Schröder (officially spelt "Schroeder" in
English) was born in
Mossenberg, in what is now
North Rhine-Westphalia. His father Fritz Schröder, a lance corporal in the
Wehrmacht, was killed during
World War II in action in
Romania on 4 October 1944, a few months after Gerhard's birth. His mother Erika worked as an agricultural laborer in order to support herself and her two sons.
Schröder completed an
apprenticeship in retail sales in a
Lemgo hardware shop from 1958 to 1961, then worked in a retail shop in
Lage and after that as an unskilled construction worker and a sales clerk in
Göttingen while studying at night school to gain a high school diploma. He did not have to do military service because his father died in the war.
[1] 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. From 1972 onwards, Schröder served as an assistant at the university. In 1976, he passed his second law examination and worked as a lawyer until 1990.
Among his more controversial cases, Schröder helped founding member of the
Baader-Meinhof terrorist group
Horst Mahler secure an early release from prison and the permission to practice law again in Germany.
[
After the resignation of
Oskar Lafontaine as SPD Chairman in March, 1999, in protest at Schröder's adoption of a number of what Lafontaine considered "
neo-liberal"
In its first term, Schröder's government decided to phase out
nuclear power, fund
renewable energies, institute
civil unions which enabled same-sex partners to enter into a civil union, and liberalize
naturalization law. Most voters associated Schröder with the
Agenda 2010 reform program, which included cuts in the
social welfare system (
national health insurance,
unemployment payments,
pensions), lowered taxes, and reformed regulations on employment and payment.
German troops had not taken part in combat actions since World War II.
In addition to a friendly relationship with Jacques Chirac, Schröder cultivated close ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin,