Joschka Fischer

Joseph Martin "Joschka" Fischer (born April 12, 1948 in Gerabronn, Baden-Württemberg) has been the German foreign minister and Vice Chancellor in the Red-Green coalition since 1998. He is a leading figure in the German Green Party and was the party's standard bearer in the 2002 election campaign, which saw an increase in votes and seats for the Greens. According to opinion polls http://www.tagesthemen.de/aktuell/meldungen/0,1185,OID2020828_TYP6_THE2020794_NAV3332916~1260572~2020794_REF1_BAB,00.html, he was the most popular politician in Germany for most of the red-green coalition government's duration. He was the frontrunner for the 2005 election, too.

Chaotic Times

Later Fischer had several unskilled worker jobs among others in the largest left-wing bookstore in the town, the "Libresso" at Opera Square. He simultaneously started to go to university events as a guest student, requisite events for the revolutionary students: Lectures of Theodor W. Adorno, Jürgen Habermas and Oskar Negt, meetings with up to 2000 audience. He studied the documents of Karl Marx, Mao Zedong and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel here. He was a member of the radically left-wing and militant group revolutionary fight. He was the leader of several street battles with the police ("Putzgruppe") in which dozens of policemen were severely injured.

Related Topics:
Opera Square - Theodor W. Adorno - Jürgen Habermas - Oskar Negt - Karl Marx - Mao Zedong - Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

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As Foreign Minister, Fisher apologized for his violence, however, didn't want to disassociate himself from it. 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. Six months later he was fired because of these political activities. He then made a living with unskilled work while continuing with 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.

Related Topics:
Daniel Cohn-Bendit - 1971 - Opel - Activism - 1976 - 1981 - Bookshop - Karl Marx

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In the so-called Deutscher Herbst (German Autumn, fall of 1977), Germany was confronted with a series of criminal, left-wing terrorist (terrorism) attacks (Red Army Faction). 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 province of Hesse.

Related Topics:
Fall - 1977 - Terrorism - Red Army Faction - Hanns-Martin Schleyer - Social movement - German Green Party - Hesse

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On May 11, 1981 the Hessian Secretary of Commerce Heinz-Herbert Karry was murdered with a firearm that had been transported, among other weapons stolen from an American army base, in 1973 -- several years before the murder happened -- in Joschka 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.

Related Topics:
May 11 - 1981 - Heinz-Herbert Karry - 1973 - Hans-Joachim Klein

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