Former German President Roman Herzog has died. He was 82.

Current President Joachim Gauck announced Herzog’s death on Tuesday, describing him as “a distinctive personality” who “advocated readiness for reform and at the same time stood for preserving the tried and tested.”

Herzog, a former law and politics professor, served as the chief justice of the Federal Constitutional Court ? the country's highest ? before he was elected president in 1994, serving until 1999. The president’s role in Germany is largely ceremonial.

He pressed Germany to embrace economic reform in the 1990s and stressed the importance of remembering the Holocaust.

Herzog was one of the first leaders to address Germany’s resistance to reform and its growing economic stagnation in the 1990s, at a time when veteran conservative Chancellor Helmut Kohl’s 16-year tenure was coming to a close. Germany was struggling with double-digit unemployment, amid worries that its labor market was too inflexible.

“Pessimism has become a normal mindset in our country,” he said in a speech in 1997. “Those who want to delay or prevent major reforms need to be aware that our nation will pay a high price for this.”

Herzog formalized an annual day of remembrance for the victims of the Holocaust on Jan. 27 ??the anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp in German-occupied Poland.

Announcing the decision in 1996, he said remembrance must “remind future generations to be vigilant.” Germany’s Jewish community praised Herzog’s commitment to ensuring that Nazi atrocities not be forgotten.

Contributing: The Associated Press