Key Kohl Aide Shot at Rally; Suspect Held

A gunman opened fire on Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble at a campaign rally Friday, seriously wounding one of Germany’s most prominent political figures, police said.

Schaeuble, key negotiator of the treaty reunifying East and West Germany and one of Chancellor Helmut Kohl’s closest associates, was shot in the head and throat before police overpowered the assailant. A bodyguard also was wounded.

No motive has been determined for the attack against the 48-year-old Cabinet member, but “it does not appear to have any terrorist links,” said Werner Fischer, spokesman for district police in Freiburg, Germany. The Interior Ministry also ruled out terrorism.

It was the third assassination attempt against a prominent German politician in six months.

Fischer said the gunman pulled out a revolver and fired three or four shots as Schaeuble was leaving the hall in Oppenau, in southern Germany, shortly after 10 p.m. A 37-year-old man was arrested at the rally. His name was not released, but he was described as a local resident. German media reported the suspect had ties to the drug scene.

The Interior Ministry kept a tight lid on details about the attack but confirmed that there appeared to be only one assailant.

“It’s not clear yet how far away the gunman was standing from Schaeuble, and we don’t know whether he said anything before he started shooting,” Fischer said. He said he was unaware of any threats against Schaeuble’s life before the rally.

Schaeuble, the country’s top law enforcement official, was the third German politician to survive an assassination attempt since April, when chancellor candidate Oskar Lafontaine was stabbed in the throat by a deranged woman who hid a butcher knife in a bouquet at a campaign rally.

Schaeuble’s own top anti-terrorism expert, Hans Neusel, escaped a bomb planted in his car by leftist Red Army Faction guerrillas in July. Neusel suffered only a cut hand.

Married and the father of four children, Schaeuble had been viewed as a highly competent but somewhat anonymous political figure until his move to the Interior Ministry last year catapulted him into the spotlight of European politics.

Within just months of taking office in April, 1989, Schaeuble found himself the key figure in negotiating the German unification treaty.

Repeatedly he steered the delicate, emotionally charged talks away from potential danger as Kohl and Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher concentrated on the international negotiations that would give Germany back its sovereignty.

When East Germans balked at losing their own liberal abortion laws to West Germany’s highly restrictive ones, Schaeuble helped fashion the compromise that allowed both pieces of legislation to remain in force until a new law can be agreed upon for the united Germany.

Schaeuble, not Kohl, represented West Germany when the treaty between the two states was signed in August.

And when the treaty threatened to unravel before it was ratified, Schaeuble again coolly stepped in and worked out a compromise over the controversial issue of who would get control of the massive files compiled by East Germany’s hated secret police.

The files remain in the eastern part of the country, a concession to protesters who feared West German security officials might try to use the information they contained.

Personable and outgoing, Schaeuble’s performance in recent months has made political analysts here consider him a potential star of the next generation of German leadership, possibly one day succeeding Kohl as chancellor.

Kohl is considered a shoo-in for reelection when the newly united country votes Dec. 2. Schaeuble was stumping for their party in Oppenau, in Baden Wurttemberg, when he was shot.

The British news agency Reuters reported that Hans-Peter Junker, a journalist who witnessed the shooting, told German television that Schaeuble had just given a talk to a group of about 300 on German unity and was leaving to enthusiastic applause when the shots rang out.

“Just before the door, a man jumped up from a table on the left, jumped past the security men and fired at him,” Junker said. Bystanders overpowered the attacker, while security men went to Schaeuble’s aid.

“Schaeuble was bleeding very heavily, but he remained conscious and spoke,” Junker said.

The minister’s daughter witnessed the shooting. “His daughter couldn’t grasp what was happening; she screamed and began to cry,” Junker said.

“Schaeuble was Kohl’s right-hand man before he came to the Interior Ministry, but it was a kind of gray eminence,” commented one Western diplomat who has followed Schaeuble’s career closely.

“But no one was surprised that he rose to the challenge as he has done,” he added. “He’s had enormous responsibility during the unity process, but he’s proved to be an extremely capable figure.”

Ironically, one of the lone incidents in the unity process that drew criticism of Schaeuble was a dramatic security lapse in Berlin on unification day, Oct. 3.

Somehow, an emotionally disturbed man managed to slip through security checks at the Berlin Philharmonic, where Kohl, German President Richard von Weizsaecker and other dignitaries were sitting. The man casually strolled to the podium and spoke for three minutes before security officials seized him and took him away.

Political opponents demanded Schaeuble’s resignation after the incident, but there was no indication that Kohl considered asking the interior minister to step down.

Schaeuble entered Parliament in 1972 and was a chancellery minister from 1984 to 1989.