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Wolfgang Schäuble

Wolfgang Schäuble (18 September 1942 – 26 December 2023) was a German politician whose political career spanned more than five decades. A member of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), he was the longest-serving member of any democratic German parliament. Schäuble served as the 13th president of the Bundestag from 2017 to 2021.

Born in Freiburg im Breisgau in 1942, Schäuble studied at both the University of Freiburg and the University of Hamburg and subsequently began a career in law at the district court of Offenburg in 1978. His political career began in 1969 as a member of the Junge Union, the youth division of the CDU and CSU; in 1972, Schäuble was elected to the Bundestag by winning the constituency seat of Offenburg, and he was a member of the Bundestag until his death. His ministerial career began in 1984 when he was appointed minister for special affairs by chancellor Helmut Kohl. In a 1989 reshuffle, Schäuble was appointed minister of the interior, and he led negotiations for reunification on behalf of the Federal Republic of Germany. During his tenure as minister of the interior, Schäuble was one of the most popular politicians in Germany and was regularly mentioned as a possible future chancellor, though he faced occasional criticism from civil rights activists for his law and order policies.

After the defeat of the CDU/CSU in the 1998 federal election, Schäuble succeeded his mentor Helmut Kohl as chairman of the CDU, but resigned after less than two years in the aftermath of the 1999 CDU donations scandal. In 2005, Schäuble again became minister of the interior in the cabinet of chancellor Angela Merkel, and in 2009 minister of finance, a position he remained in for almost eight years. Described in this capacity as "Germany's second most powerful person" after Merkel, he took a hard line toward Southern European countries during the eurozone crisis, and rejected calls from the International Monetary Fund to give Greece more time to rein in deficits. A proponent of austerity policies, Schäuble's 2014 budget allowed Germany to take on no new debt for the first time since 1969, which is generally known as Black Zero in CDU election campaigns.

On 27 September 2017, the CDU/CSU group in the Bundestag announced Schäuble's nomination as president of the Bundestag. He was elected to that position on 24 October. Following the defeat of the CDU/CSU in the 2021 federal election, Schäuble lost the office by October 2021.

Early life and education
Schäuble was born in Freiburg im Breisgau, as the son of tax finance advisor and politician Karl Schäuble and Gertrud Göhring. He is the middle brother of three.

After completing his Abitur in 1961, Schäuble studied law and economics at the University of Freiburg and the University of Hamburg, which he completed in 1966 and 1970 by passing the First and Second State Examinations respectively, becoming a fully qualified lawyer.

In 1971, Schäuble obtained his doctorate in law, with a dissertation called "The public accountant's professional legal situation within accountancy firms".

Early career
Schäuble entered the tax administration of the state of Baden-Württemberg, eventually becoming a senior administration officer in the Freiburg tax office. Subsequently, he became a practising registered lawyer at the district court of Offenburg, from 1978 to 1984.

Political career
Schäuble's political career began in 1961 with him joining the Junge Union ("Young Union"), the youth division of the CDU. During his studies he served as chairman of the Ring Christlich-Demokratischer Studenten (Association of Christian-Democrat Students, RCDS), in Hamburg and Freiburg. In 1965 Schäuble also became a member of the CDU. From 1969 to 1972, he was district chairman of the Junge Union in South Baden. From 1976 to 1984, he served as chairman of the CDU National Committee for Sport.

Member of Parliament, 1972 to 2023
Schäuble has been a member of the Bundestag since 1972. On 21 October 2017, Schäuble became the longest serving member of parliament in German history overtaking August Bebel, who had been a member of the North German Reichstag and the Reichstag from 1867 until 1881 and from 1883 until 1913. From 1981 to 1984 he was parliamentary whip of the CDU/CSU group and in November 1991 he became its chairman. Schäuble gave up this position as chairman in 2000 as another consequence of the financing scandal. Between October 2002 and 2005, Schäuble served as the parliamentary group's deputy chairman, under the leadership of Angela Merkel.

Schäuble has always been elected to the Bundestag by means of winning an electorate seat, rather than through a list placing in Germany's system of proportional political representation.

Federal Minister for Special Affairs, 1984–1989
On 15 November 1984, Schäuble was appointed as Minister for Special Affairs and head of the Chancellery by Chancellor Helmut Kohl. When in 1986 Soviet press belabored Kohl for having, in a magazine interview, made a comparison between the propaganda skills of Mikhail S. Gorbachev and Joseph Goebbels, Schäuble was reported to have counseled the Chancellor against writing Gorbachev an apology for the remark, saying it would be misunderstood as a sign of weakness.

In his capacity as Minister for Special Affairs, Schäuble was put in charge of the preparations for the first official state visit of Erich Honecker, Chairman of the State Council of the German Democratic Republic (GDR), in 1987. By that time, he was widely considered to be one of Kohl's closest advisers.

Federal Minister of the Interior, 1989–1991
In a cabinet reshuffle Schäuble was made Minister of the Interior on 21 April 1989. In this role he also led the negotiations on behalf of the Federal Republic of Germany for reunification with the GDR in 1990. He and East German State Secretary Günther Krause signed the Unification Treaty on 31 August 1990. In a speech to parliament in 1991, Schäuble clinched the argument in favour of moving the German capital from Bonn to Berlin.

There was constant speculation that he would replace Kohl as Chancellor, whose popularity was declining. In November 1991, Schäuble became the Christian Democrats' parliamentary floor leader, replacing 71-year-old Alfred Dregger, in a move that made him Kohl's likely heir-apparent. In 1997 Helmut Kohl stated that Schäuble was his desired candidate to succeed him, but he did not want to hand over power until 2002. Because the CDU/CSU lost the 1998 election, he did not become Chancellor.

After Eberhard Diepgen was voted out as mayor of Berlin, Schäuble was in talks to be the top candidate for the early election on 21 October 2001, but was rejected by the Berlin branch of the CDU in favour of Frank Steffel.

Some quarters of the CDU and CSU wanted to put Schäuble forward as their candidate for the office of German President, the largely ceremonial head of state, at the beginning of March 2004, due to his extensive political experience. In spite of support from the Premiers of Bavaria (Edmund Stoiber (CSU)) and Hesse (Roland Koch (CDU)), Schäuble did not receive the party's nomination in the end because CDU leader Angela Merkel, other CDU politicians and the liberal FDP party spoke out against him. This was because the election contributions scandal involving Schäuble that first came to light in late 1999 had never been entirely resolved.

CDU Party Chairman, 1998–2000
After the CDU was defeated in the 1998 federal election, Schäuble succeeded Helmut Kohl as chairman of the CDU. Only 15 months later, he resigned from this post as well as from the leadership of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group in 2000 in the wake of the party financing scandal, over the acceptance of cash donation over DM 100,000 contributed by the arms dealer and lobbyist Karlheinz Schreiber back in 1994. Schäuble's resignation initiated a generational change among the Christian Democrats, with Angela Merkel taking over as CDU leader and Friedrich Merz as chairman of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group.

Federal Minister of the Interior, 2005–2009
Ahead of the 2005 elections, Angela Merkel included Schäuble in her shadow cabinet for the Christian Democrats' campaign to unseat incumbent Gerhard Schröder as chancellor. During the campaign, Schäuble served as Merkel's expert for security and foreign policy.

Following the elections, Schäuble was mentioned as potential candidate for the office of Federal Minister of Defense. In the subsequent negotiations to form a coalition government, he led the CDU/CSU delegation in the working group on interior policy; his co-chair from the SPD was Brigitte Zypries. Once the new government was formed, Schäuble once again became Minister of the Interior, this time in the Grand Coalition under Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Between 2007 and 2009, Schäuble was one of 32 members of the Second Commission on the modernization of the federal state, which had been established to reform the division of powers between federal and state authorities in Germany.

Federal Minister of Finance, 2009–2017
Following the 2009 federal election, Schäuble, by then one of Germany's most seasoned politicians, became Minister of Finance in October 2009. Then aged 67, he was the oldest man in the cabinet and the longest-serving member of the parliament in the history of the Federal Republic. He was also one of seven conservative ministers in Merkel's outgoing government who remained in power. By 2014, the Wall Street Journal called Schäuble "Germany's second most powerful person after Chancellor Angela Merkel".

During his time in office, Schäuble was widely regarded the most vocal advocate in the government of European integration, and a passionate proponent of co-operation with France. Along with Merkel, he often took a hard line toward some Southern European countries during the eurozone crisis. In 2012, Schäuble rejected calls from the chairwoman of the International Monetary Fund, Christine Lagarde, to give Greece more time to make additional spending cuts to rein in deficits. That same year, President Karolos Papoulias of Greece accused Schäuble of insulting his nation. In October 2013, Schäuble was accused by the former Portuguese Prime Minister, José Sócrates, for regularly placing news in the media against Portugal during the eurozone crisis prior to the Portuguese bailout; Sócrates called him a "Sly Minister of Finance".

A leading advocate of austerity during the eurozone crisis, Schäuble in 2014 pushed through a national budget of 299 billion euros that allowed Germany not to take on any new debt for the first time since 1969. In the first half of 2016, he recorded an 18.5 billion euros budget surplus. He has been described variously as the "personification of fiscal discipline" and "Europe's foremost ayatollah of austerity". Schäuble's reputation for tough control of spending has been helped by Germany's rapid recovery from recession but he has repeatedly rebuffed calls from government supporters for vote-winning tax cuts. Throughout his tenure, he stood by his position that structural reforms such as overhauling labor markets in Europe are the way out of a low-growth spiral. In 2013, for example, Schäuble and Vítor Gaspar, his counterpart in Portugal, announced a plan to use the German state development bank KfW to help set up a financial institution to assist Portuguese under age 25 in getting jobs or job training.

In 2012, following the resignation of Jean-Claude Juncker as president of the 17 euro zone finance ministers, known as the Eurogroup, suggestions soon gathered pace that Chancellor Angela Merkel was pressing for Schäuble to take up the position; the job later went to Jeroen Dijsselbloem instead.

In the negotiations to form a coalition government following the 2013 federal elections, he led the CDU/CSU delegation in the financial policy working group; his co-chair from the SPD was the Mayor of Hamburg, Olaf Scholz. Between 2014 and 2015, Schäuble and Scholz again led the negotiations on overhauling the so-called solidarity surcharge on income and corporate tax (Solidaritätszuschlag) and reorganizing financial relations between Germany's federal government and the federal states. In a letter to the European Commissioner for Economic and Financial Affairs, Taxation and Customs Pierre Moscovici in late 2014, Schäuble and the finance ministers of the eurozone's other big economies – Michel Sapin of France and Pier Carlo Padoan of Italy – urged the European Commission to draw up EU-wide laws to curb corporate tax avoidance and prevent member states from offering lower taxes to attract investors, calling for a comprehensive anti-BEPS (Base Erosion and Profit Shifting) directive for member states to adopt by the end of 2015.

On Schäuble's initiative, Germany became a founding member of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. At a 2015 meeting of the G-20 major economies, he called for better integration of Islamic finance into the international financial system.

When Federal President Joachim Gauck announced in June 2016 that he would not stand for reelection, Schäuble was soon mentioned by German and international media as likely successor; the post eventually went to Frank-Walter Steinmeier instead.

From late 2016, Schäuble served as member of the German government's cabinet committee on Brexit at which ministers discuss organizational and structural issues related to the United Kingdom's departure from the European Union.

President of the Bundestag, 2017–2021
Following the 2017 elections, Schäuble was persuaded to step down as Minister of Finance. He was nominated by the majority CDU/CSU parliamentary group as the next president of the Bundestag, succeeding Norbert Lammert. In his capacity as president, he chaired the parliament's Council of Elders, which – among other duties – determines daily legislative agenda items and assigns committee chairpersons based on party representation.

As Bundestag President, Schäuble worked to curb the antics of the far-right Alternative for Germany, the largest opposition party in the Bundestag.

As the country's second-highest-ranking official, Schäuble represented Germany at the funeral of U.S. Senator John McCain in 2018.

Ahead of the Christian Democrats' leadership election in 2018, Schäuble publicly endorsed Friedrich Merz to succeed Angela Merkel as the party's chair.

Following the 2021 German federal election, the SPD became the largest party in the Bundestag. By convention, the largest party gets to choose the President. The SPD nominated Bärbel Bas, who was elected during the opening session of the 20th Bundestag. Schäuble remained a Member of the Bundestag. Since he was the longest-serving Member of the Bundestag, serving as Alterspräsident, it was his task to oversee the opening session of the new Bundestag, including the election of his successor.

European integration
Echoing earlier proposals made by Prime Minister Édouard Balladur of France, Schäuble and fellow lawmaker Karl Lamers in 1994 urged the European Union to adopt a policy they called "variable geometry" under which five countries most committed to integration – Germany, France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxemburg – would proceed swiftly toward monetary union, joint foreign and defense policies and other forms of integration. In 2014, both reiterated their ideas in an op-ed for the Financial Times, renewing their call for a core group of European Union countries to move ahead faster with economic and political integration. Countries such as Britain should put forward proposals for returning some competences to national governments, they said, while "the EU should focus mainly on the following areas: a fair and open internal market; trade; currency and financial markets; climate, environment and energy; and foreign and security policy." Also, they proposed the establishment of a European budget commissioner with powers to reject national budgets if they do not correspond to the jointly agreed rules and a "eurozone parliament" comprising the MEPs of eurozone countries to strengthen the democratic legitimacy of decisions affecting the single currency bloc.

On 21 November 2011 Schäuble said the euro would emerge stronger from the current crisis, and ultimately all non-members would be convinced to sign up. He said Great Britain would eventually join the euro (but that he respected Britain's decision to keep the pound). On a British exit from the EU, Schäuble argued in 2014 that Britain's EU membership was particularly important for Germany as both countries share a market-oriented reform approach in many economic and regulatory questions.

In 2015, then-Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis of Greece called Schäuble "the intellectual force behind the project of European Monetary Union".

In 2015, Schäuble raised the idea of stripping the European Commission of regulatory powers, expressing concern over its neutrality and willingness to fulfil its role as "guardian of the treaties", in particular with regard to the enforcement of rules on budget discipline; unnamed diplomats were cited by Reuters as stating that this was not incompatible with his reputation as "a veteran pro-European who has long favored turning the Commission over time into a European 'government. Following the Brexit in 2016, Schäuble urged Member States to be more pragmatic and take an intergovernmental approach to solving problems.

Foreign policy
Schäuble was considered a "committed transatlanticist". On 7 June 2011, he was among the guests invited to the state dinner hosted by President Barack Obama in honor of Chancellor Angela Merkel at the White House.

In 2002, shortly before the Iraq War, Schäuble accused German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder of "strengthening Saddam Hussein" by undermining the unanimity of international pressure on Iraq to open up to United Nations weapons inspectors. On Schröder's initiative to join forces with President Jacques Chirac of France and President Vladimir Putin of Russia in opposing the war, Schäuble commented: "This triangular relationship involving Berlin, Paris and Moscow was a dangerous development. It was very dangerous for the small countries in Europe because they perceived it as an axis and you can understand why. We want good relations with Russia but we do not want those relations to be misunderstood." Schäuble, in contrast to many German politicians, subsequently defended the United States' decision to invade Iraq. By 2006, he said he thought the overthrow of Saddam Hussein was in itself correct, but that he was "doubtful" from the outset about the Iraq war because it resulted from a unilateral decision by the US.

Schäuble accused Chancellor Gerhard Schröder of lacking an appropriate historical conscience, because he accepted alleged human rights violations by the Russian government without criticism. On 31 March 2014, Schäuble compared the annexation of the Sudetenland by Nazi Germany in 1938 to the annexation of Crimea by Russia in the 2014 Crimean crisis. Similar to Vladimir Putin, Adolf Hitler had claimed that "ethnic Germans" in peripheral regions of what was then Czechoslovakia required protection.

Domestic policy
In 1999 Schäuble initiated a CDU/CSU petition campaign against the reform of German nationality law under the slogan "Integration: yes – double citizenship: no". In response to anti-immigrant rallies in the eastern city of Dresden in late 2014, Schäuble said that immigration is good for Germany and politicians must explain better that everyone stands to gain from it; at the time, the number of asylum seekers in Germany, many from Syria, had more than doubled within a year to around 200,000, and net immigration was at its highest level in two decades. "Just as we used millions of refugees and expellees after World War Two to rebuild ... so we need immigration today", Schäuble told Bild when asked about the popularity of anti-immigration policies. Also, he held that "people are right to fear Islamist terrorism. But not Islam." In September 2015, he urged the Member States of the European Union to quickly establish a common European asylum law.

Schäuble was among the high-ranking guests attending the re-opening of Rykestrasse Synagogue, Germany's largest synagogue, in September 2007. In May 2008, he banned two right-wing organizations he described as "reservoirs of organized Holocaust deniers". In 2009, he also banned the Homeland-Faithful German Youth (HDJ), a far-right group, on grounds that it organizes seemingly harmless activities, such as holiday activities, to promote racist and Nazi ideology among children and young people.

Between 2015 and 2016, Schäuble and the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, which manages aid to Holocaust survivors, negotiated a budget of some $500 million, the largest one-time increase in homecare funding for survivors the organization has ever secured.

Schäuble had long been considered one of several prominent conservatives in favour of shifting the CDU's restrictive stance on gay marriage. In June 2017, he voted against Germany's introduction of same-sex marriage.

Domestic security
Schäuble called for stronger counterterrorism policies after joining the first Merkel government in 2005. Shortly after he assumed the position of Minister of the Interior, the 2006 German train bombing plot became the closest Germany is known to have come to a large-scale terrorist attack since 11 September 2001, and Schäuble publicly stated the country escaped that one only through luck.

As a consequence of the terrorism threats, Schäuble proposed several controversial measures. Ahead of the 2006 FIFA World Cup in Germany, he repeatedly advocated for amending the constitution to allow the military's use for domestic security purposes. Among the methods that he believed Germans should at least debate are preventive detention of people suspected of terrorist activities and assassinations of the leaders of terrorist organizations. In March 2007, Schäuble said in an interview that the application of presumption of innocence should not be relevant for the authorization of counter-terrorist operations.

Later that same year Schäuble proposed the introduction of legislation that would allow the German federal government to carry out targeted killing of terrorists, as well as outlaw the use of the Internet and cell phones for people suspected of being terrorist sympathizers.

On 27 February 2008, he called on all European newspapers to print the Muhammad cartoons with the explanation: "We also think they're pathetic, but the use of press freedom is no reason to resort to violence."

In July 2009, Schäuble said in an interview that Berlin would have to "clarify whether our constitutional state is sufficient for confronting new threats". He said that the legal problems his office had to struggle with "extend all the way to extreme cases such as so-called targeted killing ... Imagine someone knew what cave Osama bin Laden is sitting in. A remote-controlled missile could then be fired in order to kill him." The interviewer said: "Germany's federal government would probably send a public prosecutor there first, to arrest bin Laden." Schäuble responded: "And the Americans would execute him with a missile, and most people would say: 'thank God'."

In the wake of the deadly attacks in Paris on the offices of satirical publication Charlie Hebdo and a kosher supermarket in January 2015, Schäuble and his French counterpart Michel Sapin wrote a letter to the European Commission, calling for continent-wide legislation to better trace financial flows and freeze the assets of terrorists living in the European Union.

CDU Corruption Scandal (the 'Black Money Affair')
In 2000, Schäuble was forced to resign from the post as CDU chairman, as well as leader of the parliamentary group in the Bundestag in the CDU Donations scandal, known in German as the Schwarzgeldaffäre (the 'Black Money Affair'). Schäuble admitted to accepting DM100,000 (£40,000) in cash from, Karlheinz Schreiber, an arms dealer and convicted criminal. <!--===Law and order politics=== Criticism of Schäuble centers on his law and order politics during his second term as Federal Minister of the Interior, especially in the field of counter-terrorism, for which he has been criticised by some civil rights activists. Vocal opponents include the open-source software community. The latest decisions of his ministry have led to a campaign dubbed Stasi 2.0 by its initiators, claiming intentional resemblance to the East German Ministerium für Staatssicherheit.

Controversy was sparked by Schäuble's recommendation in a 2007 interview of a book by Otto Depenheuer, who defended the Guantanamo Bay detention camp as a "legally permissible response in the fight of constitutional civilisation against the barbarity of terrorism".

As a protest against his support for the increasing use of biometric data, the hacker group Chaos Computer Club published one of Schäuble's fingerprints in the March 2008 edition of its magazine Datenschleuder. The magazine also included the print on a film that readers could use to fool fingerprint readers.

In November 2008, a bill giving the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) more authority failed when some states abstained from the vote in the Bundesrat, the legislative representative of the states. Subsequently, Schäuble suggested changing Bundesrat's voting procedures to discount abstention votes from the total. Many politicians of the opposition criticized his proposal, and some called for his resignation.

In February 2009, Schäuble's homepage was hacked due to a security flaw in the TYPO3 CMS and its non-secure password gewinner ("winner"). The hack consisted of a defacement that placed a large, easily visible link on his front page to the homepage of the German Working Group on Data Retention. -->

Relations with Greece
Schäuble was criticized by Yanis Varoufakis for his actions during the "Grexit" crisis of 2015. In early 2014, former US Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner called Schäuble's "Grexit" plan "frightening," Geithner recorded that Schäuble believed a Greek exit from the Eurozone would scare other countries into line. Schäuble also received extensive criticism toward his austerity recommendations from Twitter via the hashtag #ThisIsACoup.

Other activities (selection)
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Corporate boards

 * KfW, Deputy Chairman of the Board of Supervisory Directors (2009–2017)
 * Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), Ex-Officio Member of the Board of Governors (2016–2017)

Non-profits

 * Friends of the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden, Chairman
 * Deutsche Nationalstiftung, Member of the Board of Trustees
 * Deutsche Stiftung Denkmalschutz, Member of the Board of Trustees
 * Deutsche Stiftung Querschnittlähmung ("German Paraplegia Foundation"), Member of the Board of Trustees
 * Deutsches Museum, Member of the Board of Trustees
 * Friends of the Berliner Philharmonie, Member of the Board of Trustees
 * House of Finance, Goethe University Frankfurt, Member of the Board of Trustees
 * International Foundation for Research in Paraplegia, Member of the Board of Trustees
 * Max Planck Society, Member of the Board of Trustees
 * RAG-Stiftung, ex-officio Member of the Board of Trustees
 * Robert Schuman Foundation, Member of the Board of Directors
 * 2011 FIFA Women's World Cup, Member of the Board of Trustees

Recognition (selection)
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Honorary degrees

 * 1992: Honorary Doctorate of the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg
 * 2005: Honorary Doctorate of the University of Fribourg
 * 2006: Honorary Doctorate of the University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn
 * 2009: Honorary Doctorate of the University of Tübingen
 * 2011: Honorary Doctorate of the Corvinus University of Budapest

Other honors

 * 1986: Order of Merit of the Italian Republic
 * 1988: Grand-Officier de l'Ordre National du Mérite by the President of France
 * 1989: Grand Commander (Commander with the star) of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany
 * 1991: Grand Cross 1st class of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany
 * 1998: Konrad-Adenauer-Preis
 * 1998: Ordre national de la Légion d'honneur
 * 2008: Order of Merit of Baden-Württemberg
 * 2010: Toleranzpreis der Evangelischen Akademie Tutzing
 * 2011: Order of the Oak Crown of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg
 * 2012: International Charlemagne Prize of Aachen
 * 2014: Award for Understanding and Tolerance of the Jewish Museum Berlin
 * 2015: Bambi Award
 * 2016: Leopold Kunschak Prize
 * 2017: Kissinger Prize
 * 2017: Member of the Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques
 * 2019: Grand Officer of the Order of the Three Stars
 * 2022: Grand Cross of the Hungarian Order of Merit

Personal life
Schäuble was married to economist, teacher and former Welthungerhilfe chairwoman Ingeborg Hensle from 1969. They had four children: three daughters and one son. His late brother, Thomas Schäuble (1948–2013), was a former Interior Minister of Baden-Württemberg, and an executive chairman of the Baden-Württemberg state brewery Rothaus from 2004 to 2013. His son-in-law was Thomas Strobl, who currently serves as Interior Minister of Baden-Württemberg.

Schäuble and his wife lived in Gengenbach before moving to Offenburg in 2011. They also had an apartment in Berlin's Grunewald district.

When Schäuble celebrated his 70th birthday at the Deutsches Theater in Berlin in September 2012, Chancellor Angela Merkel and Christine Lagarde, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund, delivered the keynote speeches in his honor.

Assassination attempt
On 12 October 1990, at the age of 48 and just after the reunification of Germany, Schäuble was the target of an assassination attempt by a mentally unwell drug user named Dieter Kaufmann. Kaufmann fired three shots at him after an election campaign event attended by about 300 people in Oppenau. As well as injuring a bodyguard and giving Schäuble facial wounds, the attack severely damaged Schäuble's spinal cord, which confined him to a wheelchair for the rest of his life.

Schäuble returned to work within three months, before he had finished a medical program to adapt to the reduced mobility caused by paralysis of his lower body. For his last rally in the 1990 elections, Chancellor Helmut Kohl travelled to Offenburg, where Schäuble made his first public appearance after the assassination attempt to a crowd of about 9,000.

Illness and death
In May 2010, on his way to Brussels for an emergency meeting of European Union finance ministers, Schäuble found himself in the intensive care unit of a Belgian hospital, battling complications from an earlier operation and an allergic reaction to a new antibiotic. At that point, the German news media speculated about his resignation, and even his chances of survival. Merkel twice declined his offer to step down during a period of ill health in 2010.

Schäuble died of cancer on 26 December 2023, at the age of 81. Several days prior to his death, he was treated at clinics in Heilbronn for the disease. President of Germany Frank-Walter Steinmeier ordered a state occasion at his death held on 5 January 2024.

In May 2024, Schäuble’s grave in Offenburg was found desecrated.

title: Wolfgang Schäuble


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USS Cabildo

USS Cabildo (LSD-16) was a Casa Grande-class dock landing ship of the United States Navy. She was named for The Cabildo in New Orleans, the old town hall and now a historical museum, where the formal transfer of the Louisiana Territory from France to the United States took place.

Cabildo was laid down on 24 July 1944 by Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock Co., Newport News, Virginia; launched on 22 December 1944, sponsored by Miss A. B. Pendleton; and commissioned on 15 March 1945.

World War II, 1945–1947
Cabildo sailed from New York City on 6 May 1945 for Pearl Harbor, where she arrived on 8 June. She carried out her duties of docking and repairing small craft, transporting amphibious craft, and operating boat-pools at Guam and Okinawa in July. After carrying boats to the Philippines in August, Cabildo reported in Wakanoura Wan, Honshū, on 11 September. Here she loaded Javanese, Dutch, and Australians, rescued from Japanese prison camps, who she carried to Okinawa. Laden with men of the Army Engineers, she arrived at Manila on 3 October, then sailed for Japan, where she acted as receiving and repair ship at Sasebo and Yokosuka until 19 April 1946. Cabildo returned to the west coast on 12 May 1946, and was decommissioned on 15 January 1947.

Korea, 1950–1952
Recommissioned at San Diego on 5 October 1950, she took part in atomic weapons tests in the Marshalls — "Operation Greenhouse" — in which she was one of the first ships to become radioactive. After extensive decontamination she sailed, on 21 November 1951, from San Diego for duty in Korean waters. She lifted soldiers and marines from Japan to Korea, and from Korea's east coast to the Inchon battle lines, and during a part of her tour served as flagship and tender to Mine Squadron 3 in its dangerous operations. While with this group in April off Wonsan, Cabildo received a direct hit from a shore battery, suffered a few casualties, but was able to continue her mission. The battleship Iowa later arrived to cover her.

1952–1960
Returning to San Diego on 2 September 1952, Cabildo prepared for another extended Far Eastern deployment from 3 July 1953 to 23 April 1954. In 1955 she was fitted with mezzanine and helicopter decks, and from that time operated extensively with Marine units in developing the vertical envelopment concept of amphibious warfare. Cabildo's west coast operations alternated with two tours of duty in the Far East from January 1956 to July 1958. Clearing San Diego on 11 February 1959, she carried craft and an underwater demolition team detachment to the Aleutians before continuing to Japan. After duty in Japanese and Formosan waters, she returned to Long Beach on 5 June 1959. Amphibious exercises at Okinawa highlighted her 1960 deployment, which began on 16 February and continued through the major portion of the year.

1963-1965
In the spring of 1963, the ship sailed back to the West Coast and her home port of Long Beach via the Panama Canal after serving as part of the Navy's Cuban Missile Blockade. In the fall of 1963, she was deployed to Asia and visited Pearl Harbor, Subic Bay and Japan. During this period she made six trips to Okinawa and also sailed to Guam and the Kwajalein Atoll. During her Asian tour of duty she was in a collision at sea when most of the Electronic Parts Storeroom was lost as it spilled into the ocean.

In April 1964 she headed back to her home port of Long Beach. Several months later she went into dry dock for upgrades and spent 6 months in Portland Oregon.

During this time period, the ship had visited every major city and port on the West Coast of America's mainland.

In 1965, she and the USS Galveston (CLG-3) were available for naval gunfire support and 3rd Battalion, 12th Marines in Van Tuong which was the artillery unit in direct support. USS Vernon County (LST-1161) embarked elements of the 3rd Battalion, 3rd Marines (Battalion Landing Team) (BLT) 3, under Lieutenant Colonel Joseph E. Muir, USMC, at Chu Lai, and sailed south along the coast to An Thuong, where she put the troops ashore in phase one of Operation Starlite.

Decommissioning and disposal
Cabildo was decommissioned on 31 March 1970 at Long Beach, CA, and laid up in the Pacific Reserve Fleet. She was struck from the Naval Register on 15 October 1976, and used as a fleet target, sunk by grounding at San Nicholas Island in September 1985.

Cabildo received two battle stars for service in the Korean War and six battle stars for the Vietnam War.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: USS Cabildo


title: User:Leonardo.007


text:
Mathilda May

Mathilda May (born Karin Haïm; 8 February 1965) is a French film actress and director. Her most well-known roles include portraying Space Girl in Lifeforce (1985) and Jeanne Gardella in Toutes peines confondues (1992).

Her father is Victor Haïm (born Victor Lévy) the French playwright, actor, screenwriter, director and drama teacher, of whom his works have been translated and performed in several countries.

Early life
May was born in Paris, France. Her father, playwright, screenwriter, and actor Victor Haïm, is of Sephardic Jewish (Greek and Turkish) descent. Her mother is the Swedish ballet teacher and choreographer Margareta Hanson. She studied under Christiane Vaussard at the Conservatoire de Paris, graduating at age 16.

Career
May's film work is primarily in French and made for the European market; she was the recipient of the César Award for Most Promising Actress in 1988 and the Prix Romy Schneider in 1989. Non-French films she has appeared in include Naked Tango (1990), Becoming Colette (1991) and The Tit and the Moon (1994). In the United States, she is best known for her role as an alien vampire in the science fiction-horror film Lifeforce (1985), directed by Tobe Hooper. She also appeared in the 1996 space adventure game Privateer 2: The Darkening. She played Isabella in The Jackal, a 1997 action film.

May recorded an album in 1992 called Joy of Love.

May was the writer and director for the theater show Open Space, which was performed in the Théâtre Jean-Vilar in the commune of Suresnes, the Théâtre du Rond-Point, and the Théâtre de Paris from 2013 to 2015. Open Space was a show without words and the story was presented by movement, music, and sound. May described the show as:"It will be choreographed without it being dance, and musical without an instrument."

Personal life
May has been married four times. Her first husband was Paul Powell. Her second husband was Gérard Darmon, with whom she has two children, daughter Sarah (born 17 August 1994) and son Jules (born 4 March 1997). Her third husband was Philippe Kelly. Her fourth husband was Sly Johnson.

Award and accolades

 * The César Award (the national film award of France): 1988 Best Young Female Newcomer for The Cry of the Owl

''
 * The 1989 Romy Schnieder Award
 * The 2019 Molliere for Best Director of a Public Theatre Show for The Wedding Banquet
 * The 2020 Molliere for Best Solo Performance for her production of Monsieur X starring Pierre Richard at the Théâtre de l’Atelier.
 * The 2020 SACD (Société des Auteurs et Compositeurs Dramatiques) for Best Director ''

title: Mathilda May


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User talk:Leonardo.007

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Prematurely deceased entertainer categories
Hi. FYI, folks are trying again to delete the prematurely deceased entertainer categories at Categories for deletion/Log/2006 January 17. I noticed you voted to save them in the past and thought you might want to know. :) —Wknight94 (talk) 00:20, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Prematurely deceased entertainer categories (trying for the 3rd time!)
Hi. FYI, folks are trying again to delete the prematurely deceased entertainer categories at this link. I noticed you voted to save them in the past and thought you might want to know. (I'm going to have to make a template for this soon!) —Wknight94 (talk) 14:37, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Category:American gangsters of Sicilian descent has been nominated for splitting
Category:American gangsters of Sicilian descent has been nominated for splitting. A discussion is taking place to decide whether it complies with the categorization guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the categories for discussion page. Thank you. Omnis Scientia (talk) 10:44, 19 May 2024 (UTC)

title: User talk:Leonardo.007


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Brown falcon

The brown falcon (Falco berigora) is a relatively large falcon native to Australia and New Guinea.

A number of plumage morphs occur, with the primary distinction being between the pale morph and the dark morph. Both morphs usually have dark brown upper parts and wing coverts. Dark morph birds have predominantly dark under parts, although some light streaking is common. Pale morph birds have white underparts that are varyingly streaked with brown, sometimes heavily so. Pale individuals may also have prominently white under tail coverts and these may be diagnostic. A distinctive aspect of their behaviour is shown in the breeding season when brown falcons make a loud, high pitched, cackle call (like a laying hen) and screeching while in flight.

The species name berigora has Aboriginal origins.

Description
Adults are usually 40 to 50 cm long. They are found in light and dark forms and a variety of intermediates. Animals typically have red-brown heads with narrow black streaks with a light crown and off-white chin. Wings are a spotted red-brown with dark brown quills. Beaks are light blue/grey; eyes are brown. The falcons make a loud cackle call uttered frequently.

Breeding and habitat
Brown falcons breed from June to November, usually in an old nest of a larger passerine or another hawk species; they occasionally nest in hollow limbs of trees. The brown falcon lays between two and five eggs that have red and brown spots and blotches.

Subspecies

 * F. b. novaeguineae : central and eastern New Guinea and coastal northern Australia
 * F. b. berigora : Australia (except coastal north) and Tasmania

Diet
The brown falcon eats small mammals, including house mice. They also eat young rabbits in the summer. It also eats small birds, lizards, snakes, and a variety of invertebrates, particularly caterpillars, grasshoppers, crickets, and beetles. Insects form the bulk of the animals' diets during winter and the falcons often chase the insects on the ground.

Behaviour
Brown falcons and other Australian firehawks have been said to pick up sticks with flames and dropping them to spread fires and prey on escaping animals. According to Audubon, "That anecdotal evidence is sourced from personal testimonies by Australian firefighters and aboriginal people, as well as historical literature, and amounts to 14 firsthand narratives of this specific occurrence."

title: Brown falcon


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Siloam inscription

The Siloam inscription or Shiloah inscription (כתובת השילוח, or Silwan inscription), known as KAI 189, is a Hebrew inscription found in the Siloam tunnel which brings water from the Gihon Spring to the Pool of Siloam, located in the City of David in East Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan ("Siloam" in the Bible). The inscription records the construction of the tunnel, which has been dated to the 8th century BC on the basis of the writing style. It is the only known ancient inscription from ancient Israel and Judah which commemorates a public construction work, despite such inscriptions being commonplace in Egyptian and Mesopotamian archaeology.

It is among the oldest extant records of its kind written in Hebrew using the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet,  a regional variant of the Phoenician alphabet. The inscription is held by the Istanbul Archaeology Museum.

Discovery
The Siloam tunnel was discovered in 1838 by Edward Robinson. Despite the tunnel being examined extensively during the 19th century by Robinson, Charles Wilson, and Charles Warren, they all missed discovering the inscription, probably due to the accumulated mineral deposits making it barely noticeable.

In 1880 a 16-year-old pupil of Conrad Schick, head of the London Society for Promoting Christianity Amongst the Jews' institute for vocational training, found the inscription when exploring the tunnel. It was cut in the rock on the eastern side, about 19 feet into the tunnel from Siloam Pool. Schick explained in his initial publication Phoenician Inscription in the Pool of Siloam: "... one of my pupils, when climbing down the southern side of [the aqueduct], stumbled over the broken bits of rock and fell into the water. On rising to the surface, he discovered some marks like letters on the wall of rock. I set off with the necessary things to examine his discovery."

The pupil was later identified as Jacob Eliahu, later Spafford, following his adoption by Horatio Spafford. Seventy years later, in 1950, Eliahu's adoptive sister, Bertha Spafford Vester, wrote of the discovery story, which took place a year prior to her arrival in the city: "Jacob was above the average in intellect, with the oriental aptitude for languages. He spoke five fluently, with a partial knowledge of several others. He was interested in archaeology, and the year before we came to Jerusalem he discovered the Siloam Inscription... His imagination was fired by learning about the subterranean tunnel in the Ophal Hill that had been excavated by King Hezekiah to bring water inside the threatened city ... It is supposed to be haunted by a dragon or genie ... Nevertheless, Jacob determined to explore the tunnel ... Jacob, feeling his way, suddenly was conscious that the chisel marks had changed and were now going from left to right. He realized he must be in the exact place where the King's workmen had met under the city. Carefully he felt all around the walls, and was certain that his fingers detected an inscription chiseled in the stone."

Removal
In July 1890 a resident of Jerusalem had the inscription removed from the wall of the tunnel. During this work the inscription cracked into six or seven pieces and several letters were damaged at the breakpoints.

The Ottoman government in Jerusalem, led by the Mutasarrif of Jerusalem, Ibrahim Hakki Pasha, did not become aware of what had happened until the end of the year, when they were alerted by the director of the Turkish Museum in Istanbul. Under Ottoman law, the government was the owner of all ancient monuments found within the empire, so they launched a search for the inscription. During 1891, both the real and a forged copy were given to Ibrahim Hakki Pasha; the Mutasarrif put the inscription on display in the Jerusalem Serāj, where it was viewed by large crowds. The inscription was subsequently sent to Istanbul. Guthe (1890). Quote: "Die türkische Regierung in Jerusalem merkte nichts von dem, was vorgegangen war. Anfang Oktober scheint dort die Sache überhaupt noch wenig bekannt gewesen zu sein. Gege Ende des Jahres wurde aber die Lokalregierung durch den Direktor des türkischen Museums in Konstantinopel auf das Verschwinden des Inschriftsteines aus dem Kanal aufmerksam gemacht. Nach türkischem Gesetz ist nämlich die Regierung Eigenthümerin aller innerhalb des Reiches gefundenen alten Denkmäler. Die 1880 entdeckte Siloah-Inschrift war daher gesetzlich Eigenthum der Regierung, und diese in ihrem vollen Rechte, wenn sie auf die Entwender der Inschrift fahndete... Neuerdings haben jedoch die Untersuchungen der türkischen Regierung zum Ziele geführt. Sowohl der echte als auch der gefälschte Stein ist dem Mutesarrif von Jerusalem, Ibrahim Haddschī Pascha, übergeben worden. Viele Reisende haben beide Steine im Serāj in Augenschein genommen, bis des allzugrossen Zudrangs wegen die Erlaubniss dazu versagt wurde. Nach den letzten Nachrichten waren die Steine bereits in eine Kiste verpackt, um nach Konstantinopel gesandt zu werden. Die Schuld wird auf einen Fellachen aus Silwān geschoben; er soll mit einem halben Jahr Zuchthaus bestraft werden." ["The Turkish government in Jerusalem didn't notice any of what had happened. Altogether, at the beginning of October little of it seems to have become known there. Toward the end of the year, the local government officials were made aware of the disappearance of the stone bearing the inscription by the director of the Turkish museum in Constantinople. According to Turkish law, the government is the owner of all ancient monuments [antiquities] discovered within the Empire. The Siloah Inscription, discovered in 1880, was therefore government property, which made it fully entitled to search for the person who had removed the inscription... However, the official Turkish government investigation have recently led them to their goal. The authentic stone, as well as the fake one, have been handed over to the Mutesarrif of Jerusalem, Ibrahim Hajjī Pasha. Many travellers have examined both stones in the Serail, until admission was rescinded due to the all-too-great commotion. According to the latest news, both stones have already been packed into a case in order to be sent to Constantinople. A fellah from Silwan has been made responsible [scapegoated]; he is allegedly going to serve a half-year prison sentence as punishment."]

Casts of the inscription in situ had been made by Hermann Guthe in 1881. One was held by the Schneller Orphanage, the second broke during the transport to Germany and a third was held by the Deutscher Verein zur Erforschung Palästinas (German Association for the Exploration of Palestine, DVEP). Guthe (1890). Quote: "Es ist sehr zu bedauern, dass das alte Denkmal durch ein so rohes, ungeschicktes Verfahren zerstört worden ist. Die sorgfältigen Gypsabgüsse, die ich 1881 habe anfertigen lassen, haben dadurch einen höheren Werth erhalten, da sie jetzt allein ein getreues und vollständiges Bild der Inschrift vor ihrer Zerstörung darbieten. Von den beiden ersten, die ich vor der Reinigung der Inschrift anfertigen liess, befindet sich einer im Besitz des Herrn Schneller (Syrisches Waisenhaus) in Jerusalem; der zweite ist während des Transportes nach Deutschland zerbrochen. Ein dritter, der ebenso wie jene die ganze geglättete Fläche der Felswand, auch den nicht mit Schriftzeichen versehenen Theil derselben darstellt und nach der Reinigung der Inschrift angefertigt wurde, ist Eigenthum des Deutschen Vereins zur Erforschung Palästinas und wird gegenwärtig auf der hiesigen Universitätsbibliothek aufbewahrt." ["It is very regrettable that the antiquity should have been destroyed by such a crude and clumsy procedure. The carefully made plaster casts, which I had commissioned in 1881, have now acquired a higher value, since they are now the only faithful and complete reproduction of the inscription as it was before its destruction. Of the first two of those I commissioned before the inscription was cleaned, one is now the property of  (Syrian Orphanage) in Jerusalem; the second went to pieces while being transported to Germany. A third, which represents, much like the other ones, the entire smoothed surface of the rock wall, including the non-inscribed areas, which has been taken after the inscription was cleansed, is the property of the German Society for the Exploration of Palestine and is currently being kept here at the university library."]

Further claims
In 2022 much media attention focused on an announcement by controversial retired Jewish history professor Gershon Galil that he and archaeologist Eli Shukron had examined high-quality photographs of the inscription and found additional lines of text on it, as well as in the tunnel below where the inscription had been removed. This prompted an open letter from other Israeli academics criticizing the announcement of finds to the media without proper publication and peer review in a professional journal, or even providing the photographs to other researchers.

Biblical references
The ancient city of Jerusalem, being on a mountain, was naturally defensible from almost all sides but its major source of fresh water, the Gihon spring, was on the side of the cliff overlooking the Kidron valley. The Bible records that King Hezekiah, fearful that the Assyrians would lay siege to the city, blocked the spring's water outside the city and diverted it through a channel into the Pool of Siloam.
 * 2 Kings 20, 20: "And the rest of the events of Hezekiah and all his mighty deeds, and how he made the conduit and the pool, and he brought the water into the city, they are written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah."
 * 2 Chronicles 32, 3–4: "And he took counsel with his officers and his mighty men to stop up the waters of the fountains that were outside the city, and they assisted him. And a large multitude gathered and stopped up all the fountains and the stream that flowed in the midst of the land, saying, "Why should the kings of Assyria come and find much water?""

Translation
As the inscription was unreadable at first due to the deposits, Professor Archibald Sayce was the first to make a tentative reading, and later the text was cleaned with an acid solution making the reading more legible. The inscription contains 6 lines, of which the first is damaged. The words are separated by dots. Only the word zada on the third line is of doubtful translation—perhaps a crack or a weak part.

The passage reads:
 * ... the tunnel ... and this is the story of the tunnel while ...
 * the axes were against each other and while three cubits were left to (cut?) ... the voice of a man ...
 * called to his counterpart, (for) there was ZADA in the rock, on the right ... and on the day of the
 * tunnel (being finished) the stonecutters struck each man towards his counterpart, ax against ax and flowed
 * water from the source to the pool for 1,200 cubits. and (100?)
 * cubits was the height over the head of the stonecutters ...

The inscription hence records the construction of the tunnel; according to the text the work began at both ends simultaneously and proceeded until the stonecutters met in the middle. However, this idealised account does not quite reflect the reality of the tunnel; where the two sides meet is an abrupt right angled join, and the centres do not line up. It has been theorized that Hezekiah's engineers depended on acoustic sounding to guide the tunnelers and this is supported by the explicit use of this technique as described in the Siloam Inscription. The frequently ignored final sentence of this inscription provides further evidence: "And the height of the rock above the heads of the laborers was 100 cubits." This indicates that the engineers were well aware of the distance to the surface above the tunnel at various points in its progression.

While traditionally identified as a commemorative inscription, one archaeologist has suggested that it may be a votive offering inscription.

Return of inscription
The inscription is on exhibition at the Istanbul Archaeology Museum, one of three ancient inscriptions from the region held by the museum (the other two being the Gezer calendar and the Temple Warning inscription). A replica is on display at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem.

Turkey has refused Israel's request to be sent the Siloam inscription, and other artifacts unearthed in Ottoman Palestine and transferred to Turkey. Scholars have commented that the inscription has little, if any, significance to Turkey, and as evidence point to the fact that it was not on display in a public gallery in the Istanbul Archaeology Museum. Hershel Shanks, founder of the Biblical Archaeology Review, has written that Turkey should be amenable to a repatriation of the Siloam inscription, given its own repatriation efforts, and other scholars have questioned whether Turkey can demand that its objects be returned, when its own museums refuse to return artifacts taken from previous colonies.

In September 1998, Benjamin Netanyahu asked then-Turkish prime minister Mesut Yılmaz to return the inscription and, in return, offered Turkey "to go into [Israel's] museums and choose all the finds from the Ottoman period that you want". His offer was rejected.

In 2007, Jerusalem Mayor Uri Lupolianski met with Turkey's ambassador to Israel, Namık Tan, and requested that the tablet be returned to Jerusalem as a "goodwill gesture". Turkey rejected the request, stating that the Siloam inscription was Imperial Ottoman property, and thus the cultural property of the Turkish Republic. President Abdullah Gul said that Turkey would arrange for the inscription to be shown in Jerusalem for a short period, but Turkey never followed though on this, as tensions between the two countries escalated as a result of Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip

In 2017, Israeli Culture Minister Miri Regev made another offer for the inscription, perhaps jokingly suggesting Israel could provide two elephants for the Gaziantep Zoo in exchange for the inscription.

In March 2022, following the visit of President of Israel Isaac Herzog in Ankara, Israeli media reported that Turkey agreed to return the Siloam Inscription to Jerusalem. However, Turkish media stated that the Turkish government denied this, on the basis that the inscription was found in East Jerusalem, part of the Palestinian territories, "thus, it was out of the question to return it to Israel, a third country in Turkey's view".

title: Siloam inscription


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Indian National Congress (Organisation)

The Indian National Congress (Organisation) also known as Congress (O) or Syndicate/Old Congress was a political party in India formed when the Congress party split following the expulsion of Indira Gandhi.

On 12 November 1969, the Prime Minister of India Indira Gandhi was expelled from the Congress party for violating party discipline. The party finally split with Indira Gandhi setting up a rival organisation Indian National Congress (Requisitionists), which came to be known as Congress (R) or Indicate. In the All India Congress Committee, 446 of its 705 members walked over to Indira's side. K Kamaraj and later Morarji Desai were the leaders of the INC(O).

INC(O) led governments in Bihar under Bhola Paswan Shastri, Karnataka under Veerendra Patil, and in Gujarat under Hitendra K Desai. It was also a part of the Janata Morcha that ruled Gujarat under Babubhai J. Patel from 1975–1976 during the emergency era.

The split can in some ways be seen as a left-wing/right-wing division. Indira wanted to use a populist agenda in order to mobilise popular support for the party. The regional party elites, who formed the INC(O), stood for a more right-wing agenda, and distrusted Soviet help.

In the 1971 general election, the Indian National Congress (O) won about 10% of the vote and 16 Lok Sabha seats, against 44% of the vote and 352 seats for Indira's Indian National Congress (R). In March 1977, the party fought the post-Emergency election under the banner of Janata Party.

The Janata Party alliance inflicted crushing defeat to Indira's Congress Party. Nevertheless, the total vote share of Congress (O) in 1977 was almost halved from 1971 and they lost three seats. Later the same year, INC(O) formally merged with the Bharatiya Lok Dal, Bharatiya Jan Sangh, Socialist Party of India, Swatantra Party and others to form the Janata Party. Congress (O)'s leader Morarji Desai served as the fourth Prime Minister of India from 1977 to 1979; this was India's first non-Congress government. But this government could not run for 5 years and fell in 1979. Fresh Elections were called in 1980 and Indira's Indian National congress (R) swept the country and defeated the Janata party.

Leaders

 * Morarji Desai
 * Neelam Sanjiva Reddy
 * S. Nijalingappa
 * K. Kamaraj
 * S. K. Patil
 * Hitendra K Desai
 * Veerendra Patil
 * C. M. Poonacha
 * Atulya Ghosh
 * Satyendra Narayan Sinha
 * Chandra Bhanu Gupta
 * P. M. Nadagouda
 * Ashoka Mehta
 * Tribhuvan Narain Singh
 * Ram Subhag Singh
 * B. D. Sharma

title: Indian National Congress (Organisation)