Lambsdorff dead
December 6, 2009
Otto Graf Lambsdorff, once one of Germany's most influential politicians, has died aged 82 in a clinic in Bonn, sources in his pro-business Free Democratic Party (FDP) said Sunday.
The exact cause of death was unclear, but Lambsdorff was reportedly suffering from various ailments.
Lambsdorff was honorary chairman of the FDP, which currently is junior partner in Chancellor Angela Merkel's center-right governing coalition.
Chancellor Merkel on Sunday honored Lambsdorff as an outstanding liberal politician.
"He influenced German economic policy for many years and is to be counted among the great personalities of our social market economy," Merkel said in Berlin.
Merkel also drew attention to fact that Lambsdorff had played a leading role in "such sensitive topics as German compensation payments for forced laborers during World War II."
Lambsdorff served as West German economics minister from 1977 to 1982 under social democratic Chancellor Helmut Schmidt.
He also played an active part in the breakup of the coalition with the SPD in 1982.
The FDP subsequently entered into a governing coalition with the Christian Democrats under Helmut Kohl, and Lambsdorff regained his post as West German economics minister from 1982 until 1984.
However, Lambsdorff's political career came to an abrupt end in 1984 when he was forced to resign over a party financing scandal.
nk/dpa/AP
Editor: Kyle James