Claudia Roth turns 70: Passionate nerveaws

In the meantime, Claudia Roth (70) has been an unmistakable figure in the German political landscape for many decades, which not only stands out of the crowd through its open and sometimes emotional way through its colorful style of clothing. With their clear views in debates on human rights, anti-racism or cultural policy, the alternative political icon of the Greens did not always make friends in their dazzling career.

Roth, who most recently worked in the traffic light coalition under the former Federal Chancellor Scholz as Minister of State for Culture and Media, started her career in the cultural area. After studying theater sciences, which she thrown down after two semesters, the politician, born in Ulm on May 15, 1955, was initially employed as a dramaturge at the municipal stages in Dortmund from 1975 and then mixed with the politically moving theater group “Hoffmanns Comic Theater” in Berlin.

This project initiated by the later music legend Rio Reiser (1950-1996) understood in the tradition of the classic workers theater and focused on the political agitation of apprentices and other young workers knewing from capitalism. Another mouthpiece of the highly polarized collective was the political rock band Ton Steine ​​Squirings, founded in 1970, which, among other things, broken with the anarcho hymn “Moves what breaks you”.

From 1982, Claudia Roth became the manager of the band, who had highly indebted her appearances due to an excess of unpaid solo concerts and conceptually minimal admission prices. After the dissolution of the band in 1985, Rio Reiser successfully started a commercial second career, while Roth applied to a position as a spokeswoman for the Greens’ parliamentary group, which she also promptly received.

On her way, Claudia Roth came across the political track almost accidentally, which she promoted to numerous high offices in the further decades. From 1989 to 1998 she was a member of the European Parliament and from 1994 group leader of the Greens in the European Parliament. In 1998 she made the Bundestag, where she took the post of Federal Chairman of Bündnis 90/Die Grünen from 2001 to 2002 and from 2004 to 2013.

After that, she acted as Vice President of the German Bundestag until 2021, until she finally returned to her cultural roots in the Chancellor Scholz’s cabinet and was commissioned by the Federal Government for Culture and Media until May 6, 2025. As a specialist spokeswoman for economic cooperation and development of the Greens faction, she continues to bring herself into democratic events with heart and soul.

The busy political icon and passionate “nerve saw” told the “Augsburg Journal”, as she intends to spend its 70th birthday today. There she said: “I celebrate in the circle of friends, companions and all the wonderful people who have accompanied me over the years. It will be music, good food and certainly also give one or the other emotional moment – but I don’t reveal more.”