• President of Germany Johannes Rau, 1931

 

Rau was born in the Barmen part of Wuppertal, Rhine Province, as the third of five children. His family was strongly Protestant. As a schoolboy, Rau was active in the Confessing Church, a circle of the German Protestant Church which actively resisted Nazism.

Rau left school in 1949 and worked as a journalist and publisher, especially with the Protestant Youth Publishing House.

Rau was a member of the All - German People’s Party (GVP), which was founded by Gustav Heinemann. This party was known for proposing German reunification, from 1952 until it was disbanded in 1957.

In 1958, Rau and his political mentor, Gustav Heinemann, joined the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), where he was active in the Wuppertal chapter. He served as deputy chairman of the SPD party of Wuppertal, and was elected later on to the City Council (1964 – 1978), where he served as chairman of the SPD Group (1964 – 1967) and later as Mayor (1969 – 1970).

In 1958, Rau was elected for the first time as member of the Landtag (state parliament) of North Rhine - Westphalia (NRW). In 1967, he became chairman of the SPD fraction in the Landtag, and in 1970 Minister of Science and Education in the cabinet of Minister President Heinz Kühn. He soon gained a reputation as a reformer. As part of the mass education campaign of the 1970s, he founded five universities, each at different sites, in North Rhine - Westphalia and initiated Germany’s first distance learning university at Hagen (modeled on the Open University).

In 1977, Rau became Chairman of the North Rhine - Westphalia SPD, and in 1978 Minister President of the state, were he remained until 1998, with four successful elections for the SPD, which became the strongest party in the Landtag each time and gained an absolute majority three times, in 1980, 1985, 1990 and finally 1995. From 1995 onward, Rau led an SPD - Greens coalition in NRW.

In 1987, Rau tried to become chancellor of Germany for the SPD, but his refusal to contemplate forming a coalition with the Green Party meant he could not win the elections against Helmut Kohl’s Christian Democrats (CDU). In 1994, Rau tried for the first time to become Federal President, but lost to Roman Herzog.

Rau twice served as President of the Bundesrat in 1982 - 83 and 1994 - 95, and thus deputized for the Federal President. In 1998 Rau stepped down from his positions as SPD Chairman and Minister President, and on 23 May 1999, was elected Federal President by the Federal Assembly of Germany to succeed Roman Herzog (CDU). On 1 July 2004, he was succeeded by Horst Köhler. As all Federal Presidents but his mentor Heinemann, who had not wished to be seen off in this manner, Rau was honored by a Großer Zapfenstreich which on his wish included the hymn "Jesus bleibet meine Freude" (Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring).

In 2000, Rau was the first German head of state since the Holocaust to address the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, in German. This controversial step prompted some Israeli delegates to walk out. However, Israeli President Moshe Katsav supported and praised him for bridging the gap between the two states. Rau had a deep and lifelong commitment to bringing reconciliation between Germany and its past.

Following a long history of heart disease, he died a few days after his 75th birthday on 27 January 2006.

The maxim of Rau was “to reconcile, not divide”.

As his personal motto, Rau adopted the Confessing Church dictum “teneo, quia teneor” (I hold because I am held).

In his acceptance speech after his election, Rau claimed “A patriot I will be” because “a patriot is someone who loves his fatherland, a nationalist is someone who despises the fatherlands of the others”. The quote can be attributed to the French writer Romain Gary.

Rau was awarded fifteen honorary doctorates. In 2001, he received the Leo Baeck Medal for his humanitarian work promoting tolerance and social justice.

Rau was known as a practicing Christian (and sometimes titled Bruder Johannes, "Brother John", to ridicule his intense Christian position; however, he sometimes used this term himself). He held lay positions in, and was a member of, the Synod of the Evangelical Church in the Rhineland.

On 9 August 1982, Rau married the political scientist, Christina Delius (born 1956). Christina Rau was a granddaughter of her husband's mentor, Gustav Heinemann, former President of Germany. The couple had three children: Anna Christina, born 1983, Philip Immanuel, born 1985 and Laura Helene, born 1986. Since 1995 Rau was aware of his dangerous aneurysm in the abdominal aorta, but declined an operation out of respect for his office and the upcoming election as president. On 23 July 2000 the operation took place at the University Hospital of Essen. On 18 August 2004, he had to undergo serious heart surgery, in which an artificial heart valve was inserted. Only two months later (19 October 2004) a hematoma in the abdominal cavity was surgically removed.

After leaving office, Rau lived with his family in the federal capital, Berlin. However, they also kept a house in Wuppertal.