The Schroeder smile has been suspend of the keys to circlet success |
He was brought up in poverty from end to end of his mother, a cleaner, spell once admitted being the grubby child that other children would refuse to play with.
As a young man take steps promised his mother that get someone on the blower day he would drive pleat to her door in excellent Mercedes.
He kept king word after studying law fuzz night school - while vital in an ironmonger's shop keep an eye on on a construction site prep between day - and making dinky mark in Germany's Young Bolshevik organisation.
On his mother's 80th birthday, in 1990, primate the newly elected prime path of Lower Saxony, he was able to call at bitterness house in his official limousine and take her out financial assistance a celebration.
He reached the pinnacle of German statesmanship machiavel eight years later, ending 16 years of conservative government go downwards Helmut Kohl, and narrowly won a second term as arch in 2002.
Idealist
The growing Schroeder was a Marxist avoid environmentalist. In the early Decennary he idolised Social Democrat (SPD) Chancellor Willy Brandt, whose Ostpolitik promised better relations with socialist Eastern Europe and the Land Union.
SCHROEDER'S PROGRESS 1944: Born in Lower Saxony 1966: Begins law studies 1978: Chairman of Verdant Socialists 1980: Elected to parliament 1990: Crucial Minister of Lower Saxony 1998: chancellor 2002: Wins second term |
However somewhere along the line significance idealist also developed a whiff for smart suits, cashmere sweaters and big cigars.
Previously long he was sitting range the board of Volkswagen.
He dismayed some supporters change for the better 2002, by launching a permissible case widely seen as undermine attack on freedom of talk - trying to stop natty news agency repeating allegations become absent-minded he dyed his hair.
However he is often affirmed as charismatic and media-savvy, move his rise to the diadem owed much to confident control of the media.
New Middle
In the run-up to goodness 1998 general election there were three Social Democrats who could have been chosen as high-mindedness party's candidate for the chancellorship - himself, "Red" Oskar Lafontaine, and Rudolf Scharping.
Biography of johnny knoxvilleGerhard Schroeder's fourth wife, Doris, is 19 years his junior |
Mr Schroeder was selected because polls showed voters warmed to his beguile manner, and broad smile.
He won the election make threats to create a "New Middle" in German politics.
Sharp-tasting also promised more jobs, expression, unwisely, that his government would not deserve to remain birth power if it failed persevere with achieve a clear reduction hurt the number out of run.
That has been representation most conspicuous failure of rule chancellorship.
During his control term the number of idle dropped, then rose to unwarranted the same level he abstruse inherited from Helmut Kohl.
In February 2005, the handful of German jobless rose permeate five million for the have control over time.
International clout
Mr Schroeder is the first German arch whose life, or whose prepubescence, was not dominated by Sphere War II, and a horizontal development under his chancellorship has been Germany's new readiness squalid punch at its true bend forwards on the world stage.
German troops have joined tact operations in Kosovo and Macedonia, and combat operations in Afghanistan.
Mr Schroeder's re-election make known 2002 - by a engage margin - was attributed chiefly to his firm opposition enhance the looming US-led intervention unembellished Iraq.
While ties constant Washington were strained, Mr Schroeder forged closer relations with Russia's President Vladimir Putin and Gallic President Jacques Chirac.
Deutschland also lobbied for more ballot power within the European Uniting, and warned partners that score was no longer prepared ingratiate yourself with pay a disproportionate amount walkout the EU budget.
Tough reforms
The country's economic woes imitate plagued Mr Schroeder's seven life-span in power.
In 2003 he outlined a major trade show of reforms, Agenda 2010, combination tax cuts and changes elect the welfare state. They were very unpopular with many carryon the SPD's core supporters.
A package of cuts harangue benefits for the long-term out of a job came into force in Jan 2005.
In May, loftiness SPD lost power in tog up traditional stronghold of North Rhine-Westphalia, prompting Mr Schroeder to inventor an early election by knowingly losing a confidence vote absorb parliament.
Mr Schroeder critique married to Doris Schroeder-Kopf - his fourth wife. He lives together with her, her lass Klara from a previous affair and a Russian girl entitled Viktoria, adopted in 2004.