Joschka Fischer
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Joseph Martin "Joschka" Fischer (April 12, 1948 – ) was German foreign minister and Vice Chancellor in the government of Gerhard Schröder from 1998 to 2005. He was a leading figure in the German Green Party and according to opinion polls [1], he was the most popular politician in Germany for most of the government's duration. Following the September 2005 election, in which the Schröder government was defeated, he left office on 22 November 2005.
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[edit] Early life
Fischer was born in Gerabronn in Baden-Württemberg, the third child of a butcher, whose family had lived in Hungary for several generations, but had to leave the country in 1946 after Hungary was occupied by the Soviet Union. His name "Joschka" is derived from the Hungarian Jóska, diminutive of Joseph (Hungarian József). Fischer dropped out of high school in 1965, and started an apprenticeship as a photographer which he quit in 1966.
In 1967 he became active in the German student movement and left-wing movement (post-)1968 (Spontis), first in Stuttgart but after 1968 in Frankfurt am Main. Later Fischer had several unskilled worker jobs, among others in the largest left-wing bookstore in Frankfurt, the "Libresso" in Opera Square. During this period he also began attending leftist university events as a guest student, such as the lectures, de rigueur for revolutionary students, of Theodor W. Adorno, Jürgen Habermas and Oskar Negt. Such meetings had audiences of up to 2000. He studied the works of Marx, Mao and Hegel here. He was a member of the APO (German: Außerparlamentarische Opposition; English: Extra-Parliamentary Opposition), as well as a militant in a group called Revolutionary Fight. He was the leader of several street battles fought by the anarchist Putzgruppe which systematically attacked the police, injuring some of them severely.
His close friendship with Daniel Cohn-Bendit dates from this time. In 1971 he began working for the car manufacturer Opel and attempted to organise his fellow workers for a coming communist revolution. (This was not organising on behalf of an ordinary labour union: the vast majority of Opel's workers had already been organised by IG Metall, the German metalworkers' union, decades earlier.) Six months later he was fired because of these political activities. He then made a living with unskilled work while continuing his activism. He worked as a taxi driver from 1976 to 1981, and later on as a bookshop clerk in the Karl Marx Bookshop in Frankfurt.
In the so-called Deutscher Herbst ("German Autumn") of 1977, Germany was confronted with a series of left-wing terrorist attacks by the Red Army Faction (RAF). According to Fischer's own account, witnessing these events, particularly the kidnapping and murder of Hanns-Martin Schleyer, made him renounce violence as a means of effecting political change. Instead, he became involved in the social movements and later in the newly-founded German Green Party, mainly in the state Hessen.
In May 1981 the Hessian Secretary of Commerce Heinz-Herbert Karry was murdered with a firearm that in 1973 had been transported, among other weapons stolen from an American army base, in Fischer's car. Fischer maintained he had given the car to the later terrorist Hans-Joachim Klein only for the purpose of having him install a new engine. Only later had he learned that the car had been used to transport stolen weapons.
As Foreign Minister, Fischer apologised for the violence of his Putzgruppe days, without disassociating himself from the radical movement. Some critics continue to charge Fischer with leading a 1976 discussion where participants decided to use Molotov cocktails in an upcoming demonstration for RAF member Ulrike Meinhof. Fischer was supposedly arrested on May 14 of that year as a suspect in Molotov cocktail attacks on police, but was released after two days. Fischer has stated that he never used Molotov cocktails against the police.
Fischer has also been criticised for attending a 1969 conference of the Palestine Liberation Organization, where Yasser Arafat called for an all-out war on Israel "until the end".
[edit] Green politician
From 1983 to 1985, Fischer was a member of the Bundestag, the lower house of Germany's federal parliament, for the Green party. In 1985, he became Minister for the Environment in Hessen in the first state Social Democrat-Green coalition (1985-1987). Fischer caused a stir when he appeared at his swearing-in ceremony wearing sports shoes. These shoes are now on display in a museum in Bonn. A notable situation which characterizes his attitude at the time occurred on Oct. 18, 1984, when he addressed Richard Stücklen, current vice president of the parliament, with the words: "With respect, Mr. President, you are an asshole" (German: "Mit Verlaub, Herr Präsident, Sie sind ein Arschloch.").
In the end of the eighties of the past century Fischer used to express his thoughts very frankly in the periodical of the Hessian Green party "Stichwort Grün". He for example confessed in the edition "Dezember/Januar 1988" who in his eyes was the party's protective saint: "Oh Heiliger Dzhugashvili! Hat eine solche grüne Partei überhaupt eine Zukunft?" (Holy Dzhugashvili, does such a Green party have a future? - See:Josef Stalin). And in the edition of October 1989, one month before the Berlin Wall fell, he published an article with the big heading: "Der Wiedervereinigung die Schnauze verbieten!" (shut up re-unification!)
Fischer was again Environment Minister in Hessen from 1991 to 1994, and, later on, became co-chairman of the Greens parliamentary party in the Bundestag. During his years in opposition, Fischer was respected for his oratory, as well as for the charisma he exuded on the political stage. For a large part of the 1990s, with the SPD languishing in the opinion polls, Fischer was referred to by his admiters as the "real" Leader of the Opposition. He leveraged this status into political success, as he moved the Green Party to the centre ground of German politics, paving the way for participation in the nation's federal government.
[edit] Foreign Minister
In September 1998 the Social Democrats, led by Gerhard Schröder, decisively defeated the Christian Democrat government of Helmut Kohl. With the SPD's 42% and the Greens' 7%, a coalition government could be formed. Schröder, the election victor, stated his preference for such a coalition, as did an overwhelming majority of the SPD. After several weeks of negotiations between Social Democrats and Greens, the new government was sworn-in on 27 October 1998. Fischer became Minister of Foreign Affairs.
In 1999 Fischer supported German participation in the Kosovo War. This was an extremely controversial stance within the largely pacifist Green Party, because it meant that, for the first time since World War II, German soldiers would actively participate in combat. He justified this war with allegations that Serbia was planning to commit genocide against the Kosovo Albanians.
Fischer was also in favour of stationing German troops in Afghanistan, but he advised Schröder not to join the war in Iraq. He is known as a good friend of the head of the United Nations, Secretary-General Kofi Annan. By 2005 he was the second longest-serving foreign minister in German postwar history (after Hans-Dietrich Genscher).
In 2005 Fischer was accused by critics of carelessly relaxing controls on visa regulations for Ukraine, thus allowing many illegal immigrants to enter Germany with fake identities. A parliamentary committee was established to examine the case, and unlike in other such committee hearings, Fischer's statement (and that of other top officials) was shown live on public TV. Fischer's appearance before the committee took twelve hours. (See German Visa Affair 2005).
After the defeat of the coalition government in the 2005 election, Fischer announced that he would retire to the backbench. "After 20 years of power, now I want my freedom back", he was quoted as saying. On 13 October 2005, it was announced that Frank-Walter Steinmeier (SPD) would succeed Fischer as Foreign Minister.
[edit] Life after Politics
At the beginning of September 2006 Fischer will be a senior fellow of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University.
[edit] Private life
Fischer has consistently been the most popular German politician, leading the opinion polls for several years, even among supporters of other parties. This popularity may be attributed to his personal integrity as much as to his political points of view.
Until 1996, Fischer had been an outspoken connoisseur of good wines and food (regularly betting cases of expensive wine with opposition politicians on the outcome of elections), and had been overweight. Within a relatively short time he managed to lose an enormous amount of weight. He claimed that this was due to his giving up alcoholic drinks completely and changing his diet. He had also been doing fitness training and even running marathons. He cashed in on his weight loss by writing the book My long race towards myself on his experience, which became an immediate bestseller. Recently he has been putting on weight again.
Fischer has been married five times: his first four marriages, to Edeltraud Fischer (1967-1984), Inge Vogel (1984-1987), Claudia Bohm (1987-1999), and Nicola Leske (1999-2003), all ended in divorce. In October 2005 he married (in Rome) Minu Barati, who was his common-law wife for 2 years. With Inge, his second wife, he has two children: David and Lara. In April 2005 Fischer became a grandfather for the first time.
[edit] Further reading
- Boston Review article reviewing Fischer's biography
- Biography at the German Historic Museum (German)
- Photographs of Joschka Fischer 1991 - 1998 at the German Historic Museum (German)
- Joschka Fischer, la retraite ou pas ? (French)
- Joscka Fischer : les discours d’un Vert aux affaires étrangères (French)
- Interview with Joschka Fischer After moving to Princeton University, Fischer gives an in-depth interview about security and globalization for Princeton Report on Knowledge.
The following sources reflect the views of U.S. adversaries of Fischer and his policies, especially Germany's decision not to participate in the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
- Why Germany Isn't Convinced by Paul Berman in Slate
- Power and the Idealists : Or, The Passion of Joschka Fischer, and Its Aftermath by Paul Berman. ISBN 1-932360-91-3 (Originally appeared as a 25,000 word essay in The New Republic, September 3, 2001)
- The last rock 'n' roller of German politics In an interview with the taz given in September 2005, Fischer reflects on what his coming retirement means for his party, his country and himself. At signandsight.com
| Preceded by: Klaus Kinkel |
Foreign Minister of Germany 1998–2005 |
Succeeded by: Frank-Walter Steinmeier |
