Роман Герцог: Президент Германии (1994–1999)

President of Germany from 1994 to 1999

Roman Herzog (; 5 April 1934 – 10 January 2017) was a German politician, judge and legal scholar, who served as the president of Germany from 1994 to 1999. A member of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), he was the first president to be elected after the reunification of Germany. He previously served as a judge of the Federal Constitutional Court, and he was the President of the court 1987–1994. Before his appointment as a judge he was a professor of law. He received the 1997 Charlemagne Prize.

Roman Herzog was born in Landshut, Bavaria, Germany, in 1934 to a Protestant family. His father was an archivist. He studied law in Munich and passed his state law examination. It was during this period that he coedited a commentary of the Basic Law. In 1969, he accepted a chair of public law at the German University of Administrative Sciences in Speyer, serving as university president in 1971–72. As the regional interior minister, he attracted attention when he imposed a levy on nonapproved demonstrations and his proposal for the police to be equipped with rubber bullet guns. By early 1994, however, leaders of the Free Democrats, the junior members of Kohl's coalition government, expressed support for Johannes Rau, the candidate whom the opposition Social Democrats nominated. Herzog was elected President of Germany by the Federal Assembly (Bundesversammlung) on 23 May 1994. In the decisive third round of voting, he won the support of the Free Democrats. Their decision was taken as a sign that the coalition remained firm. In the speech, he strongly emphasized the enormity of anguish the Polish people suffered through Nazi Germany but he also made an indirect reference to the sufferings that the Germans experienced in World War II. In 1995, Herzog was one of the few foreign dignitaries taking part in the observances on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp who chose to attend a Jewish service at the site of the camp rather than the official opening ceremony in Kraków sponsored by the Polish Government. In January 1996, Herzog declared 27 January, the anniversary of the 1945 liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp, as Germany's official day of remembrance for the victims of Hitler's regime. in late 1997, in a major step for Germany officially recognizing the murder and suffering of the Roma and Sinti under the Nazis, he said that the persecution of the Roma and Sinti was the same as the terror against the Jews. In April 1997, Herzog caused a nationwide controversy when, in a speech given at the Hotel Adlon in Berlin, he portrayed Germany as dangerously delaying social and economic changes. In the speech, he rebuked leaders for legislative gridlock and decried a sense of national "dejection," a "feeling of paralysis" and even an "unbelievable mental depression." Compared with what he called the more innovative economies of Asia and America, he said that Germany was "threatened with falling behind." In November 1998, Herzog's office formally moved to Berlin, becoming the first federal agency to shift from Bonn to the redesignated capital city. He retained his position until 30 June 1999 and did not seek reelection. At the end of his five year term as head of state, he was succeeded by Johannes Rau.

From December 1999 to October 2000, Herzog chaired the European Convention which drafted the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. In January–March 2000, with former central bank President Hans Tietmeyer and former federal judge Paul Kirchhof, Herzog led an independent commission to investigate a financing scandal affecting the CDU. Amid a German debate over the ethics of research in biotechnology and in particular the use of embryos for genetic inquiry and diagnosis, Herzog argued in 2001 that an absolute ban on research on embryonic stem cells – which have the ability to develop into the body's different tissues – would be excessive, stating: "I am not prepared to explain to a child sick with cystic fibrosis, facing death and fighting for breath, the ethical grounds that hinder the science which could save him". In response to Chancellor Gerhard Schröder's "Agenda 2010" presented in 2003, the then opposition leader and CDU chair Angela Merkel assigned the task of drafting alternative proposals for social welfare reform to a commission led by Herzog. The party later approved the Herzog Commission's package of reform proposals, whose recommendations included decoupling health and nursing care premiums from people's earnings and levying a lump monthly sum across the board instead. Herzog died in the early hours of 10 January 2017 at the age of 82.

Herzog's wife, Christiane Herzog, died on 19 June 2000. In 2001, he married Alexandra Freifrau von Berlichingen. He was a member of the Protestant Church in Germany.