Richard von Weizsäcker, the patrician first president of the reunited Germany and a guardian of his nation’s moral conscience, has died, the president’s office in Berlin announced on Saturday. He was 94.

President Joachim Gauck’s office said he had died overnight.

Mr. Weizsäcker became West Germany’s head of state in 1984 and served through the merger of East Germany into the Federal Republic of Germany before stepping down in 1994. His eloquence turned a largely ceremonial, nonpolitical office into a forum to expound on issues of national concern — which he did, often bluntly and, to many, movingly, even at the risk of ruffling political feathers.

An unsparing 1985 address to the Bonn Parliament on the 40th anniversary of Germany’s surrender in World War II earned him respect abroad. In the address, he exhorted all Germans — young or old, personally guilty or not — to acknowledge the shame in their nation’s past, saying it was the only way they could build a peaceful future and achieve reconciliation with the many peoples who suffered the brunt of Hitler’s Third Reich.

“Hardly any country has in its history always remained free from blame for war or violence,” he declared. “The genocide of the Jews, however, is unparalleled in history.”