Citizenship election: three mayor candidates for Hamburg

On Sunday, 1.3 million Hamburgers are called for the election of the citizens – and thus also indirectly decide who will be the first mayor at the head of the Senate in the future. Mayor Peter Tschentscher from the SPD can rely on the office bonus. But the Greens and the CDU also set up mayor candidates. An overview:

Peter Tschentscher (SPD, 59)

When Tschentscher became the first mayor in 2018, his name was still unknown to many in Hamburg. Today he has become an integral part of urban politics: Almost half of all voters would choose Tschenscher as the mayor in a theoretical direct election, according to a current ARD survey by Infratest dimap.

Tschenscher is considered reserved and factual, but does not hold back with personal tips. He joined the SPD in 1989 and made his political beginnings in the district assembly of Hamburg-Nord. In 2008 he was elected to the citizens and was finished by his predecessor Olaf Scholz for seven years.

Before his political career, Tschentscher received his doctorate as a laboratory doctor and worked at the University Hospital Eppendorf until 2011. In his free time, the Bremen native likes to play the piano, reads crime novels and supports Hamburger SV. He is married and has an adult son.

Katharina Fegebank (Greens, 47)

The top candidate of the Greens has had a quick climb. It was only in 2004 that Fegebank was just four years later the youngest party leader in the city. It has been a member of the Senate for almost ten years – as the second mayor initially under Olaf Scholz, from 2018 under his successor Peter Tschenscher. In 2020, she also officially ran for the highest office in the Senate to become Hamburg’s first mayor.

As a senator, she is also responsible for equality in addition to science and research – an important concern for Fegebank. She also likes to highlight her role as a working mother. She has been the mother of twins since 2019.

Fegebank grew up in the small town of Bargteheide in Schleswig-Holstein. She has been a supporter of Werder Bremen since childhood, but also has sympathy for FC St. Pauli. Before her political career, she studied in Freiburg and Berlin and worked as a project manager.

Before his election, Dennis Thering would lead the CDU to the Citizenship Election. After the clear electional slump in 2020, the 40-year-old moved to the top of the parliamentary group and also took over three years later as head of state. The CDU has been up again in the surveys.

In the A and B youth, Thering played as a goalkeeper for Hamburger SV, but had to give up his career dream because of a knee injury. Instead, Thering started training as a banker, studied political science and worked for the Hamburger Sparkasse, among other things. He remains loyal to the HSV as a fan.

Unlike his two competitors, Thering is born in Hamburg. He grew up in Hummelsbüttel, where his parents kept a craft business. Today he lives on the former company premises in the Alstertal with his wife, the daughter and a bitch born in 2015.