Germans mourn late president Rau as Social Democratic conscience

Jan 28, 2006, 13:13 GMT

Berlin - Germans mourned Saturday their former president, Johannes Rau, who died the previous day aged 75, as obituaries recalled his unglamorous but honourable career as a Social Democrat.

A condolence book at the neo-classical Bellevue Palace, the German presidential seat in Berlin, was signed by both his successor, President Horst Koehler, and Chancellor Angela Merkel on Saturday.

Koehler announced a state memorial service would be held for Rau on February 7. The Rau family, who have not announced the cause of death, although it is known Rau suffered from an aneurysm or enlarged artery in the chest, have yet to announce funeral details.

The condolence book at the capital's neo-classical Bellevue Palace was to remain open for the public to sign till Monday along with a similar book at the second presidential home, the Villa Hammerschmidt in Bonn, where Rau spent much of his 1999-2004 presidency.

In Rau's hometown, Wuppertal, a book was opened at the town hall.

The centrepiece of Rau's career was his 20-year stint as premier of North Rhine Westphalia, Germany's most populous and industrialized state, and his chairmanship of the Social Democratic Party (SPD).

Obituaries in the German media recalled the avuncular Rau, who was unusual in the SPD as a devout Lutheran, as typical of the political style of an earlier generation, before TV talk-shows and sound-bites.

The newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung said Rau, who spent a lifetime meeting with the SPD rank and file, had been repelled by the harshness of modern-style German politics and the trend to conduct politics in front of the TV cameras to save time.

Rau had spoken at length, often in parables, reflecting his Christian roots. Those who thought him verbose had failed to catch his message, said the paper.

It recalled how he led the SPD in a failed bid for power in the 1987 German election, convinced it could win outright, though the next generation of SPD leaders were already wooing the Greens, who became Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's federal allies in 1998.

Many paid tribute to Rau's labours for a reconciliation with Jews and Poles, the major victims of the Nazis, culminating in his speech in 2000 to the Knesset, when he begged in German for forgiveness.

In an article for the news magazine Focus, German Council of Jews President Paul Spiegel said that speech had been Rau's testament after a lifetime of work for Jewish-German reconciliation.

Another former German president, Richard von Weizsaecker, said in Focus that Rau's presidency had been notable for his support for human rights, better integration of immigrants and his concern for political consensus.