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For a long time, Olaf Scholz, 65, managed to survive the ongoing dispute of his traffic light coalition relatively unscathed. The chancellor seemed like a moderator for the Greens and Liberals, who were publicly quarrelling. Despite the sharp fall in the polls, his SPD remained silent, contenting itself with the role of the chancellor's party. But already after the summer break, the image that Scholz was the "only adult in the room", as Social Democrats like to describe it, began to crack. Unlike the chancellor, the SPD deputies demanded an industrial electricity price, insisting that it had to bang on the table. After the ruling of the Federal Constitutional Court, which declared the debt tricks of the traffic light null and void, it is unclear whether the coalition will hold out until the regular election date of 2025. The government seems to have hit rock bottom. And Scholz bears a large part of the responsibility for this.
Photo: Hannes P Albert / picture alliance / dpa
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It was a difficult year for Family Minister Lisa Paus, 55, in which the Greens basically had only one goal: She wanted to finally help the basic child benefit, the only relevant project of her house, to achieve a breakthrough. With the reform, the traffic light wants to combat child poverty. It is a green project with a serious background: In 2022, one in five children in Germany was at risk of poverty. But after a year, one thing is certain: the project has slipped away from Pau. The minister found it difficult to name the costs. With her revenge on Christian Lindner – she temporarily stopped his Growth Opportunities Act in the cabinet – she provoked the first coalition crisis after the summer break and presented the Green Vice-Chancellor Robert Habeck. Even in her own party, the support of the minister, who came into office after the scandalous resignation of Anne Spiegel, is declining. Behind closed doors, they ask themselves whether it would not have been better to appoint someone else as Minister for Family Affairs.
Photo: Bernd von Jutrczenka / picture alliance / dpa
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As recently as 2022, Mario Czaja, 48, was one of the political climbers of the year: Hardly anyone had him on the bill as the new CDU general secretary, before that the East Berlin Czaja was active in state politics. But in July of this year, it was already over for him in the Adenauer House. After party leader Friedrich Merz surprisingly promoted him to office, he put him on the air shortly before the parliamentary summer recess. Merz had been dissatisfied with Czaja's performance for some time. Apparently, the CDU chairman had made a mistake in the person of his general secretary: He did not want to be a troublemaker, and there were always disagreements between the two on content. Czaja remains in the Bundestag – and the prospect that his political career, which was abruptly halted, could also go up again.
Photo: Kay Nietfeld / picture alliance / dpa
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Stefan Birkner, 50, is one of those FDP politicians who illustrates his party's dilemma since its participation in the traffic light. The open-minded, thoughtful liberal, once Lower Saxony's environment minister, believed he could counter his party's dismal poll ratings in 2022 with a pro-nuclear election campaign. But he failed with the course directed against the Greens – his brother-in-law is Federal Minister of Economics Robert Habeck. The FDP was kicked out of the state parliament, and he gave up the chairmanship as FDP state leader a few months later. In the spring, an option seemed to open up: Birkner was surprisingly brought into play by his party colleague in Berlin, Federal Transport Minister Volker Wissing, for the top post of Autobahn GmbH. But the initiative fizzled out in bickering between the committees, with the CDU speaking of a failed "mouse manoeuvre". In June, Birkner finally resigned from the post, and since October the 50-year-old has been working as a lawyer in a law firm and also as a management consultant.
Photo: Moritz Frankenberg / picture alliance / dpa
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For years, Katja Kipping, 45, was the defining face of the left, sat as party chairwoman on the talk shows and gave interviews. Most recently, she was Social Senator in Berlin and seemed to have found the perfect role for herself. Finally, she was able to implement political ideas. In the red-green-red Senate, which had a bad reputation, she was a successful exception, as even the SPD attested. But then, surprisingly, the new elections to the House of Representatives in Berlin came at the beginning of the year, the Left Party was kicked out of the government, and Kipping suddenly found himself without a job. While her party split, nothing was heard from the once important federal politician.
Photo: Robert Michael / picture alliance / dpa
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The career of the AfD politician Birgit Malsack-Winkemann, 59, seemed to be going steeply upwards: state examination in law, judge at the Berlin Regional Court, member of the 19th German Bundestag. Then it came to light that Malsack-Winkemann apparently belonged to a violent, right-wing political sect that believed in wild conspiracy tales and dreamed of the end of the Federal Republic. At the beginning of December, the Federal Prosecutor General indicted her – among other things, for "preparing a treasonous enterprise". According to the report, the AfD woman was a member of the shadow cabinet around Heinrich XIII, Prince Reuss, whom the prevented putschists wanted to install as the new head of state. But instead of going to the government, Malsack-Winkemann was remanded in custody and is now awaiting trial. In interrogations, she denied terrorist and coup plans.
Photo: Bernd von Jutrczenka / picture alliance / dpa
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