Richard's grandfather Karl von Weizsäcker had been Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Württemberg, and was ennobled in 1897 and raised to the hereditary title of Baron (Freiherr) in 1916.

This fact is speculated to be the motive behind the murder of his son in 2019, though the suspect has been sent to a secure hospital unit due to a "delusional general aversion" against the victim's family.

[39] During his early tenure as president, he wrote a newspaper article supporting a memorandum written by German evangelical intellectuals including Werner Heisenberg and his brother Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker who had spoken out in favour of accepting the Oder–Neisse line as the western border of Poland as an indispensable precondition for lasting peace in Europe.

Some years later, Helmut Kohl offered him a safe seat for the 1965 elections, even going so far as to have Chancellor Konrad Adenauer write two letters urging him to run, but Weizsäcker declined, due to his work in the German Evangelical Church Assembly, wanting to avoid a conflict of interest.

In his speeches and writings, he repeatedly urged his compatriots in the Federal Republic to look upon themselves as a nation firmly anchored in the Western alliance, but with special obligations and interests in the East.

At the same time, chancellor Helmut Kohl had accepted an invitation to visit a congress of the Silesian association of expellees which was to take place under the slogan "Silesia is ours!"

[52][53] It was originally planned that United States President Ronald Reagan should take part in the Second World War memorial event in the Bundestag, shifting the emphasis from remembering the past to highlighting West Germany in its partnership with the Western Bloc.

In an attempt to reproduce the gesture made by Kohl and French President François Mitterrand a year earlier at Verdun, where they held hands in a symbolic moment, the chancellor and Reagan were set to visit the military cemetery in Bitburg.

[55] The president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Werner Nachmann, thanked Weizsäcker for his strong words,[59] as did Karl Ibach, a former member of the German Resistance, who called his speech a "moment of glory (Sternstunde) of our republic".

[65] Thereby he declared an end to the Historikerstreit ('historians' dispute') that had sharply divided German scholars and journalists for two years, stating "Auschwitz remains unique.

"[66] In his remarks to the historians, Weizsäcker said their dispute had prompted accusations that they sought to raise a "multitude of comparisons and parallels" that would cause "the dark chapter of our own history to disappear, to be reduced to a mere episode.

"[66] Andreas Hillgruber, a historian at Cologne University, whose 1986 book in which he linked the collapse of the eastern front and the Holocaust was one of the subjects of the dispute, declared himself in full agreement with Weizsäcker, insisting that he had never tried to "relativize" the past.

At midnight on 3 October 1990, during the official festivities held before the Reichstag building in Berlin to mark the moment of the reunification of Germany, President Weizsäcker delivered the only speech of the night, immediately after the raising of the flag, and before the playing of the National Anthem.

[73] Weizsäcker stretched the traditionally ceremonial position of Germany's president to reach across political, national, and age boundaries to address a wide range of controversial issues.

He is credited with being largely responsible for taking the lead on an asylum policy overhaul after the arson attack by neo-Nazis in Mölln, in which three Turkish citizens died in 1993.

[75] In March 1994, Weizsäcker attended the Frankfurt premiere of the film Schindler's List along with the Israeli ambassador, Avi Primor, and the head of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Ignatz Bubis.

In a memorandum released in February 1991, he declared that he would not act as a mere "decoration of a so-called capital",[77] urging the diet to move more constitutional organs to Berlin.

[80] In an interview book released in 1992, midway through his second term, Weizsäcker voiced a harsh critique of the leading political parties in Germany, claiming that they took a larger role in public life than was awarded to them by the constitution.

He criticized the high number of career politicians (Berufspolitiker), who "in general are neither expert nor dilettante, but generalists with particular knowledge only in political battle".

While comments from politicians were mainly negative, a public poll conducted by the Wickert-Institut in June 1992 showed that 87.4 percent of the population agreed with the president.

[82] Political commentators generally interpreted the remarks as a hidden attack on the incumbent chancellor Helmut Kohl, since Weizsäcker's relationship with his former patron had cooled over the years.

[84] During a four-day state visit to the United Kingdom in July 1986, Weizsäcker addressed a joint session of the Houses of Parliament, the first German to be accorded that honor.

However, when German foreign minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher protested against this to his Soviet counterpart Eduard Shevardnadze, the speech was then printed unabridged in the lesser paper Izvestia.

Weizsäcker also appealed to the Soviet authorities to agree to a pardon for the last inmate in the Spandau Prison, former Deputy Führer Rudolf Hess.

Steinmeier praised Weizsäcker's role in foreign relations, where he had worked towards reconciliation with France and Poland and supported a dialogue with the communist regimes in the East, often against his own party.

Also in attendance were former presidents Roman Herzog, Horst Köhler, and Christian Wulff, as well as former chancellors Helmut Schmidt and Gerhard Schröder.

[102] Weizsäcker, who had joined the CDU in 1954, was known for often publicly voicing political views different from his own party line, both in and out of the presidential office.

While he was himself sceptical of Willy Brandt's Ostpolitik, he urged his party not to block it entirely in the lower house, the Bundestag, since rejection would be met with dismay abroad.

[109] After his presidency came to an end, Weizsäcker remained vocal in daily politics, e.g. speaking for a more liberal immigration policy, calling the way his party handled it "simply ridiculous".

[122] Both Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Joachim Gauck praised Weizsäcker, with the latter declaring upon the news of his death: "We are losing a great man and an outstanding head of state.