Robert Habeck: The career of the Greens Chancellor candidate in pictures

Party chairman, Minister of Economics – and soon Chancellor? The move into the Chancellery has so far been a mere presentation by Robert Habeck, but apart from the position of head of government, the Greens politician has already held some political offices in his life.

Habeck was born on September 2, 1969 in Lübeck and grew up in Heikendorf, where his parents run a pharmacy. After graduating from high school, he completes his community service and later studies philosophy, philology and German studies in Freiburg, Hamburg and Roskilde in Denmark.

After a doctorate in philosophy, Habeck works as a freelance writer and children’s book author. He wrote some of his books together with his wife, the writer Andrea Paluch. The couple gets to know each other in Roskilde, married in 1996 and get four sons together. The family lives near Flensburg.

Habeck also takes his first steps in politics in his home state of Schleswig-Holstein. He is already in the thirties when he started the transition: in 2002 he was elected district board spokesman Schleswig-Flensburg and in 2004 as the state chairman of the Greens. Eight years later, he became deputy prime minister and environmental minister in Schleswig-Holstein.

During his political career, Habeck not only shows himself close to humans, but also on the animals. He visits numerous companies, farms and institutions and also tackles – part of the job description, which he goes consistently. On his homepage, he describes himself as “outside minister” and “politicians with skin and hair”.

The promotion to the federal level follows: Together with today’s Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, Habeck forms the double leadership of the Greens from 2018 to 2022. . After the election falls on Baerbock, Habeck supports her publicly on her election campaign tour.

After the Bundestag election, Greens, FDP and SPD merged. It is the birth of the traffic light government. Habeck becomes Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Climate Protection and – as the head of the second strongest government party – Vice Chancellor. In particular, Habeck’s heating law (official title: building energy network) ensures controversial political debates in 2023 for months. The governing parties repeatedly come together and make this dispute publicly. In 2024 the traffic lights breath and the Bundestag elections will be preferred on February 2025.

This time the decision of the Green leadership is different: not Baerbock, but Habeck competes as a candidate for chancellor and is staged in the election campaign and-sitting in the kitchen of voters-sitting as close to the citizen as possible.