"Severe burnout" - Gerhard Schröder goes to hospital

WELT "Severe burnout" - Gerhard Schröder goes to hospital 16 hours • 3 minutes reading time Gerhard Schröder has had difficult years. Now his lawyer has announced that the former chancellor is mentally ill. This means that the 80-year-old will no longer have to attend an unpleasant appointment. The doctor even warns of "total decompensation". The treating doctor's diagnosis is alarming: "Mr. S. is suffering from severe burnout syndrome with the typical signs of profound exhaustion and a severe lack of energy." In addition, there are "difficulties with concentration and memory as well as sleep disorders". The doctor also states in his statement on the health of former chancellor Gerhard Schröder that he has "reduced emotional resilience". The SPD politician is in such a bad state that he has gone into clinical treatment on the advice of the doctor. This was confirmed by Schröder's lawyer Hans-Peter Huber. He asked the public on behalf of the family to respect Schröder's privacy. Burnout is a state of physical, emotional and mental exhaustion caused by chronic stress. The World Health Organization (WHO) has officially recognized burnout as a health problem. Schröder's companions had long been worried about the otherwise efficient and boyish SPD politician. He seemed stressed during meetings and no longer as agile as he was around his 80th birthday in April 2024. At the time, he gave the dpa a detailed interview and had an NDR camera team accompany him on a trip to China and to the golf course. The film provided the well-known image of the "media chancellor". In other words, of someone who wanted to paint his own image and not let others determine it. Schröder's fifth wife, Soyeon Schröder-Kim, was not least responsible for this. The 55-year-old South Korean management consultant has repeatedly featured the former chancellor in private moments on the social network Instagram since their marriage in 2018. However, there has been a break from broadcasting there since January 5th. Gerhard Schröder has had bitter years. His rapid move to well-paid supervisory board positions in Russian companies after leaving the chancellor's office in 2005 brought him severe criticism. When Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom Schröder calls his friend, ordered his troops to attack Ukraine in February 2022, the former chancellor hesitated for a long time to distance himself from him. He even undertook an unsuccessful peace mission to Moscow a few weeks after the outbreak of war. In political Germany, he largely isolated himself with his attitude towards Putin. The Bundestag removed his former chancellor's office. However, an SPD party expulsion procedure failed. The current SPD general secretary Matthias Miersch even attended Schröder's birthday party in Hanover last April. Around this 80th birthday, Schröder appeared in public more frequently. Recently, however, his cancellation of an appearance in the Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania state parliament due to illness caused a stir. In mid-January, Schröder was to be questioned there before the investigative committee that is investigating the construction of the Nord Stream 2 Baltic Sea gas pipeline. The parliamentarians are particularly interested in Russia's political and financial influence on the actions of the SPD-led Schwerin state governments. The question arises as to what role Schröder played. He promoted Nord Stream 1 as chancellor, and then the construction of the other pipeline in 2006 as chairman of the board of directors of Nord Stream 2 AG, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Russian Gazprom. Schröder's testimony in Schwerin is unlikely to come to fruition for the time being. He is "neither currently nor in the foreseeable future able to cope with the physical and psychological stress of a lengthy - especially public - questioning in an investigative committee," his doctor wrote in his statement. And he warns: “This would further worsen his health and, in the worst case, lead to total decompensation.” In other words, a condition in which even the best doctors would have difficulty helping the former chancellor.