On October 12, 1990, a lunatic fired three shots from a Smith & Wesson .38 on Wolfgang Schäube, interior minister then and now treasury minister of Germany. On hit the jaw, on hit his spinal cord and another bullet hit his bodyguard who survived it. Since then, Wolfgang Schäube is a paraplegic, but his political career continued of course. On the other hand, when Schäuble, after becoming minister of the interior in 2005 again, became minister of the treasury in 2009 at the age of 67, when he just could have retired and get a generous pension, people said or at least heard that Schäuble did it because it was some kind of "Fuck you!" to the "shit" that happened back then.
Only to summarize, Schäuble was more or less designated heir of the throne of Helmut Kohl. When the 1998 elections were lost, Schäuble became Kohl's successor as CDU chairman. Kohl also said that in the case of re-election, he would have retired by 2000 and would have Schäuble elected chancellor. Of course, the party's contribution scandals made many heads role and Schäuble's successor as CDU chairman became Frau Angela Merkel. The rest is history.
So what would have changed if the assassination attempt had never happened or at least would have left Schäuble more unscathed, meaning an intact spinal so he could walk?