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His father worked as a wheelwright. After graduating from high school in 1938, Scheel trained as a banker. During the Second World War he was drafted into military service from 1939 to 1945. After the end of the war, Scheel worked in several companies and then worked as a self-employed auditor. Scheel, who had already joined the FDP in 1946, sat as a Liberal member of the North Rhine-Westphalia state parliament from 1950 to 1953. From 1953 to 1974 he was a member of the German Bundestag, of which he served as vice-president from 1967 to 1969. At the same time, Scheel was also represented in the European Parliament from 1958 to 1961. Scheel took up his first government office in 1961 as Minister for Economic Cooperation under Konrad Adenauer's government. The subsequent Federal Chancellor Ludwig Erhard confirmed him in this office, which he held until the change of government in 1966.
In 1968, the FDP party conference made Scheel chairman of the party. As such, he gave the Liberals a new profile, which led to an opening towards the SPD and prepared the future government coalition. Under the government of Willy Brandt, Scheel was appointed Foreign Minister and Vice Chancellor from 1969 to 1974. The Brandt-Scheel government brought about a rapprochement in foreign policy with the Soviet Union, the GDR and the neighboring Eastern Bloc states. In this context, Foreign Minister Scheel's term of office saw such important diplomatic milestones in the history of the Federal Republic as the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty with the Soviet Union and the East and Berlin Treaties. Scheel was the first German foreign minister to visit Israel in 1971. A year later he established diplomatic relations with the PRC. In May 1974, Scheel was elected fourth Federal President of the Federal Republic, succeeding Gustav Heinemann.
Scheel handed over his party and government positions to Hans Dietrich Genscher and served as head of state until 1979. Since Scheel decided not to run again, Karl Carstens succeeded him as the new Federal President. For his "services to the responsible cooperation of the Federal Republic of Germany in the European Communities and his tireless striving for their consolidation and further expansion among the peoples of Europe" Scheel was awarded the Charlemagne Prize in Aachen in 1977. From 1980, Scheel served as chairman of the supervisory board of the federally owned but privately run German development company DEG. In 1982 he also joined the supervisory board of Thyssen AG. In 1986, Scheel published the book "Who Still Hurts by Germany's Division?" From 1992 to 1994, Scheel was also involved in the Berlin-Brandenburg Media Council. He also served as chairman of the board of the Germanisches Nationalmuseum in Nuremberg until 1993.
Since then, the statesman had largely withdrawn from public life, although he did not refrain from occasionally making critical comments about the policies of his own and other parties. Privately, he has been married to Barbara Wiese for the third time since 1988 and lives in Munich and later in Berlin. In 2009 the couple moved from Berlin to Bad Krozingen in Baden. In the town hall there he maintained an office rented by the Federal President's Office. On May 26, 2011, the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development awarded the "Walter Scheel Prize" for commitment to development cooperation for the first time.
Walter Scheel died on August 24, 2016 at the age of 97 in Bad Krötzingen.
