Klaus Wowereit
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Klaus Wowereit (born 1 October 1953) is a German politician of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and was the
Governing Mayor of Berlin The governing mayor () of Berlin is the head of government, presiding over the Berlin Senate. As Berlin is an independent city as well as one of the constituent states of Germany (), the office is the equivalent of the ministers president of ...
from 21 October 2001 to 11 December 2014. In 2001 state elections his party won a plurality of the votes, 29.7%. He served as
President President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) * President (education), a leader of a college or university *President (government title) President may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Film and television *'' Præsident ...
of the Bundesrat (the fourth highest office in Germany) in 2001/02. His SPD-led coalition was re-elected in the 2006 elections; after the 2011 elections the SPD's coalition partner changed from the Left to the Christian Democratic Union. He was also sometimes mentioned as a possible SPD candidate for the Chancellorship of Germany (''Kanzlerkandidatur''), but that never materialized.


Early life

Wowereit was born in
West Berlin West Berlin ( or , ) was a political enclave which comprised the western part of Berlin from 1948 until 1990, during the Cold War. Although West Berlin lacked any sovereignty and was under military occupation until German reunification in 1 ...
. Until 1973, Wowereit attended the Ulrich-von-Hutten-Oberschule in Berlin-Lichtenrade. Afterwards, he studied law at the Free University Berlin ( State Exams, 1981 and 1984).


Political career

After three years as a civil servant in the Senate office of the Interior, Wowereit stood for election as municipal councillor in the Tempelhof district. At the age of 30, he was, therefore, the youngest
council A council is a group of people who come together to consult, deliberate, or make decisions. A council may function as a legislature, especially at a town, city or county/shire level, but most legislative bodies at the state/provincial or natio ...
or in the city of Berlin. After eleven years as a District Councillor he stood for the Berlin House of Representatives ( Abgeordnetenhaus von Berlin) which serves as the City's State Parliament in 1995. In December 1999, he was elected chairman of the SPD parliamentary group in the Abgeordnetenhaus.


Mayor of Berlin, 2001–2014

Wowereit took office as Governing Mayor of Berlin (') in June 2001. Previously, the SPD had left the
grand coalition A grand coalition is an arrangement in a multi-party parliamentary system in which the two largest political party, political parties of opposing political spectrum, political ideologies unite in a coalition government. Causes of a grand coali ...
with the CDU and initiated new elections. After this election and following long-time negotiations, Wowereit finally started a coalition with the PDS. In 2003, Wowereit declared that "''Berlin ist arm, aber sexy''" ("Berlin is poor, but sexy"), a description that reflected on the one hand the city's working class history and on-going financial woes, and on the other its cultural vibrancy, aided by a relatively low cost of living for a major European capital. The phrase helped to market the city to the rest of the world, and it drew in tourists, as well as attracting artists, writers, musicians and subsequently technology entrepreneurs. However, concern about
gentrification Gentrification is the process whereby the character of a neighborhood changes through the influx of more Wealth, affluent residents (the "gentry") and investment. There is no agreed-upon definition of gentrification. In public discourse, it has ...
and increasingly expensive rents is often expressed by seasoned Berliners and new-comers alike. In the elections held on 17 September 2006, Wowereit's SPD finished as the strongest party with a plurality of 30.8%. A coalition with Die Linke was continued. However the 16th Abgeordnetenhaus re-elected Wowereit as Governing Mayor on 23 November 2006, in the second ballot with only a 75:74 majority. CDU, Free Democrats and the Green Party voted against him. In the elections held on 18 September 2011 he and his party were again the strongest party. Public attitude in Germany on the topic of migration has a long history of controversy. A regular German poll by the opinion polling agency Ipsos indicates that the number of immigrants in Germany, as well as the proportion of Muslim immigrants among Germany's migrant population is vastly overestimated by those polled, so too in 2019. Recent statistics of the German Buro of Statistics reported 21.9 million people with a " migration background" (citizens and non-citizens) in Germany, 2020. Of those, in the same year, according to the statistics agency Statista, 5.5 million were Muslim. The publication of former Berlin state Minister of Finance Thilo Sarrazin's 2010 polemic ''Germany Abolishes Itself'' fell in Klaus Wowereit's tenure as governing mayor of Berlin. This prompted heated debates throughout the German-speaking countries. In response, in 2011, Mayor Wowereit published ''Mut zur Integration – für ein neues Miteinander'' ("Courage for integration – for a new together"). That same year, he appointed Turkish-origin politician Dilek Kolat Senator for Labour, Integration and Women. In May 2012, Wowereit named Şermin Langhoff artistic director of the Maxim Gorki Theater. In the negotiations to form a ''
Grand Coalition A grand coalition is an arrangement in a multi-party parliamentary system in which the two largest political party, political parties of opposing political spectrum, political ideologies unite in a coalition government. Causes of a grand coali ...
'' of
Chancellor Chancellor () is a title of various official positions in the governments of many countries. The original chancellors were the of Roman courts of justice—ushers, who sat at the (lattice work screens) of a basilica (court hall), which separa ...
Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU together with the Bavarian CSU) and the SPD following the 2013 federal elections, Wowereit led the SPD delegation in the working group on cultural and media affairs; his counterpart of the CDU was Michael Kretschmer. On 26 August 2014 Wowereit announced that he would resign his position as of 11 December 2014. At the time of his resignation, he was the longest-serving head of a German state.


Resignation and Berlin-Brandenburg Airport debacle

On 21 October 2003 Wowereit became one of four members representing the ''Land'' of Berlin in the supervisory board of the project to build the new
Berlin Brandenburg Airport Berlin Brandenburg Airport () () is an international airport in Schönefeld, just south of the Germany, German capital and state of Berlin, in the state of Brandenburg. Named after the former Mayor of West Berlin, West Berlin mayor and Chance ...
. In 2006, he was elected chairman of the board. However, on 7 January 2013, Wowereit relinquished his chairmanship after the continuing delay of the airport's opening date. The prime minister of the ''Land'' of
Brandenburg Brandenburg, officially the State of Brandenburg, is a States of Germany, state in northeastern Germany. Brandenburg borders Poland and the states of Berlin, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and Saxony. It is the List of Ger ...
,
Matthias Platzeck Matthias Platzeck (born 29 December 1953) is a German politician. He was Minister-President, Minister President of Brandenburg from 2002 to 2013 and party chairman of the Social Democratic Party of Germany, SPD from November 2005 to April 2006. ...
was appointed as his successor. Wowereit survived a vote of no confidence brought against him in the Berlin House of Representatives on 12 January. When Platzeck gave up his political offices for health reasons in July 2013, Wowereit was eventually appointed chairman again, despite much criticism. Critics have accused Wowereit of being responsible for the various delays and cost overruns of the airport project. He has been accused of being blind to looming problems, and reacting angrily to unfavorable reports. Also, he is said to have filled the board with political friends rather than professionals.Christiane Hoffmann: ''Es brennt am Berliner Flughafen''. In: '' Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung'', 8. Juli 2012, S. 6 (ähnliche Fassun
online
. Consulted 26 May 2014.
Wowereit announced his intention to resign at the end of 2014 due to the airport delays saying it was the "biggest failure" of his term in office, but that there were also other "several difficult times here."


Life after politics

Alongside Jutta Allmendinger, Wowereit co-chaired an independent expert commission on gender-based discrimination at Germany's Federal Anti-Discrimination Agency from 2015 until 2016. In 2017, he briefly arbitrated wage negotiations between Eurowings and UFO, a flight attendant trade union.


Other activities (selection)


Corporate boards

* Berlin Schönefeld Airport, Ex-Officio Chairman of the Supervisory Board


Non-profit organizations

* Friedrich Ebert Foundation (FES), Member * Berlin Central and Regional Library (ZLB), Ex-Officio Chairman of the Board of Trustees *
2011 European Artistic Gymnastics Championships The 4th Individual European Artistic Gymnastics Championships for both Men and Women was held in Berlin, Germany from 4 April 2011 until 10 April 2011. The event was held at the Max-Schmeling-Halle. 157 male gymnasts from 39 countries with and ...
, Ex-Officio Chairman of the Board of Trustees * Development and Peace Foundation (SEF), Deputy Chairman of the Board of Trustees


Personal life

Wowereit is the youngest child in his family, with two other brothers and two sisters, who grew up without a father. One of his brothers supported his studies and later he took care of his brother, who was paralyzed after an accident, as well as his mother, who was suffering from cancer. Wowereit is one of the most famous German politicians who is openly gay. In
coming out Coming out of the closet, often shortened to coming out, is a metaphor used to describe LGBTQ people's self-disclosure of their sexual orientation, romantic orientation, or gender identity. This is often framed and debated as a privacy issue, ...
, prior to the 2001 mayoral elections, he coined the now famous German phrase "" ("I'm gay, and that's a good thing.") In his autobiography, Wowereit states that his decision to come out in public was made because after his nomination as candidate to become the Mayor of Berlin, he felt that the German tabloids were already "on the right track". With his coming out, Wowereit wanted to beat the tabloids to it and prevent them from writing wild, sensational and fabricated stories about his private life. Wowereit said those now famous words during a convention of the Berlin SPD. After the end of his speech, there was half a second of surprised silence, then spontaneous cheering and loud applause to support him. In a 2010 interview with ''
Time Time is the continuous progression of existence that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, and into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequ ...
'' magazine, he said that coming out may actually have strengthened his campaign. His election as mayor made Berlin one of three major European cities with an openly gay mayor, along with Paris, whose mayor was Bertrand Delanoë, and
Hamburg Hamburg (, ; ), officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg,. is the List of cities in Germany by population, second-largest city in Germany after Berlin and List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, 7th-lar ...
, whose mayor was Ole von Beust at that time, who both also took office in 2001. However, von Beust resigned in 2010 and Delanoë left office in 2014, making Wowereit the only gay mayor of a major European city or of a major German city. Berlin being the largest and Hamburg being the second largest city in Germany, they are also German states in their own right, having made both Wowereit and von Beust also state premiers. In September 2007, Wowereit published an autobiographical book titled "'", after his famous coming-out phrase (). Wowereit's civil partner, Jörn Kubicki, was a
neurosurgeon Neurosurgery or neurological surgery, known in common parlance as brain surgery, is the medical specialty that focuses on the surgical treatment or rehabilitation of disorders which affect any portion of the nervous system including the brain, ...
. They were in a relationship from 1993 to March 2020 when Kubicki died as a result of a
COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. In January 2020, the disease spread worldwide, resulting in the COVID-19 pandemic. The symptoms of COVID‑19 can vary but often include fever ...
infection.


Awards

* 2001: Ix-Xirka Ġieħ ir-Repubblika * 2004: Honorary member Reichsbanners Schwarz-Rot-Gold, Bund aktiver Demokraten e.V. * 2011: Großes Verdienstkreuz mit Stern und Schulterband of Germany


See also

* List of LGBT heads of government * Timeline of Berlin, 2000s–2010s * List of people from Berlin


References


External links


Konsequent Berlin (Personal website for British and French readers)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wowereit, Klaus 1953 births Living people Presidents of the German Bundesrat Members of the Abgeordnetenhaus of Berlin Free University of Berlin alumni German gay politicians Grand Crosses with Star and Sash of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany Recipients of the Legion of Honour LGBTQ mayors of places in Germany LGBTQ legislators in Germany LGBTQ governors and heads of sub-national entities 20th-century German LGBTQ people 21st-century German LGBTQ people Mayors of Berlin Social Democratic Party of Germany politicians 20th-century German civil servants People from Tempelhof-Schöneberg