Another German politician I never voted for, but still respected.
He died aged 81 on Boxing Day, and he died in office - as simple Bundestag member, a post he had held continuously for 51 years, the longest Bundestag tenure so far.
He started his rise in the Christian Democratic Union parliamentary faction in the 70s when they were still in opposition. After Kohl became Chancellor, he became Head of the Chancellor's Office, an extremely influential, right-hand-of-the-boss type role. When German unification came up, he was Minister of the Interior and was responsible for negotiating the "4+2 treaty", which became the legal basis for the unified Germany we know today.
Severely injured by a madman with a gun in 1990 (in the run-up to the first German Bundestag election after re-unification), he spent the rest of his days in a wheelchair. He was touted as Kohl's heir apparent, but in the maelstrom of the Party-donation affair unfolding after the 1998 elecetion, he lost the Party (and Parliamentary Faction) presidency after only two years. Later, he became one of the men helping Angela Merkel along in her ascent in the party despite being a far more conservative soul. She thanked him for his loyalty (and secured a quiet co-existence with the CDU's more conservative forces) by giving him key cabinet posts in her first three cabinets: Interior, then Finances. He was the one holding things together in Europe when the Euro crisis threatened to tear the continent apart, and in 2014, he was the first Finance Minister since 1969 presenting a balanced budget. During Merkel's fourth term, there wasn't a place for him at the Cabinet's table due to coalition arithmetics, so he occupied the procedurally important post of President of the Bundestag (formally, the second highest office in Germany). After opening the Bundestag in 2021 as President-by-Seniority, he reverted to being a simple MP. He died after a long illness, against which he maintained an active lifestyle to the end, attending Bundestag sessions, giving interviews, advising those in his party who were interested to listen. Of which there were quite a few .
Schäuble to me is an exemplary politician. Of course he was ambitious, he vied for the top spot, and several times, he was close to getting it. He was a formidable opponent, and he could be nasty as a boss. But he never forgot that holding high office is service, and he was not above settling for second or third when he couldn't win. He was witty, humorous, supremely intelligent, abolutely a man of his word, and apparently, a very loyal friend. Thank you for your service, Herr Schäuble.