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SPD General Secretary Lars Klingbeil
Photo: via www.imago-images.de / imago images / serienlicht
The greeting by the young comrade is exuberant.
"Lars is one of the most powerful men in Germany," says Moses Ruppert, 20-year-old social democrat from Ketsch, a community in the Rhein-Neckar district.
Ruppert gets some amused reactions for his euphoria - but the guest from Berlin does not contradict.
Lars Klingbeil, General Secretary of the SPD, came to the Schillerpark in Mannheim for a picnic to meet the local party youth.
And he returns the praise.
Ruppert, whose father once fled Rwanda, got the most SPD votes in the municipal council election in 2019 from eighth place on the list, the fourth-most overall.
A little surprise coup in black and green Baden-Württemberg.
The economics student is one of several young comrades that Klingbeil relies on.
His goal: The SPD, Germany's oldest party, should become younger, more feminine, and more diverse.
Klingbeil set himself this goal when he took office three years ago.
And his predecessors in office also wanted to give the SPD a makeover.
The success is still manageable today.
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Lars Klingbeil with Mannheimer Jusos
Photo: Christian Teevs / DER SPIEGEL
Klingbeil does not challenge that.
At least 30 Social Democrats under 40 years of age should sit in the next parliamentary group.
Is this realistic?
The General Secretary is faced with an almost impossible task: there will be general elections in a year and the SPD is still lagging around 16 percent in polls.
Nationwide, only the Union benefits from the corona crisis management.
And neither the new chairmen Saskia Esken and Norbert Walter-Borjans nor the early nominated candidate for Chancellor Olaf Scholz have so far been able to pull the SPD out of its long-term low.
The party is completely insecure, it lacks any sense of achievement.
Most recently, the local elections in North Rhine-Westphalia, the former home state, ended with the historically worst result.
In Baden-Württemberg, the SPD is only just over ten percent in surveys, in Bavaria even less.
Klingbeil knows how profound the loss of confidence is among the voters, especially among the younger ones.
But complaining doesn't help, Klingbeil fights tirelessly for the turnaround.
At the beginning of the week he also traveled to Rhineland-Palatinate, one of the few countries in which the world is still in order for the SPD.
The comrades have been the head of government since 1991: first Rudolf Scharping, then Kurt Beck for 19 years.
Malu Dreyer has been Prime Minister since 2013.
"We need a start-up spirit"
In Mainz the Secretary General meets Verena Hubertz, "one of our most exciting candidates," as Klingbeil introduces her.
Hubertz, 32, successfully founded a company seven years ago.
With a fellow student and € 25,000 from friends and family, she started a cooking app.
The company now has 50 employees and 20 million users worldwide.
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SPD candidate Verena Hubertz
Photo: Inga Kjer / photothek.net / imago / photothek
Hubertz has now decided to leave her company and run for the Bundestag in Trier, the constituency of Katarina Barley, who has been in the European Parliament since 2019.
"We need a start-up spirit in the SPD," says Hubertz.
But how do you breathe that into a 157-year-old, pretty sick aunt?
Hubertz joined the party in 2010 - out of frustration at the election victory of the Union and FDP, she says.
Although she has lived in Berlin for the past few years, Hubertz was able to convince the comrades in Trier.
She prevailed against two candidates and secured the support of the district executive.
In order to run for office, you no longer have to have 20 years of Ochsentour in the party behind you, says the company founder.
The election campaign in the coming year will be much more digital than in the past, says Klingbeil.
Not only, but of course also because of Corona.
There will hardly be any major events in 2021 either, personal encounters will be rarer - the candidates will therefore have to advertise themselves more online, he says.
Klingbeil is convinced: The SPD does not succeed in turning the trend with resolutions, but with strong people.
"There are these people in the party," he says, "we just have to make them more visible."
"Door-to-door election campaigns cannot be replaced"
Klingbeil believes that Bijan Kaffenberger is one of these hopefuls.
The 31-year-old from Darmstadt is the youngest SPD member in the Hessian state parliament.
He won his constituency directly - as the only Social Democrat in the 19.8 percent disaster two years ago.
Kaffenberger achieved nationwide prominence because he was the first professional politician with Tourette's syndrome.
The Social Democrat is relaxed about his illness, but also says that he would like to be perceived as a politician with content-related issues - "and not just as the one with Tourette".
Like Klingbeil, Kaffenberger is a digital expert and relies heavily on social networks.
But even in Corona times, it is not enough just to campaign online, he says.
"The personal conversation, the door-to-door election campaign cannot be replaced."
In the meantime, the people of Darmstadt would also recognize him on the street, says Kaffenberger proudly.
This is not a matter of course for members of the state parliament.
Klingbeil also uses online formats for its election program.
In the summer he asked the members which topics are important to them.
The head of the election campaign is planning a "hybrid debate camp" for mid-December - with meetings at different locations that will be linked via video.
In mid-January there should be a first draft of the election manifesto at a meeting of the party executive committee.
The program should be ready by the end of February and decided at the party congress at the end of March.
The main focal points have not yet been determined.
But the SPD should also place social justice at the center of its campaign in the coming year.
How does Germany get out of the crisis?
How are the burdens distributed in society?
And how can the "Corona heroes" get recognition not only through applause, but also in terms of salary?
Dreyer should give Scholz a tailwind
But staff and program or not - most of all, the comrades are counting on the Union to tear itself apart after saying goodbye to Angela Merkel.
The hope: once the voters really realize that the Chancellor is no longer running, but Armin Laschet, Friedrich Merz or Markus Söder, the polls from the CDU and CSU will fall.
In addition, the state elections in Rhineland-Palatinate are intended to give Scholz a tailwind.
The SPD is currently a few percentage points behind the CDU.
But the Social Democrats point out that Dreyer succeeded in turning things around in the 2016 election and that she is clearly ahead of CDU challenger Christian Baldauf in terms of personal values.
According to an SWR survey, 55 percent would vote for them if they were to be voted directly, while only 15 percent favor Baldauf.
However, voting in spring is not limited to Rhineland-Palatinate.
There are also state elections in Baden-Württemberg.
And here the SPD is lagging behind the CDU and the Greens in third place in the polls.
A current Allensbach survey must make the SPD strategists even more concerned.
Accordingly, the party has not yet been able to benefit from the Scholz nomination.
One reason: Only 23 percent of those questioned are convinced that Scholz has the backing of his party, writes Allensbach boss Renate Köcher in the "Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung".
48 percent would have doubts about it.
How does that go with Klingbeil's makeover?
After all, it was Kevin Kühnert's Jusos who led the campaign last year to prevent Scholz from becoming party leader.
In the Schillerpark, the youngsters are now surprisingly true to the line.
She thinks Scholz is "mega", says the Mannheim Juso boss Annalena Wirth.
He is "a funny guy, even if he doesn't always show it".
However, there can be no talk of hype like the one that existed after Martin Schulz was nominated in 2017.
At that time, Wirth's predecessor made headlines on TV with a cheeky comment about Schulz that fit perfectly into the euphoric mood of those days.
The 19-year-old Wirth now wants to quote the sentence and apply it to the current candidate.
Like many things currently in the SPD, this also seems rather trying.
Wirth says: "Olaf Scholz is a great pig."
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