Draft:So-yeon Schröder-Kim

So-yeon Schröder-Kim (born 3 June 1970 in Seoul, South Korea) is a South Korean interpreter and translator and has been the fifth wife of former Chancellor of Germany Gerhard Schröder since 2018.

Career and Marriage to Schröder

So-yeon Kim emigrated from Seoul to Marburg in 1995 for study. In this period she also attended a Japanology course at a university. Afterwards she started her career as a self-employed translator and founded an interpretive company “Mirae Translation & Communications” in Seoul. As a professional translator, she translated a collection of essays by German politician Hartmut Koschyk on his encounter with South Korean politician and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Kim Dae-jung published in 2002 under the title Begegnungen mit Kim Dae-jung (Encounters with Kim Dae-jung) from the Olzog Verlag publishing house. When Edmund Stoiber visited South Korea as Minister-President of Bavaria in 2003, she served him as an interpreter in a dialogue.

In July 2011, she began working at the Seoul branch of the economic development company NRW.Invest Inc.. In subsequent years, she supervised over 80 South Korean entrepreneurs as manager, thus forming the North Rhine-Westfalia branch. Kim is also a member of the German Korean Forum and has endeavored to improve Germany-South Korea relations for years, as is seen in her 2016 supportive participation in the projects Industrie 4.0 and Smart Factory.

In 2015 she attended a manager meeting in South Korea and got acquainted with Gerhard Schröder. In the following 2016 and 2017, she translated his 540-paged autobiography Entscheidungen (Decisions) into Korean. On 12 September 2017, she held an introductory party of the book and the then President of South Korea Moon Jae-in was also present there.

Kim first married a plastic surgeon in Seoul, whom she bore a daughter. Their marriage eventually ended in divorce in November 2017. Then she remarried Gerhard Schröder on 2 May 2018 in Seoul. They officially notarized their marriage on 22 August in the Hannover Registry Office in the Old Town Hall. The newly wed couple chose “Schröder” as their family name and hovered between Hannover and Seoul for residence. They threw a wedding party with around 150 guests and relatives at Hotel Adlon-Kempinski in Berlin on 5 October 2018.

In May 2023 Kim was dismissed without notice from NRW.Global Business., where she had worked as its South Korean representative, after she had participated in the May 9 Victory Day anniversary ceremony held at the Russian Embassy in Berlin along with her husband, Egon Krenz, Tino Chrupalla, and Alexander Gauland.

Personal life

Kim defines herself as a Christian believer as she is originated from a Christian family.

Publications

Translations from German into Korean

• Hartmut Koschyk (Hrsg.): Begegnungen mit Kim Dae-jung. Korea auf dem Weg zu Frieden, Versöhnung und Einheit. (Encounter with Kim Dae-jung. Korea on the way to Peace, reconciliation, and unity.) Collection of essays. Olzog, München 2002, ISBN 978-3-7892-8094-8.

• Gerhard Schröder: Entscheidungen. Mein Leben in der Politik. (Decisions. My life in politics.) Hoffmann und Campe, Hamburg 2006, ISBN 978-3-455-50014-1.