Wolfgang Schäuble went through terrible things during his lifetime. A few moments ago it was announced that the long-time President of the Bundestag died at the age of 81. According to his family, he fell asleep peacefully on Tuesday evening. The politician recently withdrew after his wife had a serious fall. He himself had been paralyzed since 1990 and sat in a wheelchair – the reason for this was a terrible assassination attempt.
On October 12, 1990, Schäuble was on the campaign trail in Oppenau in Baden-Württemberg. As he was leaving the inn where he was giving an hour-and-a-half speech, a mentally ill man pulled out a revolver and fired three times. The first shot hit the then Interior Minister in the head and destroyed the right side of his jaw. The second shot went into the back – the bullet lodged in the spine. The next and last one, however, was intercepted by Schäuble’s bodyguard. According to Spiegel, the perpetrator wanted to take revenge on the state’s “mental and physical terror.” Because the former finance minister was a symbolic figure of the state, he chose him as a target.
Schäuble was taken directly to the Freiburg University Hospital, where several teams of doctors fought for his life for days. Since then he has been paralyzed from the third thoracic vertebra down. Nevertheless, the former parliamentary group leader of the CDU/CSU decided to continue his political work after his recovery.
