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.

Further reading

• Boston Review article reviewing Fischer's biography
• Official homepage of Joschka Fischer (German)
• Biography at the German Historic Museum (German)
• 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 1932360913 (Originally appeared as a 25,000 word essay in The New Republic, September 3, 2001)
• Berlin's new Anti-American Axis - critical article about Fischer from National Review