Joschka Fischer
| Joschka Fischer | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Vice Chancellor of Germany | |
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In office 27 October 1998 – 22 November 2005 |
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| Chancellor | Gerhard Schröder |
| Preceded by | Klaus Kinkel |
| Succeeded by | Franz Müntefering |
| Minister for Foreign Affairs | |
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In office 27 October 1998 – 22 November 2005 |
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| Chancellor | Gerhard Schröder |
| Preceded by | Klaus Kinkel |
| Succeeded by | Frank-Walter Steinmeier |
| Minister of Environment and Energy of Hesse | |
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In office 12 December 1985 – 9 February 1987 |
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| Prime Minister | Holger Börner |
| Preceded by | Position established |
| Succeeded by | Armin Clauss (Acting) |
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In office 5 April 1991 – 5 October 1994 |
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| Prime Minister | Hans Eichel |
| Preceded by | Karlheinz Weimar |
| Succeeded by | Rupert von Plottnitz |
| Deputy Minister-President of Hesse | |
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In office 5 April 1991 – 5 October 1994 |
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| Prime Minister | Hans Eichel |
| Preceded by | Wolfgang Gerhardt |
| Succeeded by | Rupert von Plottnitz |
| Minister of Federal Affairs of Hesse | |
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In office 5 April 1991 – 5 October 1994 |
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| Prime Minister | Hans Eichel |
| Preceded by | Wolfgang Gerhardt (Agent of Federal Affairs) |
| Succeeded by | Rupert von Plottnitz |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
Joseph Martin Fischer 12 April 1948 Gerabronn, Germany |
| Political party | Alliance '90/The Greens |
Joseph Martin "Joschka" Fischer (born 12 April 1948) is a German politician of the Alliance '90/The Greens. He served as Foreign Minister and as Vice Chancellor of Germany in the cabinet of Gerhard Schröder from 1998 to 2005. Fischer has been a leading figure in the West German Greens since the 1970s, and according to opinion polls, 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. In September 2010 he supported the creation of the Spinelli Group, a europarliamentarian initiative founded with a view to reinvigorate the strive for federalisation of the European Union.
Fischer was born in Gerabronn in Baden-Württemberg, the third child of a butcher, whose family had lived in Budakeszi, Hungary, for several generations. Fischer's family had to leave Hungary in 1946 after it was occupied by the Soviet Union, and ethnic Germans were persecuted and expelled by the authorities. His nickname Joschka is derived from the Hungarian Jóska, diminutive of Joseph (Hungarian József). He was brought up Catholic and served in his childhood as an altar boy in his parish in Oeffingen. Fischer dropped out of high school in 1965, and started an apprenticeship as a photographer, which he quit in 1966. Because Fischer never gained a school-leaving certificate, he never attended a university or a college. He neither did compulsory military service nor the alternative civilian service for conscientious objectors, because he failed his physical examination due to poor eyesight.
In 1967, he became active in the German student movement and left-wing movement (post-) 1968 (the so-called Spontis), first in Stuttgart and after 1968 in Frankfurt am Main. For his regular income, Fischer took several low-wage jobs, such as working in a left-wing bookstore in Frankfurt. During this period, he began attending university events, including lectures organized by left-wing revolutionary students by Theodor W. Adorno, Jürgen Habermas and Oskar Negt. He studied the works of Marx, Mao and Hegel and became a member of the militant group, Revolutionärer Kampf (Revolutionary Struggle). Fischer was a leader in several street battles involving the radical Putzgruppe (literally "cleaning squad", with the first syllable being an acronym for Proletarische Union für Terror und Zerstörung, "Proletarian Union for Terror and Destruction"), which attacked a number of police officers. Photos of one such brawl in March 1973, which were later to haunt Fischer, show him clubbing policeman Rainer Marx, to whom he later publicly apologized.
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Wikipedia