Who are the people running our country? How does the generation of Baerbocks, Lindners and Habecks differ from their predecessors? The journalist Anna Sauerbrey addresses precisely these questions in her book “Change of Power” and in doing so gets on paper impressively close-up portraits of the political leadership team in Berlin.
She tells of Agriculture Minister Cem Özdemir, who with his torn jeans drove his Turkish parents to insanity, who worked hard to be able to buy their children decent clothes. She lets Carsten Schneider, the federal government’s representative for Eastern Europe, tell how he stayed behind as a teenager in Erfurt without his parents after reunification because he didn’t want to accompany his mother to Kassel in western Germany. And it closes with Robert Habeck and the “Eckernförde porpoise treaty”, in which the current Federal Minister of Economics was able to negotiate a compromise between fishermen and animal rights activists.
The special thing about it is that Sauerbrey not only tells personal stories about the country’s most important politicians, but also embeds them in relevant socio-political issues. Cem Özdemir’s background, for example, as the author points out, is at first glance the typical story of a Turkish immigrant child. An attribution that is often in the foreground with Özdemir.
But there are also other readings: “One can rightly tell Özdemir’s biography as a story of social advancement,” writes Sauerbrey. Or simply as the career of a typical Green. She subtly introduces the debate about identity and attributions in politics. A derivation that she also elegantly succeeds elsewhere.
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Failure on the generation issue
The presentation of the book at the Urania Society in Berlin, to which Kevin Kühnert has been invited, is also about identity politics and the characteristics of generations of politicians. Sauerbrey also met the SPD general secretary for her book. “I can’t do much with identity politics,” says Kühnert on Wednesday evening.
As a gay man, he too is often associated with this one characteristic. On stage, together with the author, Kühnert attempts to approach the question that Sauerbrey is also addressing in her book.
Is there a common characteristic between the generations of politicians? How do the politicians of the traffic light government, which Sauerbrey assigns to Generation X, differ from their predecessors?
Kühnert, who himself belongs to a younger generation, has one possible answer on his feet. “White sneakers are something of a hallmark of many Generation X politicians – across all party lines,” writes Sauerbrey.
Anna Sauerbrey: Change of power
Rowohlt Berlin
Berlin 2022
320 pages
22 euros
Wearing white sneakers in the Bundestag, in contrast to the traditionally preferred black leather shoes, identifies them as a sign of a new nonchalance that many politicians bring with them today. The shoes are no longer offensive, but stand for the “habitual and substantive rapprochement of the four parties in the democratic center, for the permeability and willingness to talk to Generation X,” writes Sauerbrey.
The book was written before the war broke out in Ukraine and upset the plans of the traffic light coalition to a certain extent. The extent to which this drastic event shapes and divides the younger politicians who grew up in peace is not yet an issue for Sauerbrey.
She rejected the idea of an afterword. “Even now it is difficult to assess how well the new federal government will look in retrospect,” she says.
More on Germany’s politicians:
Despite all the exciting stories that are told in “Change of Power” and make the book well worth reading for those interested in Berlin’s political scene, the author does not manage to answer her own question satisfactorily beyond the white sneakers. Approaches to the question of what generations are from a sociological point of view and how they are shaped cannot hide the fact that the connecting characteristics of an age group are limited.
The claim that she formulates in the opening credits to write a “group portrait of the political Generation X” is very high. Because, as she later discovers, the new managers differ so greatly in their experiences, backgrounds and political views that it is almost impossible to paint a uniform picture.
Rather, the book is a successful collection of exciting individual portraits that say a lot about today’s political leadership and current social debates. Kevin Kühnert summarizes the problem with generational attributions at the book launch: “There is no invisible bond that connects all politicians under 40.” He himself is often closer to the comrades in the senior groups than many of his peers from other parties
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