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Roman Herzog’s legacy as a prominent German politician, judge, and legal scholar continues to be remembered and respected in Germany and beyond.
In today’s article, we take a look into his life as we explore his cause of death and how it all happened.
Roman Herzog’s Biography
Roman Herzog was a German politician, judge, and legal scholar who served as the president of Germany from 1994 to 1999.
He was a member of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the first president elected after Germany’s reunification. Prior to becoming President, he had a distinguished career as a judge and professor.
Herzog was born on April 5, 1934, into a Protestant household in Landshut, Bavaria, Germany. His father was a librarian.
He studied law in Munich and passed the state bar test. He finished his PhD studies in 1958, with a dissertation on Basic Law and the European Convention on Human Rights.
Herzog worked as an assistant at the University of Munich after finishing his studies in 1964. He then passed his second juristic state exam and was appointed professor in 1964 for his paper on Characteristics of state organisation from a legal and developmental-historical perspective.
He taught constitutional law and political science at the University of Munich until 1966, when he became a full professor at the Free University of Berlin.
During this time, he co-edited a Basic Law commentary. He accepted a professorship in public law at the German University of Administrative Sciences in Speyer in 1969 and served as president of the university in 1971-72.
Herzog’s political career began in 1973 when he was appointed to the Federal government in Bonn as a representative of the state of Rhineland-Palatinate. From 1978 until 1982, he was the State Minister for Culture and Sports in the Baden-Wรผrttemberg State Government.
He was voted to the Baden-Wรผrttemberg Landtag in 1980 and took over the State Ministry of the Interior. As regional interior minister, he enacted various policies, including a fee for unapproved demonstrations and a proposal to arm police with rubber bullets.
Herzog was actively active in the German Protestant Church throughout his career. He was the president of the church’s Chamber for Public Responsibility until 1980, and he was elected to the synod in 1982. He was appointed as a judge at the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany (Bundesverfassungsgericht) in Karlsruhe in 1983, eventually becoming the court’s president from 1987 to 1994.
Herzog was elected President of Germany by the Federal Assembly in 1994. He became the first president elected after Germany’s reunification on July 1, 1994.
Herzog took part in a number of commemoration events during his presidency, including the 50th anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising and the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp.
He also made January 27 the official day of commemoration for the victims of Hitler’s reign in Germany.
Herzog remained politically engaged after leaving office. In 2003, he presided over a panel entrusted with developing alternative recommendations for social assistance reform in response to Chancellor Gerhard Schrรถder’s “Agenda 2010.”
The Herzog Commission’s reform agenda was later supported by the CDU. On January 10, 2017, Herzog died at the age of 82.
Roman Herzog’s Cause Of Death
Roman Herzog’s cause of death remains unknown as there is no information about what actually led to his demise.
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