As mayor of Hamburg, he gambled
big on a wildly expensive concert hall that has since become the port city's crown jewel. But as Germany's new finance minister, the pragmatic Olaf Scholz is expected to make far fewer waves.
Angela Merkel has survived multiple crises but her obstacle-strewn path to a fourth term has prompted suggestions she is past her peak, leaving Germans to ponder life without the veteran chancellor.
Germany's influential and veteran Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble is deeply pro-European but unbending on the need to stick to commitments and seems at the end of his tether with debt-wracked Greece.
