Photo Gallery The Schröder Years
Gerhard Schröder's memoirs hit the bookshelves on Wednesday. But he's been present elsewhere these days as well. These portraits of the ex-chancellor were designed by readers of the Bild Zeitung as part of an exhibit on Wednesday. Gerhard Schröder himself visited the exhibition.
The good old days: a visibly elated Schröder, shortly after Germans elected him to the highest office in 1998. Sharing the moment with the new chancellor are Joschka Fischer, head of Schröder's coalition partners the Greens, and Oskar Lafontaine, whom Schröder appointed as Finance Minister.
Gerhard Schröder poses with Kurt Beck at a political convention in Mainz, July 2005. Just a few months later, Schröder was voted out of office and Beck, governor of Rhineland-Palatinate since 1994, was elected chairman of the SPD a short time later.
Gerhard Schröder turned over the reins of government to now Chancellor Angela Merkel on November 22, 2005...
... but not after a few weeks of trying to sell an election loss into a victory. Finally, though, Schröder's SPD agreed to become the junior partner in a coalition with Merkel's Christian Democrats. Here, Schröder makes one final appearance as Chancellor before his party.
Schröder was often criticized for his overly chummy relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Soon after leaving office, he became chairman of the board of the North Sea pipeline -- a joint venture with the Russian energy giant Gazprom.
The move prompted heavy criticism in the German and international press.
Attending a 2002 eulogy for Rudolf Augstein, the late publisher of the German news magazine DER SPIEGEL, from left: President Johannes Rau, author Joachim Fest, Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, Speaker of Hamburg's Parliament Dorothee Stapelfeldt, and Bundestag President Wolfgang Thierse.
Schröder was often dubbed "the media chancellor" for his inherent PR skills and photogenic qualities. He is seen here in the ZDF television studio in Berlin, shortly before his appearance on the talkshow "Berliner Runde."
A concentrated chancellor aims for the goal during the government's annual "open house day" in the Chancellery on August 22, 2004. The chancellor, a major soccer fan, took every opportunity he could to kick the ball around.
Schröder's political career began in 1980 when he joined the lower house of German Parliament, the Bundestag. In this picture, taken in 1985, he is seen with SPD chairman and former chancellor Willy Brandt and renowned author Günter Grass. A year later, Schröder became the SPD's top candidate for governor of Lower-Saxony, a post which he captured in 1990.
Schröder, whose father died in World War II shortly after his son's birth, had a modest upbringing. He rose from a job as an unskilled construction worker in 1963 to the highest German office 35 years later.
