Wolfgang Schäuble: Merkel's no-nonsense finance minister dies aged 81

German ex-finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble, who helped steer the eurozone through the debt crisis, has died at the age of 81.

An MP for 51 years in Germany's Bundestag, he played a key role in negotiating German reunification after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.

He then survived an attempt on his life by a mentally unstable gunman.

And although never chancellor, Schäuble was widely viewed as one of Germany's most influential post-war politicians.

Current Chancellor Olaf Scholz said he had shaped his country for more than half a century and Germany had lost "a sharp thinker, a passionate politician and a pugnacious Democrat".