Walter Scheel was born on July 8, 1910 in Höhscheid, now a district of Solingen.

He completed an apprenticeship as a bank clerk before being conscripted by the Wehrmacht on September 3, 1939. He did his military service during the war and eventually served as an adjutant in the air force. After the Second World War, he worked as a managing director in various industrial companies and associations.

He joined the FDP in 1946 and became a city councillor in his home town in 1948. From 1950 to 1954, he was a member of the state parliament of North Rhine-Westphalia, representing the constituency of Remscheid. He sat in the Bundestag from 1953 until he took office as Federal President on July 1, 1974.

Scheel was a member of the Federal Cabinet as Federal Minister for Economic Cooperation (1961 to 1966) and as Federal Minister for Foreign Affairs and Vice-Chancellor (1969 to 1974). In this capacity, he visited the Hessian state capital on October 29, 1970.

Lord Mayor Schmitt welcomed his state guest at a reception in the ballroom of the town hall and paid tribute to him as a long-time advocate of freedom and democracy. Scheel thanked him for his kind words, recalled his positive memories of previous visits to Wiesbaden and then signed the city's Golden Book.