Winfried Kretschmann is a celebrated and controversial politician, but also a real person.
What you need to know about the green head of Baden-Württemberg.
Baden-Wuerttemberg
.
Winfried Kretschmann
was born on
May 17, 1948
in Spaichingen, a small town in Baden-Württemberg, and since May 12, 2011 he has been the
first Prime Minister of the Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen party in Germany
.
In the
state elections on March 14, 2021
, Kretschmann is again the top candidate of the Greens in Baden-Württemberg, his strongest opponent is Susanne Eisenmann from the CDU.
Although Kretschmann announced in February that he would withdraw a bit from the election campaign in order to support his wife who had breast cancer, he still wants to hold the office for another term of office.
He is known for his innovative and fresh manner, with which he has already initiated some reforms and written political history with his party, but also attracted criticism.
His brush haircut, which he got after his daughter decided that with a side parting, he looked like a CDU member, is also iconic.
Winfried Kretschmann: His youth and his way into politics
Winfried Kretschmann grew up as the son of German parents who fled from Warmia, which is now part of Poland, in the 700-strong community of Spaichingen in Baden-Württemberg.
His father worked as a primary school teacher, his mother was a housewife and his childhood was a good time for the politician, which he still looks back fondly.
At that time he went to elementary school and then attended a
Catholic boarding school in Riedlingen
.
He was the chief altar boy in his parish and his father, who died in a car accident in 1969, wanted his son to have a spiritual career.
During his time in boarding school, however, Kretschmann gave up the plan to become a priest, as he suffered greatly from the severity and coolness of totalitarian authority there.
He therefore changed schools and graduated from high school in 1968 at the Hohenzollern High School in Sigmaringen, where he had to repeat the 11th grade once.
He then did his military service until 1970.
Until 1977 he studied
biology, chemistry and ethics
at the
University of Hohenheim
and, like his late father, wanted to become a teacher, but for high schools.
But that was almost not to happen, because Kretschmann's political career was already beginning, and he was threatened with an occupational ban.
The fact that he ran in 1972 for the office of the student convention for a
communist student group
and in 1973 on the platform “Socialist Center” did not initially appeal to the high school authorities.
Kretschmann first taught at a private cosmetics school in Stuttgart, but after a review was allowed to take up the
job as a high school teacher
for biology, chemistry and ethics.
The current Prime Minister discovered his interest in politics during his studies.
For years he was chairman of the general student committee of the University of Hohenheim and was involved in communist student groups.
Today he regards this period as a political error and looks back on it with humor.
He is grateful to the CDU government at the time that they did not take the “nonsense with the Kretschmann”, as it says on the politician's official website, at that time.
Winfried Kretschmann: Politics in his Baden-Württemberg
In 1979/80 it was Winfried Kretschmer, among others, who played a
key role in
establishing the Green parliamentary group in Baden-Württemberg
.
Together with Wolf-Dieter Hasenclever, he has been a face of the party's eco-liberal wing, which opposed the eco-socialist wing, since 1983.
Kretschmann was also the spokesman for this part of the party, which, in contrast to the rest of the more politically left-wing party, turned in the right-wing political direction.
In 1980 Winfried Kretschmann was elected for the first time for the Greens in the state parliament of Baden-Württemberg and from 1983 to 1984 he took over the chairmanship of the parliamentary group as the successor to Hasenclever.
From 1984 to 1988, Kretschmann was not part of the state parliament because the Greens had not put up the candidates for his Esslingen district in time.
He was re-elected in 1988, but narrowly missed entry into parliament again in 1992 because there were internal party disagreements over waste incineration plants in southern Germany.
Since 1996, however, Kretschmann has been a
constant member of the Baden-Württemberg state parliament
; in 2016 he was elected for the first time by direct mandate, and from 2002 to 2011 he was also the parliamentary leader of his party.
In addition, Kretschmann is a member of the party council of the Greens in Baden-Württemberg.
Kretschmann is also politically active beyond the borders of Baden-Württemberg and was President of the Federal Council from 2012 to 2013.
As an active Catholic, he is also a member of the Diocesan Council of the Archdiocese of Freiburg and the Central Committee of German Catholics.
In his home town of Laiz he is a member of the church choir as well as the shooting club and the Upper Swabian Society for History and Culture.
Winfried Kretschmann: The work of the first green minister
On March
27, 2011
, Winfried Kretschmann was the top candidate of the Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen party, which was
able to record a historic election result
in the
state election of the state of Baden-Württemberg
on that day.
Right behind the CDU with 60 seats, the Greens moved into the state parliament as the second strongest force with 36 members.
Together with the 35 mandates of the SPD, they formed a green-red government under Kretschmann as negotiator.
On May
12th,
Kretschmann was
elected Prime Minister
by the state parliament members
with 73 votes
and the Kretschmann I cabinet started its term of office with the first federal state government in Germany led by the Greens.
The second cabinet of Kretschmann took office after the state elections on March 13, 2016.
After the election, the Greens were able to move into the state parliament as the strongest force for the first time in the party's history, with a total of 30.3 percent of the vote and 47 seats.
The CDU became the second strongest party with 42 seats and the SPD, the former coalition partner of the Greens, came in only fourth after the AfD with 19 seats.
Together with the CDU, the Greens passed a contract on May 9, 2016 for the “Kiwi” coalition, a green-black government under Kretschmann, who was
sworn in
as Prime Minister
on
May 12, 2016 for the second time
.
Winfried Kretschmann: Position on the refugee question
During his time as the first Green Prime Minister, Kretschmann has made some waves so far.
In 2014, for example, it received
criticism
because Baden-Württemberg was the only federal state with Green government participation to classify Serbia, Macedonia and Bosnia-Herzegovina as safe countries of origin in the asylum law, thus facilitating the deportation of refugees from these countries.
The population also criticized the fact that some of the requirements laid down in the coalition agreement, such as the mandatory identification of police officers on large-scale operations, had not yet been followed.
On the other hand
, Winfried Kretschmann achieved
a relief with the residence
obligation during his reign
, which binds refugees to a residential area specified by the authority, and Kretschmann was also the first Prime Minister to hold a refugee summit with the individual municipalities of his state.
At the meeting in April 2014, approaches and possible solutions for the refugee situation at the time were discussed.
The Prime Minister is also constantly driving digitization.
He was the first state head to include Industry 4.0 in his political program, and as part of a number of other reforms, some of which the state government under Kretschmann carried out, a community school was introduced in Baden-Württemberg that encompasses all grades and school-leaving qualifications to meet the needs of the individual student.
Winfried Kretschmann: This is how politicians live in private
Winfried Kretschmann found his
personal happiness during his studies
when he met his great love Gerlinde.
The couple married in 1975 when both were still students and a year later, in 1976, their daughter Irene was born.
In 1978 son Johannes followed and in 1980 son Albrecht was born and the Kretschmanns are considered a scandal-free picture book family.
Irene lives with her husband in Scotland, comes to Laiz in Baden-Württemberg, where her parents still live but visit regularly.
Johannes is about to follow in his father's footsteps politically and moved into the Sigmaringen district council for the Greens in 2019.
Son Albrecht, on the other hand, already gave grandchildren to his parents.
Winfried Kretschmann's first grandson Julius was born in 2015, followed by granddaughter Johanna Pauline in 2017.
Kretschmann's favorite hobby is DIY
.
He can spend hours in hardware stores and look at a drill there, doing handicrafts at home is relaxation for him, which he hardly gets to because of his hectic political life.
Winfried Kretschmann also always wants to learn something new.
In keeping with his love for workers, his parliamentary group once gave him a course where he learned to weld.
He is also a big VfB Stuttgart fan and he and his wife Gerlinde also enjoy working on their home garden.
When the weather and the politician's hectic everyday life allow it, the couple also like to go hiking in their Swabian homeland.