Margret Müller
Who was Oskar Lafontaine 's spouse from 1982 to 1988?
Oskar Lafontaine Oskar Lafontaine ( ; born 16 September 1943 ) is a German politician . He served as Minister-President of the state of Saarland from 1985 to 1998 , and was federal leader of the Social Democratic Party ( SPD ) from 1995 to 1999 . He was the lead candidate for the SPD in the 1990 German federal election , but lost by a wide margin . He served as Minister of Finance under Chancellor Gerhard Schröder after the SPDs victory in the 1998 federal election , but resigned from both the ministry and Bundestag less than six months later , positioning himself as a popular opponent of Schröders policies in the tabloid press . In the lead-up to the 2005 federal election , as a reaction to Schröders Agenda 2010 reforms , Lafontaine joined the newly-founded left-wing party Labour and Social Justice – The Electoral Alternative . Following a merger with the Party of Democratic Socialism in June 2007 , he became co-chairman of The Left . He was the lead candidate for the Saarland branch of the party in the 2009 Saarland state election where it won over 20% of the vote . He announced his resignation from all federal political functions after being diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2009 . He retained his position as a member of the Saarland legislature , and since May 2012 has been leader of the opposition in Saarland . Family and education . Lafontaine was born in Saarlautern ( now Saarlouis ) into a family of craftsmen . His father , Hans Lafontaine , was a professional baker and was killed serving in World War II . He spent his childhood living with his mother , Katharina ( née Ferner ) , and his twin brother , Hans , in Dillingen . He attended a Catholic episcopal boarding institution in Prüm and there was educated at the Regino-Gymnasium , a public school . He left school in 1962 and received a scholarship from Cusanuswerk , the scholarship body of the Catholic Church in Germany , to study physics at the universities of Bonn and Saarland . Lafontaine graduated in 1969 ; his thesis concerned the production of monocrystalline barium titanate . He worked for Versorgungs- und Verkehrsgesellschaft Saarbrücken until 1974 , serving on its board from 1971 . Lafontaine has been married four times and has two sons by his second and third wives . Lafontaine was married to Ingrid Bachert from 1967 to 1982 . From 1982 to 1988 he was married to the artist Margret Müller . Together they have a son ( Frederic , born 1982 ) . From 1993 to 2013 he was married to Christa Müller . They have a son together ( Carl-Maurice , born 1997 ) . In November 2011 , Lafontaine officially presented fellow politician Sahra Wagenknecht as his new girlfriend , who is 26 years his junior . Since 22 December 2014 they have been married . He is a non-practising Catholic . Political rise . Lafontaine rose to prominence locally as mayor of Saarbrücken and became more widely known as a critic of chancellor Helmut Schmidts support for the NATO plan to deploy Pershing II missiles in Germany . From 1985 to 1998 he served as Minister-President of the Saarland . In this position he struggled to preserve the industrial base of the state , which was based on steel production and coal mining with subsidies , and served as President of the Bundesrat in 1992/93 . Chancellor candidacy and assassination attempt . Lafontaine was the SPDs candidate for Chancellor in the German federal election of 1990 . He faced nearly impossible odds . The election had been called two months after the reunification of Germany , and the incumbent government of Helmut Kohl was in a nearly unassailable position . During the campaign he was attacked with a knife by a mentally deranged woman after a speech in Cologne . His carotid artery was slashed and he remained in a critical condition for several days . Political comeback . At the Mannheim convention in 1995 , he was elected chairman of the SPD in a surprise move , replacing Rudolf Scharping . He was mainly responsible for bringing the whole political weight of the SPD to bear against Kohl and his CDU party , rejecting bipartisan cooperation that had characterized German politics for many years . Lafontaine argued that any help given to Kohl would only lengthen his unavoidable demise . After the SPDs unexpectedly clear victory at the polls in September 1998 , he was appointed Federal Minister of Finance in the first government of Gerhard Schröder . Minister of Finance . During his short tenure as Minister of Finance , Lafontaine was a main bogeyman of UK Eurosceptics . This was because , among other things , he had called for the prompt tax harmonisation of the European Union , which would have resulted in an increase in UK taxes . In 1998 , English tabloid The Sun called Lafontaine Europes most dangerous man . On 11 March 1999 , he resigned from all his official and party offices , claiming that lack of cooperation in the cabinet had become unbearable . Until the formation of the Left Party he was known for his attacks against the Schroeder government in the tabloid Bild-Zeitung , which is generally considered conservative . Leaving the SPD and formation of The Left party . On 24 May 2005 Lafontaine left the SPD . After two weeks of speculation it was announced on 10 June that he would run as the lead candidate for The Left party ( Die Linke ) , a coalition of the Labor and Social Justice Party ( WASG ) , which was based in western Germany , and the Left Party.PDS , which was the successor to the ruling East German Socialist Unity Party ( SED ) . Lafontaine joined the WASG on 18 June 2005 and was selected to head their list for the 2005 Federal Election in North Rhine-Westphalia on the same day . Moreover , he also unsuccessfully contested the Saarbrücken constituency , which he had previously represented from 1990 to 2002 . Nevertheless , the result of the Left party in the Saarland was by far the best in any of the federal states in the West of Germany . In 2007 , when the Left Party was formed in a merger between Left Party.PDS and WASG , he became chairman alongside Lothar Bisky . In May 2009 , he declared that Financial capitalism has failed . We need to democratize the economy . The workforce needs to have a far greater say in their companies than has been the case so far . Criticism . An article by Lafontaine on Erich Honecker , state and party leader of the German Democratic Republic and a fellow Saarlander , in the magazine Der Spiegel was criticised as laudatory by many observers . In the late 1980s and early 1990s , he tarnished his left-wing credentials with a plea for pro-business policies and a call for the reduction of the influx of Germans from Eastern Europe and asylum-seekers . Lafontaine lives in a manor-like house , commonly known as the palace of social justice ( Palast der sozialen Gerechtigkeit ) . When asked about whether this could be in conflict with his socialist ideas , Lafontaine said politicians of the left do not have to be poor , but they have to fight against poverty . Lafontaine opposes wind power , claiming that it would destroy the German Cultural landscape .