Joseph Martin "Joschka" Fischer (born 12 April 1948) is a German former politician of the Alliance 90/The Greens party. He served as the foreign minister and as the vice chancellor of Germany in the cabinet of Gerhard Schröder from 1998 to 2005. Fischer has been a leading figure in the German Greens since the 1970s, and according to opinion polls, he was the most popular politician in Germany for most of the Schröder government's duration. Following the September 2005 election, in which the Schröder government was defeated, he left office on 22 November 2005. In September 2010, he supported the creation of the Spinelli Group, a Europarliamentarian initiative founded with a view to reinvigorate efforts to federalise the European Union.
Early life Joseph Martin Fischer was born in Gerabronn in Württemberg-Baden, 12 April 1948. He was the third child of a butcher, whose family had lived in Budakeszi, Hungary, for several generations. Fischer's family had to leave Hungary in 1946 after it was occupied by the Soviet Union, and ethnic Germans were persecuted and expelled by the authorities. His nickname Joschka is derived from the Hungarian , diminutive of Joseph (Hungarian ). He was brought up Catholic and served in his childhood as an altar boy in his parish in Oeffingen. Fischer dropped out of high school in 1965, and started an apprenticeship as a photographer, which he quit in 1966. Because Fischer never gained a school-leaving certificate, he never attended a university or a college. He neither did compulsory military service nor the alternative civilian service for conscientious objectors, because he failed his physical examination due to poor eyesight.
In 1967, he became active in the West German student movement and left-wing movement (post-) 1968 (the so-called Spontis), first in Stuttgart and after 1968 in Frankfurt am Main. For his regular income, Fischer took several low-wage jobs, such as working in a left-wing bookstore in Frankfurt. During this period, he began attending university events, including lectures organized by left-wing revolutionary students by Theodor W. Adorno, Jürgen Habermas and Oskar Negt.Paul Hockenhos, Joschka Fischer and the Making of the Berlin Republic, Oxford University Press, 2007, p 86 He studied the works of Marx, Mao and Hegel and became a member of the militant group Revolutionärer Kampf (Revolutionary Struggle). Fischer was a leader in several street battles involving the radical Putzgruppe (literally "cleaning squad", with the first syllable being an acronym for Proletarische Union für Terror und Zerstörung, "Proletarian Union for Terror and Destruction"), which attacked a number of police officers. Photos of one such brawl in March 1973, which were later to haunt Fischer, show him clubbing policeman Rainer Marx, to whom he later publicly apologized.
Fischer is a close friend of Daniel Cohn-Bendit, whom he met during that time. In 1969, Fischer was photographed in Algeria at a meeting of the PLO, which remained a terrorist organization until 1988. In 1971, he began working for the car manufacturer Opel and attempted to organise his fellow workers for the coming communist revolution. (This was not organising on behalf of a regular labour union: the vast majority of Opel's workers had already been organised for decades by IG Metall, the German metalworkers' union.) This resulted in his dismissal from the company after six months. Fischer then continued making a living with unskilled work while continuing his activism. He worked as a taxi driver from 1976 to 1981 and later in a bookstore in Frankfurt.
In the (German autumn) of 1977, West Germany was rattled by a series of left-wing terrorist attacks by the Red Army Faction (RAF) and Revolutionary Cells (RZ). According to Fischer's own account, witnessing these events, particularly the kidnapping and murder of Hanns-Martin Schleyer and the Entebbe hijacking, made him renounce violence as a means for political change. Instead, he became involved in the new social movements and later in the newly founded Green Party, mainly in the state of Hesse.
In May 1981, the Hessian Secretary of Commerce Heinz-Herbert Karry was murdered with a firearm that in 1973 had been transported in Fischer's car, along with other weapons stolen from an American army base. Fischer maintained he had given the car to the later terrorist Hans-Joachim Klein solely for the purpose of having Klein fit it with a new engine. Only later had Fischer learned that his car had been used to transport stolen weapons.
As Foreign Minister, Fischer apologised for the violence of his Putzgruppe days, without disassociating himself from the radical movement. Some critics continue to charge that Fischer was the leading figure of a 1976 discussion that led to the use of Molotov cocktails in an upcoming demonstration in support of RAF member Ulrike Meinhof. Fischer was arrested on 14 May 1976 as a suspect in the Molotov cocktail attacks on police, but was released after two days. Fischer stated that he never used Molotov cocktails against the police. The firebombing of policeman Jürgen Weber's police car left Weber with burns over 60% of his body.
Green politician
From 1983 to 1985, Fischer was a member of the Bundestag for the Green party. His stint in federal parliament saw him frequently engage in a frank and confrontational debating style, exemplified by an incident on 18 October 1984, when he addressed Richard Stücklen, then vice president of the parliament, with the words: "If I may say so, Mr. President, you are an asshole" (German: ""). In 1985, Fischer became Minister for the Environment in the Landtag of Hesse in the first governmental Red-Green coalition between the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) and the Greens. Fischer caused a stir when he appeared at his oath of office ceremony wearing trainers. These trainers are now part of the shoe collection at the German Leather and Shoe Museum in Offenbach, Hesse.
Fischer also expressed his thoughts very frankly in the periodical of the Hessian Green party "Stichwort Grün". In the edition of October 1989—one month before the fall of the Berlin Wall—he penned an article with the heading: "Der Wiedervereinigung die Schnauze verbieten!" (Shutting up the re-unification!)
Fischer was again environment minister in Hessen from 1991 to 1994 and then became co-chairman of the Greens' parliamentary faction in the Bundestag. Fischer was respected for his oratory skills, as well as for his charisma on the political stage. For a large part of the 1990s, with the social democrats languishing in the opinion polls, Fischer's admirers referred to him as the "real" leader of the opposition. He parlayed his clout into political success, as he moved the Greens to the centre ground of German politics, paving the way for their first participation in the nation's federal government.
Foreign minister
In September 1998, the Social Democratic Party of Germany, led by Gerhard Schröder, defeated the Christian Democratic Union government of Helmut Kohl. The SPD's 41% and the Greens' 7% of the vote set the two parties on a possible path to government through a coalition. Schröder stated his preference for a red-green coalition, as did an overwhelming majority of SPD members. After several weeks of negotiations, a SPD-Green government took power on 27 October 1998, with Fischer appointed as Minister of Foreign Affairs. By 2005, he was the second longest-serving foreign minister in German postwar history (after Hans-Dietrich Genscher).
In mid-April 1999, Germany came up with the first peace plan for the war in Kosovo, when Fischer produced a proposal, notably including Russia, that would have rewarded the beginning of a Yugoslav pullout from Kosovo with a bombing pause.Warren Hodge (4 June 1999), Europeans Impressed By Their Own Unity New York Times. In May 1999, however, an antiwar protester flung a bag of red paint at Fischer during a party convention debating NATO's airstrikes on Yugoslavia in the war over Kosovo; Fischer suffered a perforated eardrum.Tony Czuczka (23 September 2010), German Greens’ Trittin Hit in Yoghurt Attack, Police Says Bloomberg News.
In an effort to make it easier for antiwar critics to back Schröder's decision to send German Bundeswehr troops to Afghanistan in 2001, Fischer and Development Minister Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul announced a 256 million marks ($115 million) humanitarian-aid package for Afghan refugees.William Boston (15 November 2001), Germany's Schroeder Presses Coalition To Back Him With Vote of Confidence Wall Street Journal. In late 2001, Fischer hosted – under the auspices of the United Nations – a ten-day conference at the German government guesthouse above the Rhine River, where delegates from four Afghan factions signed the Bonn Agreement establishing a transitional government for the country to replace the deposed Taliban regime.Peter Finn (28 November 2001), Afghan Delegates At U.N. Talks In Germany Urge Tolerance Orlando Sentinel. At the time, Germany's longstanding links to Afghanistan and its 2001 chairmanship of the Afghanistan Support Group (consisting of countries pledging humanitarian and reconstruction aid for Afghanistan) were the reasons it was picked to host the meeting.Afghan Conference Switched to Bonn for Security Concerns Voice of America, 22 November 2001.
In September 2001, Fischer summoned Ahmad Azizi, the Iranian ambassador to Germany, for urgent talks after several reformist intellectuals – including Akbar Ganji, Mehrangiz Kar and Ezzatollah Sahabi – were given prison sentences of between four and 10 years for participating in a 2000 academic and cultural conference sponsored by the Heinrich Böll Foundation in Berlin in late 2000.Germany's 'concern' at Iran verdicts BBC News, 14 January 2001.
In 2005, critics charged that Fischer's relaxing of controls on visa regulations for Ukraine, would allow illegal immigrants to enter Germany with fake identities. A parliamentary committee was established to examine the case, and unlike in other such committee hearings, Fischer's statement (and that of other top officials) was shown live on public television. Fischer's appearance before the committee lasted twelve hours. (See German Visa Affair 2005).
Fischer represented the German government at the funeral services for Foreign Minister Anna Lindh of Sweden on 19 September 2003 in Stockholm; Pope John Paul II on 8 April 2005 in Rome; and former UK Foreign Secretary Robin Cook on 12 August 2005 in Edinburgh.Cook funeral hears Blair's 'moral failure' criticised Irish Times, 12 August 2005.
After the defeat of the coalition government in the 2005 election, Fischer announced that he would retire to the backbench. "After 20 years of power, now I want my freedom back", Fischer said.Yassin Musharbash, "Fischers bedingter Abschied: 'Ich will die Freiheit zurück'", Spiegel Online 20 September 2005. On 13 October 2005, it was announced that Frank-Walter Steinmeier of the SPD would succeed Fischer as foreign minister.
Western Balkans policy In 1999, Fischer supported German military participation in the Kosovo War. This proved to be a highly controversial position since Fischer's plan not only clashed with the largely pacifist philosophy of The Greens, but because it also supported for the first time since World War II active participation of German soldiers in combat. Fischer justified this military involvement with allegations that Serbia was planning to commit genocide against the Kosovo Albanians.
Fischer represented the German government at the funeral services for Prime Minister Zoran Đinđić of Serbia on 16 March 2003 (alongside Development Minister Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul)José Comas (16 March 2003), Belgrado vive su mayor funeral desde Tito El País. and President Boris Trajkovski of Macedonia on 5 March 2004 in Skopje.
Transatlantic relations