Joschka Fischer
Joschka Fischer
Biography
Fischer has a controversial biography for a foreign minister. He was born in Gerabronn (Baden-Württemberg) as third child of a butcher, whose family had lived in Hungary for several generations, but had to leave the country after World War II. Fischer dropped out of highschool (Gymnasium) in 1965, and started an apprenticeship as a photographer which he quit 1966.
In 1967 he became engaged in the left-wing movement (post-) 68 (Spontis), first in Stuttgart but after 1968 in Frankfurt, including participation in protest marches which became violent. His close friendship with Daniel Cohn-Bendit dates from this time. In 1971 he started working at automobile maker Opel as an ordinary worker in order to agitate working class people. Some months later he was fired because of his propaganda activities, and made a living through unskilled work while doing political 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 HeiÃÂer Herbst (hot autumn, fall of 1977), Germany was confronted with leftist terrorism (Red Army Faction). According to Fischer's own account, these events made him give up violent and radical action. Instead, he engaged in the social movements and later in the newly found German Green Party, mainly in Hesse.
From 1983 to 1985, Fischer was a member of the German Bundestag for the Green party. In 1985 he became minister for the environment in the German state Hesse in the first state level red-green coalition in Germany ever (1985-1987), his appointment causing an uproar because he wore tennis shoes during his oath of office. These shoes are now on display in the German Historic Museum in Bonn.
He became minister for the environment of Hesse again from 1991 to 1994, and went on to again become a member of the Bundestag working as one of the two chair persons for the Green faction. Fischer became the vice chancellor and foreign minister of Germany in 1998 and was re-elected in 2002.
In 1999 Fischer decisively supported the German participation in the Kosovo war which was led against all international law. This meant that for the first time after the Second World War German soldiers took part in a war, contrary to the German constituion which prohibits any war of aggression. He justified this war with reference to Auschwitz: The Serbs allegedly planed a genocid on the Kosovo Albanians in the dimension of the shoah.
Fischer has an honorary degree (Dr. h.c.) from the University of Haifa.
He was married four times, to Edeltraud (1967-1984) in Gretna Green, Inge (1984-1987), Claudia (1987-1999), and Nicola (1999-2003), all marriages ending in divorce.
Despite — or maybe because of — his controversial past, which he never tried to hide, he is the most popular German politician, leading the opinion polls for several years as of 2004).
| Preceded by: Klaus Kinkel | Federal Minister of Foreign Affairs 1998- | Succeeded by: Incumbent |