Jochen Partsch, who turns 60 this Friday, does not want to reveal whether he will stand again next year in Darmstadt for the election of the mayor.

However, if you talk to the Green politician about what has been achieved in the past twelve years in office and what he believes still needs to be done in Darmstadt, you quickly get the impression that he is very keen to do it again .

Apparently, his job continues to bring him much more joy and validation than frustration.

This may also be due to the fact that even the things he gets upset about - and Partsch can do that by every trick in the book - are more of a fuel for him than an obstacle.

Jochen Remert

Airport editor and correspondent Rhein-Main-Süd.

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In May, Partsch, who studied social sciences in Göttingen, wants to let people know whether he will stand for re-election in 2023.

He has proven that he can win elections.

In 2011 he clearly prevailed against the Social Democrat and incumbent Walter Hoffmann in the run-off election with 69.1 percent.

In 2017, he managed to prevail with 50.4 percent in the first ballot, of course also benefiting from the fact that the CDU did not have a candidate and supported Partsch.

If he runs again next year and wins, it would be the third term in office for the Hammelburg-born son of a couple who ran a small farm, country inn and butcher's shop in a small village in the Bad Kissingen district.

The parents raised five children in a deeply Catholic milieu, as Partsch once described it himself.

He was the first in his family to be allowed to go to high school.

Better to go by bike

When he talks about Darmstadt, Partsch can certainly get into raptures.

A lively, dynamic city with a rather unique mixture of science, business and culture, that is. However, it was not the attraction of Darmstadt, which he has managed since 2011, that brought him from Stuttgart to southern Hesse, but rather his future wife Daniela Wagner.

The former Hessian state chairwoman of the Greens, who was also a member of the Bundestag from 2009 to 2013 and then again from 2017 to 2021, met Partsch in 1994.

Wagner had taken over the office of the Darmstadt school head in this year.

However, his very first encounter with Darmstadt dates back to 1976, when he met the youth team of SV 73 Langendorf in Darmstadt against the B youth team of Darmstadt 98.

Unlike the mayoral elections, the football match did not end well for Partsch and his comrades-in-arms – they lost to the Lilies.

Partsch is still active when it comes to sports, he has never used a company car, but mostly rides his bike for private and business purposes or uses the bus and train.

Partsch also knows that this is not so easy for many of the many commuters who live or work in Darmstadt.

But one of his central goals is to show that car traffic in city districts can definitely be pushed back in favor of cyclists and public transport users in order to improve the quality of life and significantly reduce the burden on the climate.

Don't be afraid of discussions

An example is the conversion project of the Lincoln settlement, where an urban residential quarter was designed on the site of a former housing area for members of the US army, which provides urgently needed living space.

What is special about the concept is that the effect of a significant increase in individual traffic, which has been associated with the development of a new housing estate up to now, is to be avoided.

The declared goal is to implement a mobility concept in the "Lincoln Settlement Laboratory" that allows residents comfortable mobility with a combination of bicycle traffic, e-mobile rental service and public transport offers.

At the same time, childcare options close to home, leisure activities and basic services should make long journeys superfluous as far as possible.

Partsch knows well that there, as elsewhere in the city, the attempt to reduce parking spaces on streets in order to build cycle paths sometimes triggers strong criticism from residents, although they are actually supposed to be given a better quality of life.

However, according to his previous work, he does not shy away from thick boards, nor does he shy away from rustic discussions in tone and statement.

At the same time, the Green politician appreciates that Darmstadt is not only a science city with the renowned Technical University, top international research projects such as the Fair particle accelerator facility and the ESA satellite control center, but also a strong business location.

He knows very well that politics in the city can also shape a lot because globally successful companies like Merck feel at home here, and they can expect constructive cooperation with the city.

10 years of work for the World Heritage title

Finally, Partsch sees the World Heritage title for the Mathildenhöhe as one of the great successes of his tenure so far.

For around ten years, they have worked together towards this goal, he says.

However, the fact that a visitor center originally planned too close to the core of the World Heritage area almost cost the title indicates that not all forces on the way to the World Heritage title always worked in the right direction.

Naturally, not all of the city's groups and clubs in the cultural sector feel valued by Partsch as they think they deserve.

On the other hand, they can actually assume that he is not the type of politician who shies away from uncomfortable discussions and is willing to possibly change his mind if arguments make sense to him.