“The ideal for which I strive is in the course of time
to make people's lives that bit more worth living”
Johannes Rau in December 1985
The early years
Johannes Rau was born on 16 January 1931 in Wuppertal-Barmen, the third of five children in a strongly Protestant family.
Already as a schoolboy the current Federal President was active in the Confessing Church, those circles in the German Protestant Church that actively resisted National Socialism. The Confessing Church dictum "teneo, quia teneor" (I hold because I am held) he adopted as his personal motto.
After leaving school in 1949, Johannes Rau entered the publishing trade and also worked in journalism. In 1954 he was appointed manager of a Protestant Youth Publishing House, which specialized in publications on aspects of the Christian faith as well as relations with developing countries. In 1962 he became a member of the Board of Directors and from 1965 to 1967 was Chairman.
Political career
In 1952, prompted by his strong commitment to German unity, a commitment that has endured to this day, Johannes Rau became a member of the All-German People’s Party, which disbanded in 1957. That same year, together with his political mentor, Gustav Heinemann, who subsequently became Federal President, he joined the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD).
A year later Johannes Rau was already exercising important party responsibilities. In 1958 he was elected Chairman of the Young Socialists in Wuppertal. Other posts soon followed. In 1959 he became a member of the Executive Board of the SPD’s Wuppertal branch and in 1962 was elected its Deputy Chairman, a post he held for six years.
In his home town of Wuppertal Johannes Rau was elected to the City Council (1964–1978), serving as Chairman of the SPD Group (1964-1967) and later as Mayor (1969-1970).
1958 was also the year Johannes Rau was first elected a member of the North-Rhine/Westphalia Landtag (regional parliament). Nine years later he became Chairman of the SPD Landtag Group and in 1970 Minister of Science and Education in the cabinet of Minister President Heinz Kühn. The still young minister soon gained a reputation as a reformer and pace-setter, founding five universities at five different sites in North-Rhine/Westphalia and initiating Germany's first Distance Learning University (“open university”) at Hagen. This last step prepared the ground for a new strategy which turned North-Rhine/Westphalia from a bastion of the coal and steel industry into a centre of research and modern business – a programme for structural change which was to become a hallmark of Johannes Rau’s policy.
He continued to rise within the party hierarchy, taking over in 1977 from Werner Figgen, the outgoing Chairman of the North-Rhine/Westphalia SPD and in 1978 he stood successfully against the then Finance Minister Posser for his party's nomination as successor to the outgoing Minister President Heinz Kühn. On 20 September 1978 the Landtag elected Johannes Rau as Minister President of North-Rhine/Westphalia.
Under Johannes Rau’s leadership the SPD emerged as the strongest party from the Landtag elections in 1980, 1985, 1990 and finally 1995. In 1998, after a total of 20 years at the helm, Johannes Rau decided to step down both as “Landesvater” and as Chairman of the North-Rhine/Westphalia SPD.
As Minister President of the most populous state in the Federal Republic, Johannes Rau also had an important voice in the national SPD. It was only logical therefore that he succeeded Helmut Schmidt as Deputy Federal Chairman of the party and was endorsed by a very large margin at the SPD convention in Nuremberg in 1986 to run as his party’s candidate for Chancellor in the federal elections the following year. Failing to make the hoped-for gains at the 1987 elections, however, the SPD was unable to topple the governing coalition under Federal Chancellor Kohl.
In 1994 Rau stood for election as Federal President but lost to Roman Herzog, the CDU/CSU candidate. Exactly 5 years later, on 23 May 1999, Johannes Rau was elected Roman Herzog’s successor as President of the Federal Republic of Germany by the Federal Convention in Berlin. On 1 July in Bonn he took the oath of office and the following day assumed his official duties in Berlin.
On taking office as Federal President, Johannes Rau could look back on a remarkable political career spanning 47 years in party, parliament and government. During the two decades he was Minister President of North-Rhine/Westphalia he was twice President of the Bundesrat. For forty years without interruption he was a member of the North-Rhine/Westphalia Landtag, winning an absolute majority for the SPD in three of the four Landtag elections he fought as his party's leading candidate.
Compared to most active politicians today, Johannes Rau has an extraordinary wealth of historical experience. He saw National Socialism at first hand; he witnessed Germany’s painful division, the development of the Federal Republic as a freedom-loving democracy based on the rule of law and subsequently German reunification, taking – in whatever position he found himself – an active part in shaping the course of events.
“To reconcile, not divide”, Johannes Rau's well-known maxim, is the key to his policy both at home and abroad. As almost no other politician, he has bent his energies to seeking reconciliation with the Jewish people and the State of Israel. Well over 30 visits to Israel as well as the fact that just three of nine of Johannes Rau's honorary doctorates are from Israeli universities are testimony to this enduring commitment.
As a practising Christian Johannes Rau has also held a number of lay positions within the church. For many years he was a member of the Synod of the Protestant Church in the Rhineland and deputy
member of its Governing Council.
Johannes Rau outside politics
Johannes Rau married Christina Delius, a political scientist, on 9 August 1982. The couple has three children: Anna Christina, born 1983, Philip Immanuel, born 1985, and Laura Helene, born 1986. Soon after taking up his duties as Federal President, Johannes Rau moved with his family to the federal capital. They have kept their house in Wuppertal.
Johannes Rau takes a keen interest in art and literature and enjoys a game of “Skat” (popular German card game) and stamp-collecting. He delights in jokes and anecdotes and also in the wild landscape of the North German coast. When his busy schedule allows, he takes his family off twice a year to their holiday home on Spiekeroog.
Johannes Rau has a special fondness for Scooter, the dog the family saved from being sent to an animal home some years ago.
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Curriculum vitae
