Half a century of MP, minister, party leader and state leader: Wolfgang Schäuble’s memoirs appear three months after his death.
On December 14th, twelve days before his death, Wolfgang Schäuble appeared in his office in the Berlin Bundestag for the last time. For four hours he discussed the final chapters of his memoirs with his two co-authors. Then the work was completed and the legacy was formulated. Schäuble was able to let go and celebrate Christmas with his family one last time, as he had promised. He died on December 26th. He never returned to Berlin. The co-authors, the historians Jens Hacke and Hilmar Sack, describe the farewell phone call on the Christmas weekend in which Schäuble ironically ironized the impending death with his characteristic jab: “That’s probably part of life.”