Lars Klingbeil reports for the first time about the cancer survived

SPD leader Lars Klingbeil still shapes a cancer survived more than ten years ago. “I think you are going to be more relaxed at things,” he said in the podcast “said everything?” the weekly newspaper “Die Zeit”.

This is a reason for the calm way that he is often said to be said. “You can look at life differently when you are just before the cliff,” said Klingbeil.

The 47-year-old commented publicly for the first time in the podcast discussion on the diagnosis from 2014. “I had tongue cancer from smoking and discovered it myself,” said the SPD chairman. “Tongue cancer has very little chance of healing.” The fact that he could be treated successfully was a “very lucky”.

Since then he has not suffered any relapse and was considered healed.

Klingbeil, according to his own statement, was a strong smoker for years. He started around 25 years – “quite stupid,” said Klingbeil. In the meantime, his consumption “with 40 cigarettes a day” was located. In the meantime, he has been smoke -free for eleven years.

A year after he decided to stop smoking, he discovered a carcinoma – a malignant tissue change – under his tongue and decided to have it examined. Before the operation, the doctor told him: “It may be that you are totally fine afterwards, but that you can no longer speak.”

Klingbeil took over the party chair in December 2021. Previously, he has been general secretary since 2017. Together with co-party leader Saskia Esken and the chairman of the CDU and CSU, Friedrich Merz and Markus Söder, he negotiated the coalition agreement between the Union and SPD after the federal election. In the future black and red cabinet, he is considered a possible Vice Chancellor and Finance Minister.