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Jessica Rosenthal takes a quick step towards the podium in the Willy-Brandt-Haus.

She knows that many eyes are on her right now.

Kevin Kühnert headed the Federal Association of Jusos for three years.

He led the SPD youth organization to a size that made many predecessors look pale.

He shaped social debates and also drove the parent party before him.

Now Kühnert is stepping down at the head of the Jusos - and the 28-year-old Rosenthal from North Rhine-Westphalia will most likely inherit him.

In interviews she was asked whether these were not big footsteps for her.

And whether Kühnert does not continue to steer the fate in the background.

Rosenthal answers such questions loyally but firmly.

She stands by Kühnert.

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But at the same time it becomes clear that she does not intend to be perceived only as his successor.

She makes it clear that she wants to set her own impetus.

And there are definitely differences to its prominent predecessor.

New tones for old SPD voters

“16 years of Merkel’s rhetoric of no alternatives will end next September,” said Rosenthal on Saturday at the Federal Jusos Congress.

The SPD now has the opportunity to change society and “create a better future”.

It is not utopian, and not dreamy either, says Rosenhal, but "our design claim":

Specifically, it is about giving people “a right to work”.

And a training place guarantee for young people.

There are new tones that are also aimed at old SPD voters - less at hipsters from Berlin, where Kühnert is at home.

Rosenthal works as a teacher at a secondary school in North Rhine-Westphalia.

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Source: WORLD

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Good work makes sense, says Rosenthal.

And: “We can create full employment, make it possible and redeem it.” She sharply criticizes the Greens: They accuse them of capitulating to the challenges of the digital world of work with their demand for an unconditional basic income.

She also sharply criticizes Dieter Schwarz, "the powerful founder" of the Schwarz Group, to which Lidl and Kaufland belong.

This had increased his assets in the Corona crisis by "11.1 billion euros".

It is built on the “back of the employees”.

"Anyone who still needs proof that capitalism and justice are as far apart as feminist emancipation and Friedrich Merz's worldview should look to the Schwarz Group, comrades."

Rosenthal's criticism of the Greens is a remarkable distancing from possible left-wing allies - and a return to the origins of the Jusos, which started as an “apprentice movement”, as one delegate says.

However, it is not a break with the past years of the Jusos.

Rosenthal shares the socialist program of the Jusos, she explained in earlier interviews.

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The existing economic system must be changed “fundamentally”, she said in the summer, because it is based on exploitation.

There may also be strategic reasons for not putting this attitude in the foreground this weekend.

Around 80 Young Socialists want to run for the Bundestag next year;

Rosenthal does not rule this out either.

For this, the Jusos have long recognized that a solid program is far better suited than far-reaching demands for a revolution in the system.

No more internal party opposition

This ambivalence is also evident in dealing with Olaf Scholz.

Many Jusos would have preferred it if the Federal Finance Minister had not become the SPD candidate for Chancellor.

A year ago some were still fighting against him when he applied for chairmanship of the SPD.

Rosenthal accused him of being a “master painter” at the Juso Federal Congress in 2019 - someone who brushes over the S in the SPD too often.

When he was presented as a candidate for chancellor in the summer of 2020, nothing more was heard.

For Juso conditions, Rosenthal cautiously made demands: She expected "offers" from him, she explained in the summer - for example, "a promise for the future to our generation", which means massive state investments and an end to the debt brake.

It wasn't a declaration of war.

There is no such thing on this Saturday either.

Scholz is invited to speak to the Jusos;

then Rosenthal speaks again.

You see no reason for tension, she says.

It is completely clear that the goal is "completely united", namely to send the CDU into the opposition.

She only demands a few things of him: He should please stand up for the refugees in Moria, as well as for students and investments in the years to come.

Rosenthal has a new, more peaceful attitude towards Olaf Scholz

Source: Getty Images / Pool

This new, more peaceful attitude is also due to these reasons: On the one hand, the Jusos have recognized that Scholz has changed.

As a result of the Corona crisis, he also speaks out in favor of billions in investments by the state over the next few years.

He, too, is now calling for the introduction of a wealth tax.

On the other hand, the Jusos have long since given up their role as internal party opposition.

They prefer to work internally to push the party in their direction - than to publicly beat the party leadership.

Kühnert has also changed since he was in charge of power as SPD deputy chief.

And so far Rosenthal has not indicated that it wants to give up this strategy again.

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See his statement here.

Source: WORLD

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The SPD is a “team party”, she says in interviews.

She does not publicly say a critical word about the federal chairmen Saskia Esken and Norbert Walter-Borjans;

she had supported the candidates in the internal party election campaign for party leadership.

It is the same the other way around.

Esken, who also speaks to the Jusos, not only thanks Kühnert publicly.

But also Rosenthal.

She wanted to "say thanks for the support in profiling the SPD as a modern, left-wing people's party," says Esken.

She would also like to say thanks “to Jessica, also for very, very warm-hearted things that you bring to this association and what you bring to our togetherness.

For everything that you have already achieved and for everything that is still to come. "

Saskia Esken: "Thank you for very, very, very warm-hearted things"

Source: Getty Images

Rosenthal has not yet been officially chosen as Kühnert's successor.

Because of the Corona crisis, the Juso delegates vote on the successor by postal vote;

Rosenthal has no opponents.

The result should not be known until January 8th.

However, she has support: even within the association.

After Rosenthal, the head of the Hamburg regional association, Alexander Mohrenberg, speaks and promises her his support.

A clever step.

Hamburg has traditionally positioned itself more centrally than the Juso Federal Association - and in the past also positioned itself against Kühnert.

The fact that Mohrenberg is now aggressively supporting Rosenthal shows the new role that the association will assume in the future: more agreements with one another, less public criticism of their own party friends.

The question, however, is whether the calculation will work.

Because the Young Socialists also live from agitation.

They received a large increase in membership after the campaign against a new grand coalition after the 2017 federal election. It only gave Kühnert the attention he has today - and the Jusos their position as a power factor within the SPD.