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Seeheimer Kreis
The Seeheimer Kreis (; English: "Seeheim Circle") is an official internal grouping in the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). The group describes itself as "undogmatic and pragmatic" and generally takes moderately liberal economic positions. It was founded in September 1974. One of the prominent founding members is Gesine Schwan, a former SPD candidate for the German Presidency. , the group's spokespeople are Marja-Liisa Völlers, Dirk Wiese, and Uwe Schmidt. The Circle is named after its long-standing meeting place, Seeheim (Bergstraße), just south of Frankfurt. History In the 1950s, a group of conservative or traditional members of the SPD met regularly in an informal group known as the ''Kanalarbeiter'' (Canal Workers). They were considered to be one of the most influential groups within the larger Social Democratic Party. The most prominent members of the Canal Workers were Egon Franke and Annemarie Renger. Parallel to the development of the Canal Worke ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marja-Liisa Völlers
Marja-Liisa Völlers (born 28 September 1984) is a German teacher and politician of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) who has been serving as a member of the Bundestag from the state of Lower Saxony since 2017. Political career In the 2017 German federal election, Völlers stood in the SPD constituency of Nienburg II – Schaumburg. She lost to CDU candidate Maik Beermann. Völlers became a member of the Bundestag in 2017 when she succeeded Carola Reimann who had resigned. She is a member of the Committee on Health and the Committee on Education, Research and Technology Assessment, where she serves as her parliamentary group's rapporteur on digitization and inclusion. Following the 2021 elections, she also joined the Defence Committee and the Parliamentary Oversight Panel (PKGr), which provides parliamentary oversight of Germany's intelligence services BND, BfV and MAD. In addition to her committee assignments, Völlers has been a member of the German delegation to the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hans-Jochen Vogel
Hans-Jochen Vogel (; 3 February 192626 July 2020) was a German lawyer and a politician for the Social Democratic Party of Germany, Social Democratic Party (SPD). He served as List of mayors of Munich, Mayor of Munich from 1960 to 1972, winning the 1972 Summer Olympics for the city and Governing Mayor of Berlin, Governing Mayor of West Berlin in 1981, the only German ever to lead two cities with a million+ inhabitants. He was Federal Ministry of the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety, Federal Minister of Regional Planning, Construction and Urban Development from 1972 to 1974, and Federal Ministry of Justice (Germany), Federal Minister of Justice from 1974 to 1981. He served as leader of the SPD in the Bundestag from 1983 to 1991, and as Leader of the Social Democratic Party from 1987 to 1991. In 1993, he co-founded the organisation ''Gegen Vergessen – Für Demokratie'' (''Against Oblivion – For Democracy''). He was a member of the German Ethics Council, Nationa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sigmar Gabriel
Sigmar Hartmut Gabriel (born 12 September 1959) is a German politician who was the Federal Minister for Foreign Affairs from 2017 to 2018 and the vice-chancellor of Germany from 2013 to 2018. He was Leader of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) from 2009 to 2017, which made him the party's longest-serving leader since Willy Brandt. He was the Federal Minister of the Environment from 2005 to 2009 and the Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Energy from 2013 to 2017. From 1999 to 2003 Gabriel was Minister-President of Lower Saxony. He represented Salzgitter – Wolfenbüttel in the Bundestag. Gabriel is a member of the Seeheimer Kreis, an official internal grouping of the party with liberal economic positions. Early life and education Gabriel was born in Goslar, West Germany, son of Walter Gabriel (1921–2012), a municipal civil servant, and Antonie Gabriel (1922–2014), a nurse. Gabriel's parents divorced in 1962, and for the next six years he lived with his ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Carsten Schneider
Carsten Schneider (born 23 January 1976) is a German politician of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) who has been serving as Federal Minister for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Climate Protection and Nuclear Safety in the government of Chancellor Friedrich Merz since 2025. Schneider has been a member of the German Parliament since 1998. From 2017 until 2021, Schneider was the First Secretary of his party's parliamentary group, in this position assisting the group's successive chairs Andrea Nahles (2017–2019) and Rolf Mützenich (2019–2021). In addition to his parliamentary work, he served as Parliamentary State Secretary for East Germany and Equivalent Living Conditions in Chancellor Olaf Scholz's cabinet from 2021 to 2025. Early life After graduating from Wilhelm-Häßler-Gymnasium in Erfurt, Thuringia, and completing his alternative civilian service, Schneider accepted a position at an Erfurt savings bank in 1998. Schneider has been married since 2003 and has t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Doris Barnett
Doris Barnett (born 22 May 1953) is a German politician of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) who served as a member of the German Bundestag from 1994 to 2021, representing Ludwigshafen/Frankenthal. Political career Barnett first became a member of the German Bundestag in the 1994 federal elections, representing the Ludwigshafen/Frankenthal electoral district. In the 1994 and 1998 elections, her opponent of the CDU was incumbent Chancellor Helmut Kohl. For her election campaign in 1998, she recruited Marc S. Ellenbogen as her advisor. Barnett was part of the SPD parliamentary group’s leadership from 1998. Within the group, she served as a member of the working group on the world economy between 2003 and 2013. Barnett was a member of the Committee on Labour and Social Affairs between 1994 and 2005. From 2002 to 2005, she also served on the parliament’s Council of Elders, which – among other duties – determines daily legislative agenda items and assigns committee chair ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hartz Concept
The Hartz concept (), also known as Hartz reforms or the Hartz plan, is a set of recommendations submitted by a committee on reforms to the Germany, German labour market in 2002. Named after the head of the committee, Peter Hartz, these recommendations went on to become part of the Bundesregierung, German government's ''Agenda 2010'' series of reforms, known as Hartz I – Hartz IV. The committee devised thirteen "innovation modules", which recommended changes to the German labour market system. These were then gradually put into practice: The measures of Hartz I – III were undertaken between 1 January 2003, and 2004, while Hartz IV was implemented on 1 January 2005. The "Hartz Committee" was founded on 22 February 2002, by the federal government of Germany led then by Gerhard Schröder. Its official name was ''Kommission für moderne Dienstleistungen am Arbeitsmarkt'' (Committee for Modern Services in the Labour Market). The 15-member committee was chaired by Peter Hartz, then V ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gerhard Schröder
Gerhard Fritz Kurt Schröder (; born 7 April 1944) is a German former politician and Lobbying, lobbyist who served as Chancellor of Germany from 1998 to 2005. From 1999 to 2004, he was also the Leader of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). As chancellor, he led a coalition government of the SPD and Alliance 90/The Greens. Since leaving public office, Schröder has worked for Russian state-owned energy companies, including Nord Stream AG, Rosneft, and Gazprom. Schröder was a lawyer before becoming a full-time politician, and he was Minister President of Lower Saxony (1990–1998) before becoming chancellor. Replacing the longest-ruling chancellor in modern German history, Helmut Kohl (CDU), in the 1998 German federal election, 1998 federal election, he tried to address unemployment and poverty with the Agenda 2010 labour market reform, which increased Hartz IV, welfare benefits. Together with French president Jacques Chirac, in 2003, he did not join the Coalition of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Markus Meckel
Markus Meckel (born 18 August 1952) is a German theologian and politician. He was the penultimate foreign minister of the GDR and a member of the German Bundestag. Early life Markus Meckel was born on 18 August 1952 in Müncheberg, Brandenburg. He had to leave high school in 1969 for political reasons. From 1969 to 1971, he studied at ''Kirchenoberseminar Hermannswerder'', a boarding school operated by the church whose diploma allowed its students to study theology or sacred music only. From 1971 to 1978, Meckel studied theology in Naumburg and Berlin. Political career Meckel had already been involved with domestic opposition to the East German Communist regime since the 1970s. In October 1989, he initiated the establishment of the Social Democratic Party in the GDR (SDP) together with Martin Gutzeit. From 23 February 1990 up to the merger with the West German SPD on 27 September 1990, he was deputy SDP party chairman. After the resignation of Ibrahim Böhme, he was acting chai ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
German Reunification
German reunification () was the process of re-establishing Germany as a single sovereign state, which began on 9 November 1989 and culminated on 3 October 1990 with the dissolution of the East Germany, German Democratic Republic and the integration of its re-established constituent federated states into the West Germany, Federal Republic of Germany to form Germany, present-day Germany. This date was chosen as the customary German Unity Day, and has thereafter been celebrated each year as a national day, national holiday. On the same date, East Berlin, East and West Berlin, West Berlin were also reunified into a single city, which eventually Decision on the Capital of Germany, became the capital of Germany. The East German government, controlled by the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED), started to falter on 2 May 1989, when the removal of Hungary's border fence with Austria opened a hole in the Iron Curtain. The border was still closely guarded, but the Pan-European Picn ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alliance '90/The Greens
Alliance 90/The Greens (, ), often simply referred to as Greens (, ), is a Green (politics), green political party in Germany. It was formed in 1993 by the merger of the Greens (formed in West Germany in 1980) and Alliance 90 (formed in East Germany in 1990). The Greens had itself merged with the East German Green Party after German reunification in 1990. Since November 2024, Franziska Brantner and Felix Banaszak have been co-leaders of the party. It currently holds 85 of the 630 seats in the Bundestag, having won 11% of first votes and 11.6% of second votes cast in the 2025 German federal election, 2025 federal election, putting it in fourth place of the seven political parties by number of seats. Its parliamentary co-leaders are Britta Haßelmann and Katharina Dröge. The Greens have been part of the federal government twice: first as a junior partner to the Social Democratic Party of Germany, Social Democrats (SPD) from 1998 to 2005, and then with the SPD and the Free Democrat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
NATO Double-Track Decision
The NATO Double-Track Decision was the decision by NATO from December 12, 1979, to offer the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact a mutual limitation of medium-range ballistic missiles and intermediate-range ballistic missiles amidst the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. In case of refusal, NATO planned to deploy more medium-range nuclear weapons in Western Europe after the Euromissile Crisis. Background The détente between the United States and the Soviet Union culminated in the signing of SALT I and Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (1972) and the negotiations toward SALT II (1979). Through these agreements, the two countries agreed to freeze the number of strategic ballistic missile launchers at existing levels, reduce the number of anti-ballistic missiles and not build more ground-based launchers. Along with the 1973 Agreement on the Prevention of Nuclear War these arms control measures caused European NATO members, especially West Germany to feel overlooked. On 28 October 1977, Chanc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nuclear Power
Nuclear power is the use of nuclear reactions to produce electricity. Nuclear power can be obtained from nuclear fission, nuclear decay and nuclear fusion reactions. Presently, the vast majority of electricity from nuclear power is produced by nuclear ''fission'' of uranium and plutonium in nuclear power plants. Nuclear ''decay'' processes are used in niche applications such as radioisotope thermoelectric generators in some space probes such as ''Voyager 2''. Reactors producing controlled fusion power, ''fusion'' power have been operated since 1958 but have yet to generate net power and are not expected to be commercially available in the near future. The first nuclear power plant was built in the 1950s. The global installed nuclear capacity grew to 100GW in the late 1970s, and then expanded during the 1980s, reaching 300GW by 1990. The 1979 Three Mile Island accident in the United States and the 1986 Chernobyl disaster in the Soviet Union resulted in increased regulation and p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
