Otto Friedrich Wilhelm Freiherr von der Wenge Graf Lambsdorff, known as Otto Graf Lambsdorff (20 December 1926 – 5 December 2009), was a German politician of the Free Democratic Party (FDP). Early life and education Lambsdorff was born in Aachen (Rhineland) to Herbert Graf Lambsdorff and Eva, née Schmidt. He attended school in Berlin and Brandenburg an der Havel and became an officer cadet in the Wehrmacht in 1944. In April 1945 he was severely wounded in an Allied strafing attack and lost his lower left leg. Lambsdorff was a prisoner of war until 1946. After World War II he passed his Abitur and studied law at the Universities of Bonn and Cologne where he obtained a PhD. Political career In 1951, Lambsdorff became a member of the liberal FDP, and from 1972 to 1998 he represented this party in the Federal parliament, the Bundestag. Within and outside his party he was known as a representative of the market liberals; a mocking name was der Marktgraf ("the market count", a play on Markgraf, "margrave"). Federal Minister for Economic Affairs When Chancellor Willy Brandt made way for Helmut Schmidt in 1977, Lambsdorff was appointed West German Federal Minister of Economics in the new government and served from 1977 until 1982. He held the same office again from 1982 until 1984 in the government of Chancellor Helmut Kohl after his party pulled out of the coalition with the Social Democratic Party to form a new Government with Kohl's Christian Democratic Union. In 1987, Lambsdorff became the first West German cabinet minister to be indicted while in office when he was forced to resign over allegations of corruption in the so-called Flick Affair. By January 1987, however, the prosecutor asked the court to acquit Lambsdorff of all corruption charges, including charges he accepted $50,000 between 1977 and 1980 from the Flick concern in return for granting lucrative tax waivers. On 16 February 1987, he was convicted by the Bonn State Court on lesser charges, namely tax evasion on donations to political parties. During the 18-month trial, he won re-election to Parliament and served as his parliamentary group's spokesman on economic matters. Chairman of the Free Democrats Lambsdorff served as chairman of the FDP from 1988 until 1993. In 1991, during the Persian Gulf war, Lambsdorff joined American officials in voicing anger at the German government, accusing it of moving slowly to prevent some