Gerhard Schröder

Schröder was born in Blomberg, Lippe, in Germany. His father, Fritz Schröder, a lance corporal in the Wehrmacht, was killed in action in World War II in Romania on 4 October 1944, almost six months after Gerhard's birth. His mother, Erika (née Vosseler), worked as an agricultural labourer to support herself and her two sons.

After the war, the area where Schröder lived became part of West Germany. He completed an apprenticeship in retail sales in a Lemgo hardware shop from 1958 to 1961 and subsequently worked in a Lage retail shop and after that as an unskilled construction worker and a sales clerk in Göttingen while studying at night school for a general qualification for university entrance (Abitur). He did not have to do military service because his father had died in the war. In 1966, Schröder secured entrance to a university, passing the Abitur exam at Westfalen-Kolleg, Bielefeld. From 1966 to 1971, he studied law at the University of Göttingen.

In 1976, Schröder passed his second law examination, and he subsequently worked as a lawyer until 1990. Among his more controversial cases, Schröder helped Horst Mahler, a founding member of the Baader-Meinhof terrorist group, to secure both an early release from prison and permission to practice law again in Germany.

Business activities

Schröder's plans after leaving office as chancellor and resigning his Bundestag seat included resuming his law practice in Berlin, writing a book, and implementing plans for twin pipelines for Gazprom, Russia's leading energy company. He was subsequently retained by the Swiss publisher Ringier AG as a consultant. Other board memberships include the following:

Hyperglobus, member of the supervisory board (since 2026)

Nord Stream 1, chairman of the Shareholders' Committee (since 2006);

CargoBeamer, member of the advisory board;

China Investment Corporation (CIC), member of the international advisory board;

N M Rothschild & Sons, member of the European Advisory Council (since 2006);

Herrenknecht, deputy chairman of the supervisory board (2017–2022);

Hannover 96, chairman of the supervisory board (2016–2019);

TNK-BP, member of the international advisory board (2009).

Relationship with Russian companies

As chancellor, Gerhard Schröder was a strong advocate of the Nord Stream 1 pipeline project, which planned to supply Russian gas directly to Germany, thereby bypassing transit countries. His advocacy of the project earned him the name "Gas-Gerd" (a play on the German term for a gas oven).

At the time of the German parliamentary election, according to Rick Noak of The Washington Post:

In 2005, Russian President Vladimir Putin's friend Schroeder hastily signed the deal just as he was departing the office from which he had been voted out days earlier. Within weeks, he started to oversee the project implementation himself, leading the Nord Stream AG's shareholder committee.

On 24 October 2005, just a few weeks before Schröder stepped down as chancellor, the German government guaranteed to cover 1 billion euros of the Nord Stream project cost, should Gazprom default on a loan. However, this guarantee was never used. Soon after stepping down as chancellor, Schröder accepted Gazprom's nomination for the post of the head of the shareholders' committee of Nord Stream AG, raising questions about a potential conflict of interest.

German opposition parties expressed concern over the issue, as did the governments of countries over whose territory gas was pumped at the time. In an editorial entitled Gerhard Schroeder's Sellout, the American newspaper The Washington Post also expressed sharp criticism, reflecting widening international ramifications of Schröder's new post. Democrat Tom Lantos, chairman of the United States House Committee on Foreign Affairs, likened Schröder to a "political prostitute" for his recent behaviour. In January 2009, the Wall Street Journal reported that Schröder would join the board of the oil company TNK-BP, a joint venture between oil major BP and Russian partners.

In 2016, Schröder switched to become manager of Nord Stream 2, an expansion of the original pipeline in which Gazprom is sole shareholder.

In 2017, Russia nominated Schröder to also be an independent director of the board of its biggest oil producer, Rosneft. At the time, Rosneft was under international sanctions over Russia's role in the Ukraine crisis. Schröder told Blick that he would be paid about $350,000 annually for the part-time post. His decision caused an outcry in Germany and abroad, especially in a climate of fear about any potential Russian interference in the 2017 German elections. German chancellor Angela Merkel criticised her predecessor, saying in August 2017: "I do not think what Mr Schröder is doing is okay".

In 2019, Schröder and his wife hosted the Nordstream Race, a sailing competition which finished in Saint Petersburg at the mouth of the undersea pipeline.

In early February 2022, Schröder was nominated to the board of directors of Gazprom. Later that year, facing criticism in Germany, he decided against taking on the role.

Especially as tensions between Russia and NATO mounted before the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Schröder's stance as a "Putinversteher" was criticised. Schröder criticised the behaviour of the Western countries as "sabre rattling". ARD journalist Georg Schwarte stated that Schröder would no longer be "a former chancellor. At best", he would be an "ex-chancellor with a sense of money." The former German chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) said in early February 2022 that "I don't want his advice." On 24 February 2022, Schröder condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine and said that "even Russia's security interests do not justify the use of military means." In March 2022, Schröder met with both Ukrainian and Russian officials as an unofficial mediator between the two sides in peace talks. In 2022, it was reported that Schröder was paid nearly $1 million per year by Russian energy companies.

In their book Die Moskau Connection, journalists Bingener and Wehner describe the network around Schröder and his support for Putin's policies. Their conclusion is:

Schröder would have had quite a few opportunities to take a different path after his chancellorship. While researching this book, the authors did hear several explanations for why he did not, including defiance, greed and stubbornness. His actions nevertheless remain a mystery.

Schröder joined the Social Democratic Party in 1963. In 1978, he became the federal chairman of the Young Socialists, the youth organisation of the SPD. He spoke for the dissident Rudolf Bahro, as did President Jimmy Carter, Herbert Marcuse, and Wolf Biermann.

Member of the German Bundestag, 1980–1986

In 1980, Schröder was elected to the German Bundestag (federal parliament), where he wore a sweater instead of the traditional suit. Under the leadership of successive chairmen Herbert Wehner (1980–1983) and Hans-Jochen Vogel (1983–1986), he served in the SPD parliamentary group. He also became chairman of the SPD Hanover district.

Considered ambitious from early on in his political career, it was widely reported and never denied, that in 1982, a drunken Schröder stood outside the West German federal chancellery yelling: "I want to get in." That same year, he wrote an article on the idea of a red/green coalition for a book at Olle & Wolter, Berlin; this appeared later in Die Zeit. Chancellor Willy Brandt, the SPD and SI chairman who reviewed Olle & Wolter at that time, had just asked for more books on the subject.

In 1985, Schröder met the GDR leader Erich Honecker during a visit to East Berlin. In the 1986 Lower Saxony state election, Schröder was elected to the Landtag of Lower Saxony and became leader of the SPD group.

Views on Navalny

After Alexei Navalny was poisoned and hospitalised in Germany, Schröder was found to be relativising the alleged attack on Navalny. Navalny, after hearing of Schröder's apologising for Putin's regime, called Schröder, in Paul Lendvai's translation, a "Laufbursche Putins" (roughly "Putin's footman").

2002 defamation lawsuit

In April 2002, Schröder sued the DDP press agency for publishing an opinion of public relations consultant Sabine Schwind saying that he "would be more credible if he didn't dye his grey hair". The court decided to ban the media from suggesting that he colours his hair. The Chancellor's spokesman said: "This is not a frivolous action taken over whether he does or doesn't dye his hair, but is a serious issue regarding his word." The agency's lawyer said that they could not accept a verdict which "does not coincide with freedom of the press".

2007 dispute over Estonian war memorial

During a heated dispute between Russia and Estonia in May 2007 over the removal of a Soviet-era war memorial from the centre of the Estonian capital Tallinn to a military cemetery, Schröder defended the Kremlin's reaction. He remarked that Estonia had contradicted "every form of civilised behaviour". Consequently, the Estonian government cancelled a planned visit by Schröder in his function as chairman of Nord Stream 1 AG, which promotes the petroleum pipeline from Russia to Germany.