Gerhard Schröder and the SPD: You can’t get rid of him

analysis

In the past, Sahra Wagenknecht has not spoken very kindly about the man who she allowed into her house a few weeks ago. She complained about Gerhard Schröder’s Agenda 2010, which had “plumbed many people into poverty and enabled the exploitation of millions of workers through wage dumping and temporary work.” The job miracle that was being talked about because of falling unemployment was “a starvation wage miracle.”

In 2017, Schröder, in turn, rejected ideas about a coalition between the SPD, the Left and the Greens after the federal election. Red-red-green can only be achieved when “sensible people” are in charge on the left. “I don’t think you can do that as long as the Lafontaine family sets the tone in the Left Party,” Schröder told Spiegel at the time. By that he meant Oskar Lafontaine and Sahra Wagenknecht.

Very close

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Foreign policy unity, domestic policy differences

In May 2023, however, Schröder was warmly welcomed by exactly this family, as Stern reported on Tuesday. Schröder spoke to his great opponent Oskar Lafontaine and congratulated him on his 80th birthday early. Is there more to it? Does the adversaries of yore unite more than they still divide domestically because of their Russia-friendly and American-critical position? In the end, does Schröder even plan to join a party founded by Sahra Wagenknecht, as is rumored on social media?

Hardly likely. The SPD remains Schröder’s political home. He doesn’t care if she even wants that. From Schröder’s perspective, leaving the SPD would be like betraying his own history, because he sees himself and his political career as the ideal fulfillment of the social democratic promise.

For him, no honorary membership counts as much as the party register

Gerhard Schröder has become a man ostracized by many in recent years because of his friendship with Vladimir Putin and his business relationships with the Russian energy industry. He had to give up jobs such as the consulting position at the Swiss publisher Ringier and lost his office as former chancellor in Berlin. His honorary membership at Borussia Dortmund and the German Football Association was revoked; he forestalled the likely revocation of his honorary citizenship of the city of Hanover by handing it back “irrevocably” on his own initiative.

There was only one thing he fought with all his determination for: the SPD party register. And with success. The leadership of the Social Democrats around Saskia Esken and Lars Klingbeil – the latter formerly a fan of Schröder and who benefited from a joint campaign appearance in the 2021 election campaign – suggested that Schröder leave the SPD. Several local associations initiated an exclusion procedure, which went through two instances, but ultimately failed before the SPD’s Federal Arbitration Commission in May 2023.

“I’m in the SPD because of the promise of opportunities for everyone”

Schröder came from a poor background. In addition to his second-chance school career and his professional advancement as a lawyer, the party was his vehicle for social recognition. “I have been a member of the SPD since I was 19 years old. I joined our party because it is also a promise: a promise of opportunities not only for those who are naturally given it,” said Schröder at the 2001 party conference , at that time as SPD chairman and chancellor.

The SPD kept this promise to him. He prevailed, sometimes with sophisticated methods, sometimes with tough tactics, sometimes ruthlessly, even brutally, and always with an unconditional desire for advancement. When Helmut Kohl conquered the chancellorship after 16 years in 1998, Schröder gave the party back more than power: his subjective feeling of acceptance in a bourgeois society was transferred to the entire SPD.

His desire for power often went against the ideals of the party

Nevertheless, it has always remained a difficult relationship. Also because his desire for power and pragmatism were always disproportionate to the ideals of the party. When Schröder took over the SPD chairmanship after Oskar Lafontaine’s sudden departure in 1999, the delegates at the party conference still cried after his beloved predecessor. “What I want,” said Schröder in his application speech, “is your respect and your support.” It actually didn’t get much more than that: with 76 percent, he achieved a lousy result.

Five years later, to the party’s relief, Schröder handed over the chairmanship to Franz Müntefering and said goodbye with the words: “I want you to know this: I was proud to be the chairman of this large, oldest democratic party in Germany.”

His election results as the measure of all things

Schröder followed the SPD’s suffering during the years of the grand coalition from a distance. He believed that his party’s biggest mistake was never really committing to its reform policies. Even though he may have been happy that the SPD was able to regain the chancellorship in 2021, Schröder could easily be teased out of the fact that even in his defeat in 2005, he still scored almost ten percentage points more than Olaf Scholz in his victory in 2021.

Of course, this is also the vanity of an old man. But it also contains Schröder’s unbroken conviction that he embodied much more of the SPD in his time than his successors do, regardless of their office. There is pride in a career in and with the SPD, but also for them; the personified realization of the social democratic dream. That’s why he won’t resign from the party. Not even for reconciliation with his greatest rival and his ambitious wife.