Gerhard Schröder to discuss reform and reunification in four-part EBS lecture series
Germany’s former chancellor Gerhard Schröder will discuss political risk, economic reform and the lessons of reunification in four EBS lectures airing October 19–22, 2026. The series will also cover his childhood, education and opposition to the United States’ Iraq War.
Former German chancellor Gerhard Schröder will discuss the reforms he pursued at the risk of losing power and the lessons of Germany’s reunification in a four-part EBS lecture series airing October 19–22, 2026.
“Gerhard Schröder's Politics of Resolve,” part of EBS’s “Great Lessons, Great Minds,” will air on EBS1 at 11:45 p.m. from Monday through Thursday. The lectures will also be available to watch again on the EBS website.
“Politicians must take risks. Even the risk of losing an election,” Gerhard Schröder says in the series.
Germany’s seventh federal chancellor, who took office in 1998, will revisit the decisions that shaped his political career and his country. The lectures examine why he pressed ahead with reform despite the political danger, the dilemmas he faced and the consequences of those choices.
In 2003, Gerhard Schröder launched Agenda 2010, a sweeping package of labor market and welfare reforms intended to change a Germany beset by high unemployment and economic stagnation and described as the “sick man of Europe.” The measures drew fierce opposition from labor groups and within the governing SPD. He ultimately left the chancellorship in 2005.
In its introduction to the series, EBS says that more than 20 years later, the once heavily criticized reforms are being reassessed as policies that restored Germany’s economic competitiveness. The broadcaster presents that changing assessment as a reversal in the historical judgment of a decision once regarded as a political failure.
The lectures return to the meaning of political resolve two decades later: how leaders choose between power and conviction, why they accept political risks, what matters beyond immediate results and when the value of a decision becomes apparent. Gerhard Schröder will explain what he sought to preserve and what he wanted to change as a political leader.
The series also traces the experiences that shaped him, from a childhood in poverty to the opportunities education opened on his path to becoming chancellor. Drawing on his own life, he discusses how education can change an individual’s prospects.
His account extends to Germany’s responsibility for its past as an aggressor in World War II and the country’s efforts to regain the international community’s trust. He will also explain the foreign policy judgment behind his opposition to the United States’ Iraq War.
On reunification, Gerhard Schröder will address both Germany’s achievements and the difficulties that remained afterward. The lectures consider what that experience means for South Korea as a divided country and the challenges of reunification on the Korean Peninsula.
EBS frames the series around questions it says remain relevant to society today: the gains and costs of reform, the collision between political convictions and practical realities, and the hopes of reunification alongside the work that follows. Across those subjects, the lectures ask what politicians should protect and what they should change.
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