Count Otto Lambsdorff, a German politician who helped raise $5 billion to compensate Nazi-era slave laborers, has died aged 82, his Free Democrat party said on Sunday.
Lambsdorff, whose ministerial career was ended by a party funding scandal in the 1980s, died at a hospital in Bonn on Saturday. He was chairman of the pro-business FDP from 1988 to 1993 and since then had been party's honorary chairman.
"He had a tremendous influence on German economic policies for many years and will be remembered as one of the great personalities of our social market economy," said German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who also praised his work to compensate people forced by the Nazis to work as slaves.
Lambsdorff, who lost a leg when he was 18 after a bombing attack near the end of World War II, had a long and controversial career in German coalition politics.
From 1977 to 1984 he was Economy Minister, first under Chancellor Helmut Schmidt of the Social Democrats and then Chancellor Helmut Kohl of the Christian Democrats.
After he was forced to resign in 1984 over the campaign contributions scandal, he remained a powerful figure in the FDP and his views on economic policy were widely respected.
Outside Germany he is perhaps best known for his efforts to compensate 1.66 million former slave laborers for their suffering under Hitler's regime.
Critics and admirers praised Lambsdorff for taking on a difficult job as the government's point man in 1999.
Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder named him as his chief negotiator to raise funds from German industry to compensate survivors, even though the FDP was in opposition by then and all previous governments had avoided the issue.
Despite initial criticism from some Jewish groups and Holocaust survivors that Lambsdorff's wartime army service disqualified him from the job, he won admiration for his swift and efficient performance.
Under an agreement signed in 2000, the German government and industry agreed to split $5 billion in compensation.
