Gerhard Schröder trained as a retail salesman in a china shop in Lemgo, finishing in 1961. From 1962 to 1964 he went to evening school for the intermediate school certificate. In 1966 he passed the Abitur at the Westfalen-Kolleg in Bielefeld, a school for adults. He then studied law in Göttingen and passed the first state exam in 1971. His foreign minister, Joschka Fischer, took the other road. He left the Gymnasium in 1965 without a diploma and broke off an apprenticeship as a photographer in 1966. By his own account, he attended lectures in Frankfurt as a guest. Until 1981 he worked as a taxi driver.