NEW YORK — Roman Herzog, who as Germany’s second president after reunification called for “confidence and joie de vivre’’ during a time of economic malaise, died Tuesday. He was 82.

The death was announced by the current president, Joachim Gauck, who did not provide further details.

“His forward-looking courage was combined with a charming skepticism,’’ Gauck said. “This combination was as unmistakable as his independent spirit and his love of direct speech.’’

Like his predecessor, Richard von Weizsaecker, Mr. Herzog used the presidency, which is largely a ceremonial post, to serve as a moral guardian for liberal and democratic values. He spoke often about Germany’s moral responsibility for the crimes of its past.

But at home, Mr. Herzog was best known for a 1997 speech in Berlin in which he spoke with striking candor about the structural reasons for economic malaise.

“In Germany, anyone who shows initiative or — above all — wants to do things differently is in danger of drowning in a morass of well-intentioned regulations,’’ he said, adding that “the German mania for red tape’’ meant it was much more expensive to build a single-family home in Germany than in the neighboring Netherlands, even though wage levels were comparable.

“A society plagued by fear becomes incapable of reform and can no longer shape its future,’’ he said. “Fear stifles the spirit of invention, the courage to go it alone, the hope that problems can be overcome. The German word angst has actually entered the vocabulary of the Americans and the French as symbolic of our mindset.’’

He declared, “What will decide our fate is our ability to innovate.’’ He criticized “special interests’’ that he blamed for hobbling overhauls. And he faulted elites, a message that might resonate today as Western democracies confront a wave of populist anger.

“Our political, business, media, and social leaders may recognize what is right,’’ Herzog said. “But I do not have the sense that they are able or willing to put their insights into practice.’’

He called for overhauls of the labor market, the taxation system, health insurance, and the management of public works; reductions in regulations; and reducing unemployment.

“The world is on the move; it will not wait for Germany,’’ he said. “Germany needs a jolt.’’

Noting the country’s many strengths — its well-educated populace, its infrastructure and capital, and “an almost unparalleled degree of social security, freedom, and justice’’ — Mr. Herzog called for a Germany “that is making a comeback, one full of confidence and joie de vivre, a society of tolerance and personal commitment.’’

The remarks — now seen by many in Germany as prescient — gave a short-term lift to Chancellor Helmut Kohl, a fellow Christian Democrat, who nominated Mr. Herzog in 1994 for the job of president. But ultimately it was Kohl’s successor, Gerhard Schroeder, who pushed through some of the most unpopular measures: cuts in unemployment and pension benefits, combined with labor market overhauls and reductions in the income tax rate.

The changes have been credited with a boom that has transformed Germany, which during Mr. Herzog’s presidency was often called the “sick man of Europe,’’ into one of the most robust economies of the developed world.

A native of Bavaria, Mr. Herzog joined the Christian Democratic Union in 1970, serving as chairman from 1978 to 1983.

From 1980 to 1983 he was a member of the Baden-Wuerttemberg legislature. As the state’s interior minister, he developed a hard-line reputation by introducing the use of rubber bullets and forcing arrested demonstrators to pay police costs.

As the chief justice of the Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe, from 1983 to 1987, Mr. Herzog upheld the right of protesters who had converged on a nuclear power plant in northern Germany.

He was not well known when Kohl nominated him to succeed von Weizsaecker, who had been president of West Germany since 1984 and served on after reunification in 1990.

At a number of historic anniversaries, Mr. Herzog recalled Germany’s painful past.

At a ceremony remembering the 50th anniversary of the 1944 Warsaw Uprising, he laid a wreath and said: “I ask for forgiveness for what Germans did to you. What we need is trust and understanding, and that can only grow when our peoples put the dark aspects of their recent history completely into the open.’’

The next year, he attended a ceremony commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Allied firebombing of Dresden, which killed thousands of people and nearly leveled a city once renowned for its beauty. His decision to attend was controversial, but he told an interviewer, “For me, Dresden is an occasion to radically reject war.’’