post in 1987, the SPD Old Guard, including Rau, carried on but groomed younger leaders to assume the top posts. After young Björn Engholm, newly-elected chairman in 1991, unexpectedly resigned his post two years later as a result of an earlier scandal, Rau for several months became acting chairman until the party selected Rudolf Scharping as new chairman. As a reward for Rau's dedication to the party and his national renown, SPD leaders chose him to become the party's candidate for federal president in 1994. But in a close election Rau lost to the CDU candidate, Roman Herzog. In 1995 he led his party to a record fourth absolute majority in his state and so continued as Prime Minister of North Rhine-Westphalia.
Rau married in 1982. His wife, daughter of a factory owner and granddaughter of former federal president Heinemann, was a political scientist. They had three children. Rau was an excellent skat player, collected stamps, and appreciated fine literature and art.
Further Reading
For additional biographical information and personal recollections of Rau, see the edited book by Werner Filmer and Heribert Schwan, Johannes Rau (1986). A large selection of his speeches and essays can be found in Johannes Rau: Ausgewählte Reden und Beiträge.
| Wikipedia: Johannes Rau |
| Johannes Rau | |
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| In office 1 July 1999 – 30 June 2004 |
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| Chancellor | Gerhard Schroeder |
| Preceded by | Roman Herzog |
| Succeeded by | Horst Köhler |
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| In office 1978 – 1998 |
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| Preceded by | Heinz Kühn |
| Succeeded by | Wolfgang Clement |
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| In office 1982 – 1983 |
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| President | Karl Carstens |
| Chancellor | Helmut Kohl |
| Preceded by | Hans Koschnick |
| Succeeded by | Franz Josef Strauss |
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| Born | 16 January 1931 Wuppertal, Germany |
| Died | 27 November 2006 (aged 75) Berlin, Germany |
| Nationality | German |
| Political party | Social Democratic Party of Germany |
| Spouse(s) | Christina Rau |
| Profession | Journalist |
| Religion | Evangelicalism |
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Johannes Rau (16 January 1931 – 27 January 2006) was a German politician of the SPD. He was President of Germany from 1 July 1999, until 30 June 2004, and Prime Minister of North Rhine-Westphalia from 1978 to 1998.
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Education and work
Rau was born in the Barmen part of Wuppertal, Rhine Province, as the third of five children. His family was strongly Protestant. As a schoolboy, Rau was active in the Confessing Church, a circle of the German Protestant Church which actively resisted Nazism.
Rau left school in 1949 and worked as a journalist and publisher, especially with the Protestant Youth Publishing House.
Political biography
Rau was a member of the All-German People’s Party (GVP), which was founded by Gustav Heinemann. This party was known for proposing German reunification, from 1952 until it was disbanded in 1957.
In 1958, Rau and his political mentor, Gustav Heinemann, joined the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), where he was active in the Wuppertal chapter. He served as deputy chairman of the SPD party of Wuppertal, and was elected later on to the City Council (1964-1978), where he served as chairman of the SPD Group (1964-1967) and later as Mayor (1969-1970).
In 1958, Rau was elected for the first time as member of the Landtag (state parliament) of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW). In 1967, he became chairman of the SPD fraction in the Landtag, and in 1970 Minister of Science and Education in the cabinet of Minister President Heinz Kühn. He soon gained a reputation as a reformer. As part of the mass-education campaign of the 1970s, he founded five universities, each at different sites, in North Rhine-Westphalia and initiated Germany’s first distance learning university at Hagen (modelled on the Open University).
In 1977, Rau became Chairman of the North Rhine-Westphalia SPD, and in 1978 Minister President of the state, were he remained until 1998, with four successful elections for the SPD, which became strongest party in the Landtag each time and gained an absolute majority three times, in 1980, 1985, 1990 and finally 1995. From 1995 onwards, Rau led an SPD-Greens coalition in NRW.
In 1987, Rau tried to become chancellor of Germany for the SPD, but his refusal to contemplate forming a coalition with the Green Party meant he could not win the elections against Helmut Kohl’s Christian Democrats (CDU). In 1994, Rau tried for the first time to become Federal President, but lost to Roman Herzog.
Rau twice served as President of the Bundesrat in 1982/83 and 1994/95, and thus deputised for the Federal President. In 1998 Rau stepped down from his positions as SPD Chairman and Minister President, and on 23 May 1999, was elected Federal President by the Federal Assembly of Germany to succeed Roman Herzog (CDU). On 1 July 2004, he was succeeded by Horst Köhler.
In 2000, Rau was the first German head of state since the Holocaust to address the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, in German. This controversial step prompted some Israeli delegates to walk out. However, Israeli President Moshe Katsav supported and praised him for bridging the gap between the two states. Rau had a deep and life-long commitment to bringing reconciliation between Germany and its past.
Following a long history of heart disease, he died a few days after his 75th birthday.
Motto and maxim
The maxim of Rau was “to reconcile, not divide”.
As his personal motto, Rau adopted the Confessing Church dictum “teneo, quia teneor” (I hold because I am held).
In his acceptance speech after his election, Rau claimed “A patriot I will be” because “a patriot is someone who loves his fatherland, a nationalist is someone who despises the fatherlands of the others”. The quote can be attributed to the French writer Romain Gary.
Prizes and medals
Rau was awarded fifteen honorary doctorates.
Private life
Rau was known as a practising Christian (and sometimes titled Bruder Johannes, "Brother John", to ridicule his intense Christian position; however, he sometimes used this term himself). He held lay positions in, and was a member of, the Synod of the Evangelical Church in the Rhineland.
On 9 August 1982, Rau married the political scientist, Christina Delius (born 1956). Christina Rau is a granddaughter of her husband's mentor, Gustav Heinemann, former President of Germany. The couple had three children: Anna Christina, born 1983, Philip Immanuel, born 1985 and Laura Helene, born 1986.
After leaving office, Rau lived with his family in the federal capital, Berlin. However, they also kept a house in Wuppertal.
Rau died in Berlin on 27 January 2006.
See also
External links
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Wikinews has related news: Former German president Johannes Rau dies at 75 |
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Johannes Rau |
- (English) www.bundespraesident.de: Johannes Rau—Official biography
- (German) online book of condolence for Johannes Rau
| Preceded by Heinz Kühn (SPD) |
Minister President of North Rhine-Westphalia 1978 – 1998 |
Succeeded by Wolfgang Clement (SPD) |
| Preceded by Björn Engholm |
Chairman of the Social Democratic Party of Germany 1993 |
Succeeded by Rudolf Scharping |
| Preceded by Roman Herzog |
President of Germany 1 July 1999 – 30 June 2004 |
Succeeded by Horst Köhler |
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