The fight for important positions in the new traffic light government has already begun.
We present 11 politicians who are important.
Berlin - Superficially, the coalition negotiations are primarily about content - but the fight for the important posts in the new traffic light government has long since begun.
We present the possible staff of a red-yellow-green government under Chancellor Olaf Scholz *.
Annalena Baerbock: Somehow international law
The demands are getting smaller.
Chancellor?
Nothing will.
Climate minister with super veto power?
Hardly likely.
Now Annalena Baerbock * wants to become foreign minister, a warning post with a lot of prestige and hardly any room for action.
She is acting bravely, says Putin, and would take on the Chinese.
In addition, foreign policy is also climate policy.
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Annalena Baerbock
© Kay Nietfeld / dpa
Baerbock - ex-trampoline jumper and somehow international lawyer - says herself that she grew up in a “hippie household”.
It is therefore eco, but not doctrinal.
Sometimes there is a sausage on the grill and the family is at best classic: a man, two children, where he takes care of the daughters at home.
Mothers, she says, should be able to do any job.
Minister too!
Christian Lindner: Without limits
The fact that Christian Lindner, as a high school graduate at the municipal high school in Wermelskirchen, once philosophized about the fact that problems were only “thorny opportunities”, not only earned him admiration.
24 years later, he can feel confirmed.
Because the FDP * boss, who let Jamaica fail spectacularly in 2017, wants to use his chance in the second attempt at the coalition and bring a constellation that was quite problematic for the liberals to an impressive negotiating success.
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Christian Lindner
© Michael Kappeler / dpa
It is almost irrelevant whether he really would have canceled the probing in the event of a speed limit, as Greens boss Habeck believes.
It's not just 130 km / h, he also negotiated tax increases.
Of course, he's not there yet.
The Ministry of Finance is much more important to Lindner than the fight against Tempo 130.
Wolfgang Schmidt: The man behind Olaf Scholz
Who is the man that so many already see at the head of the Chancellery?
Wolfgang Schmidt (51, SPD) is not a politician who is often in the spotlight.
More of a strategist, puller, Scholz whisperer.
The State Secretary in the Ministry of Finance is one of Olaf Scholz's closest confidants.
The duo has been working closely together for 20 years: when Scholz was still the SPD general secretary, Schmidt supported him as office manager.
And since then, the lawyer Scholz has hardly left the side: Schmidt followed him into the Bundestag parliamentary group, into the Ministry of Social Affairs and Finance - and soon possibly also into the Chancellery.
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Wolfgang Schmidt
© photothek / Anne Preussel / IMAGO
In the election campaign he took on the role of the Scholz cheerleaders, sometimes cheering on his superstar on Twitter in the middle of the night.
His tweet recently became his undoing: because he illegally published documents about the raid in the Treasury Department, he is being investigated.
In any case, Schmidt is not far where Scholz is: It doesn't matter whether it's about the Chancellery or about financial affairs.
Saskia Esken: Ministerial?
With links
The mother of three, ex-boyfriend, state-certified computer scientist and SPD boss Saskia Esken likes to be on the Internet.
Her motto is on Twitter: "May someone always be by your side, with whom you can laugh and who knows your songs."
But in the meantime the party left from the Black Forest is considered to be "naturally ministrable" (almost Chancellor Scholz).
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Saskia Esken
© Emmanuele Contini / IMAGO
Esken, 60, has had a successful election campaign in which she tirelessly said that the CDU education minister cannot.
You, however, do.
Your strengths (self-description): Education, digitization, family.
She is also traded as Minister of Health.
Kevin Kühnert: Rise of a Rebel
Kevin Kühnert, 32, was a prominent topic in the Union election campaign: Again and again he was mentioned in the same breath as SPD party leader Saskia Esken: Kühnert and Esken, the hidden left team of the SPD *, the nightmare of the conservatives.
But Kühnert is not only at odds with the Union - when he was still Juso boss, he was also considered a rebel of his own party.
He often attacked the party leaders at the time, Martin Schulz and Andrea Nahles.
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Kevin Kühnert
© Britta Pedersen / dpa
Critics accuse him of not having a degree - his lawyers didn't care, they celebrated him as a bearer of hope.
Today he is less of a rebel and more of a permanent part of the party leadership - at the coalition talks, the SPD vice-president is in charge of housing and construction.
His power should soon become even greater: his fan club, the Jusos, makes up almost a quarter of the parliamentary group.
Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann: In the rubble field
Wolfgang Kubicki once mocked his party friend Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann as a “rubble woman” when she was elected FDP vice-chairman in 2013 after the Bundestag election.
Now the 63-year-old, abbreviation “MASZ”, will possibly clear up the rubble of defense policy.
Above all Afghanistan, for which she is calling for a committee of inquiry.
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Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann
© Revierfoto / IMAGO
She is not afraid of clear words: She accused the Armed Forces Commissioner Eva Högl of having as much to do with the armed forces as she herself is with milking mice.
The passionate motorcyclist is committed to better equipping the troop.
And a leaner ministry: It wants to reduce from 2500 to 2000 employees and cut external consultants.
Anton Hofreiter: Edgy, grumpy and firm
There are an incredible number of details from Anton Hofreiter that the world hardly knows.
Small and large.
His left leg is four centimeters longer than the right, he did his doctorate on the Inca lily plant, met several times in secret with Alexander Dobrindt, he can give a long lecture on horsetail out of nowhere and paint alpine flowers in watercolors.
No doubt: the 51-year-old from Sauerlach south of Munich is anything but boring.
It can be entertaining, engaging.
But can he also be a minister?
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Anton Hofreiter
© Bildgehege / IMAGO
In the green power structure, the Bavarian has been in a key position since 2013, parliamentary group leader alongside Katrin Göring-Eckardt, for an eternity.
Despite an uneven start, he became a symbol of the left wing.
He was often ridiculed by those who did not count themselves among them, mostly superficial (hair, stuffed trouser pockets, dialect).
He mostly ignored it.
"Edgy, grumpy, unadjusted" was the headline of our 2014 newspaper. Topics for the cabinet: As a traffic expert, he drove the CSU * in front of him (toll!).
And of course everything to do with biology, from agriculture to the environment.
Katrin Göring-Eckardt: The President of the Reserve
Katrin Göring-Eckardt not only associates Angela Merkel * with growing up in the GDR.
In fact, it was Merkel who asked Göring-Eckardt via SMS to stay in politics even after the Red-Green was voted out of office in 2005, when she already had other plans.
The 55-year-old, who is considered real, has had a certain closeness to the Union for a long time: In the 90s, Göring-Eckardt was a member of the “Pizza Connection”, for which Greens and Union MPs met in a pizzeria in Bonn.
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Katrin Göring-Eckardt
© Kay Nietfeld / dpa
She can also deal well with “top machos” like Gerhard Schröder (SPD), says the Greens of herself. Presumably, because of her balancing nature, she is repeatedly in conversation as a candidate for the office of Federal President.
The Thuringian woman, who describes herself as “pious” and was President of the Synod of the Evangelical Church, is considered a level-headed but tough negotiator.
Robert Habeck: By bike to the federal government
Perhaps hardly anyone would know Robert Habeck today if there had been enough cycle paths in the Schleswig-Flensburg district in 2002.
Because his four sons had to cycle to school between Bulldogs, Habeck went to the Greens' membership evening - and came home as the new board member.
For the philosopher and writer it was the beginning of a steep career.
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Robert Habeck
© Florian Gaertner / photothek / IMAGO
Two years later he became party leader in Schleswig-Holstein, then environment minister and vice-prime minister, and later the head of the Greens.
Habeck, 52, is now one of the most popular politicians: in 2019, polls saw him ahead of Merkel.
He would have liked to be her successor, but left the stage to Annalena Baerbock.
Now he is competing with Christian Lindner for the finance ministry - but there are many indications that he will get a new climate ministry.
Volker Wissing: Paragraphs and Wine
Legal texts and Palatinate wine - that's where Volker Wissing's heart rises.
The FDP General Secretary took both passions into politics.
The former public prosecutor and judge advised the then Minister of Justice of Rhineland-Palatinate in the early 2000s.
And later Wissing, who grew up on his grandmother's winery, became minister of viticulture.
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Volker Wissing
© Michael Kappeler / dpa
The winemaking experience will probably not be quite as useful to him in the new government as his legal cunning - which the Ministry of Justice might even bring him.
But his traffic light experience from Rhineland-Palatinate can always help him - the alliance has ruled there since 2016. Wissing, 51, brought the FDP into the state parliament as the top candidate.
Lars Klingbeil: Red front man
Lars Klingbeil, 43, does Crossfit in his free time.
This is a newfangled, particularly agonizing form of circuit training.
Professionally, he does the same.
The married amateur guitarist and FC Bayern * fan from Lower Saxony has been Secretary General of the SPD since 2017.
As a reminder: At that time, the German Social Democrats were still world champion who lost their elections and not the Chancellor's electoral association.
The 1.94 meter man has become one of the most famous faces of the SPD.
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Lars Klingbeil
© Müller-Stauffenberg / IMAGO
He is part of the management team at the coalition negotiations.
His main topics: internal security, digitization - and the Bundeswehr.
His father was a soldier, but young Lars still refused to do military service.
He changed his critical stance during an internship in New York.
Date: September 11, 2001.
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