Johannes Rau

Johannes Rau (German: [joˈhanəs ˈʁaʊ] ; 16 January 1931 – 27 January 2006) was a German politician who served as President of Germany from 1999 to 2004. A member of the Social Democratic Party, he previously served as the Minister-President of North Rhine-Westphalia from 1978 to 1998. In the latter role, he also served as President of the Bundesrat in 1982–1983 and in 1994–1995.

Rau was born in the Barmen part of Wuppertal, Rhine Province, as the third of five children. His family was strongly Protestant. As a schoolboy, Rau was active in the Confessing Church, which resisted Nazism. Rau left school in 1949 and worked as a publisher, especially with the Protestant Youth Publishing House.

Rau was a member of the All-German People's Party (GVP), which was founded by Gustav Heinemann. The party was known for proposing German reunification from 1952 until it was disbanded in 1957.

In 1958, the pacifist Rau and his political mentor, Gustav Heinemann, joined the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), where he was active in the Wuppertal chapter. He served as deputy chairman of the SPD party of Wuppertal and was elected later on to the City Council (1964–1978), where he served as chairman of the SPD Group (1964–1967) and later as Mayor (1969–1970).

In July 1958, Rau was elected for the first time as a member of the Landtag of North Rhine-Westphalia. In 1967, he became chairman of the SPD fraction in the Landtag, and from 1970 to 1975, he was Minister of Science and Education in the second cabinet of Minister President Heinz Kühn. He soon gained a reputation as a reformer. As part of the mass education campaign of the 1970s, he founded five universities, each at different sites, in North Rhine-Westphalia and initiated Germany's first distance learning university at Hagen (modelled on the British Open University).

In 1977, Rau became Chairman of the SPD North Rhine-Westphalia and, in 1978, Minister President of the state, which he remained until 1998, with four successful elections for the SPD, which became strongest party in the Landtag each time and gained an absolute majority three times, in 1980, 1985, 1990 and finally 1995. From 1995 onwards, Rau led an SPD-Greens coalition in North Rhine-Westphalia. Rau twice served as President of the Bundesrat in 1982–1983 and 1994–1995.

In 1987, Rau was his party's candidate to become chancellor of Germany for the SPD, but he lost the 1987 West German federal election against Helmut Kohl's Christian Democrats (CDU). In 1994, Rau was a candidate to become President of Germany but lost the 1994 German presidential election to Roman Herzog.

Rau had a long history of heart disease and died 11 days after his 75th birthday on 27 January 2006. The funeral took place on 7 February following a funeral act of state at the Dorotheenstadt cemetery in Berlin in the closest of family and friends.

The maxim of Rau was "to reconcile, not divide".

As his personal motto, Rau adopted the Confessing Church dictum "teneo, quia teneor" ("I hold because I am held").

In his acceptance speech after his election, Rau claimed, "I never want to be a nationalist but rather a patriot. A patriot is someone who loves his fatherland. A nationalist is someone who condemns the fatherland of others." The quote can be attributed to the French writer Romain Gary.

Rau was known as a practising Christian (sometimes known as Bruder Johannes, "Brother John", in reference to his intense Christian faith). He held lay positions in and was a member of the Synod of the Evangelical Church in the Rhineland, a member church of the Protestant Church in Germany.

On 9 August 1982, Rau married the political scientist Christina Delius (born 1956). Christina Rau is a granddaughter of her husband's mentor, Gustav Heinemann, former President of Germany. The couple had three children: Anna Christina, born 1983, Philip Immanuel, born 1985 and Laura Helene, born 1986.

On 18 August 2004, Rau had to undergo serious heart surgery, in which an artificial heart valve was inserted. Only two months later (19 October 2004), a hematoma in the abdominal cavity was surgically removed. After leaving office, Rau lived with his family in the federal capital, Berlin. However, they also kept a house in Wuppertal.

Germany: Grand Cross Special Class of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany

Austria: Grand Star of the Decoration of Honour for Services to the Republic of Austria (2004)

Czech Republic: Collar of the Order of the White Lion (2000)

Denmark: Knight of the Order of the Elephant (2002)

Estonia: Collar of the Order of the Cross of Terra Mariana

Italy: Knight Grand Cross with Collar Order of Merit of the Italian Republic