Scholz: For respect, against Putin
SPD celebrates birthday – a former chancellor has to stay outside
May 23, 2023, 4:48 p.m
It is by far the oldest party in Germany: On its 160th birthday, the SPD wants to look ahead. But the ghosts of the past won’t let go of her. Someone who used to be its chairman and chancellor and now only causes trouble for the party is not invited to the party.
On the 160th birthday of the SPD, Chancellor Olaf Scholz called on his party to fight for a society of respect and not leave climate protection to the Greens. At a ceremony in the Berlin party headquarters, he called the climate-friendly restructuring of the economy a “historic” task. “It’s not an issue for a very specific party, as some still think – it’s an existential transformation,” he said, referring to the Greens, with whom Scholz has governed in the traffic light coalition for a year and a half.
Respect is the leitmotif of Scholz’ chancellorship, with which he also campaigned in 2021. “The social democracy of the 21st century must stand up for a society of respect,” he said in his speech. “Respect means that nobody looks down on others because he or she thinks they are stronger, more educated, richer or particularly woke.”
Scholz criticizes Putin’s “imperialist madness”
Scholz also called on his party to fly the flag in the struggle for the future of Europe. He promised Ukraine full membership of the European Union after the end of the Russian war of aggression. “Russia must not and will not win this war,” he said. “This bitter chapter in the history of our continent, conjured up by Vladimir Putin in his imperialist madness, will end with free Ukraine joining the European Union as a full member.”
Scholz did not address the much-criticized Russia policy of the SPD in the years before the Russian invasion of Ukraine. He only mentioned his predecessor Gerhard Schröder in his speech when it came to the tension between the SPD’s programmatic claims and pragmatism. Schröder was not invited to the ceremony, even though a party expulsion procedure against him failed last week because of his closeness to Putin’s Russia. The party leadership wants to isolate him.
SPD leader Lars Klingbeil also did not mention Schröder in his speech. Instead, he defended the Ostpolitik of SPD Chancellor Willy Brandt (in office from 1969 to 1974), who promoted rapprochement with the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact states. This was “revolutionary” and Brandt rightly received the Nobel Peace Prize for it. Klingbeil criticized attempts to blame miscalculations with regard to Russia to Brandt. “Willy Brandt’s Ostpolitik has a special place in our party,” he said.
In his speech, Klingbeil also campaigned for the SPD to become a party of confidence and optimism. He admitted that the SPD was “not the shrillest, not the loudest, sometimes maybe not the hippest party”. But what counts is something else: “Building bridges in society is more important to us than a lurid headline.”
Esken wants “out of the box” thinking
Co-party leader Saskia Esken called on her party to think “out of the box”, i.e. to develop ideas that may not be implemented immediately. As an example, she gave her push for a four-day week. “I think it’s good that everyone is talking about it,” she said.
May 23 is considered the birthday of the SPD because on this day in 1863 Ferdinand Lassalle founded the General German Workers’ Association (ADAV), the first workers’ party for all of Germany, in the Leipzig Pantheon. It was the first forerunner of today’s Social Democratic Party of Germany, which has been called that since 1890.
In the 160 years of its existence, it provided the head of government in Germany for almost a quarter of a century. In the Weimar Republic there were four Reich Chancellors from the SPD, but they only ruled for a good three years. In the Federal Republic of Germany, Olaf Scholz is the fourth chancellor of his party after Willy Brandt (1969 to 1974), Helmut Schmidt (1974 to 1982) and Gerhard Schröder (1998 to 2005).
With around 380,000 members at the end of last year, the SPD is still the party with the most members in Germany, although it has shrunk dramatically in recent years. In 1990 the party still had more than 940,000 members.