Photo Gallery Whither the SPD?
For a brief moment in 2017, the SPD looked as though it might be heading back in the right direction. The party and the German people appeared energized by the selection of Martin Schulz as its candidate to challenge Angela Merkel for the Chancellery. This image is from a party congress in early 2017.
The party used to represent the working class, but now most of its parliamentarians have university degrees and speak a different language. Not parliamentarian Claudia Moll, who says: "We also need people who build our universities and fix the toilets."
One of the problems with the SPD is that it has lost its coolness. Very few of its members are part of the urban left like Sophie Passmann. She says: "I know of few better concepts than solidarity, a united society and people who are prepared to sacrifice some of their own prosperity for the greater good, because they have an idea of what such a world could look like."
There are very few regions in Germany where the SPD is still doing well. One of those is Lower Saxony, where Stephan Weil (pictured here) is governor. Some would like to see him take over the reins of the party.
SPD parliamentarian Michael Gerdes used to be a coal miner. Gerdes says: "If a park bench was broken, then the guy who saw it would come to the works council at the beginning of his shift and say, 'Hey listen, there's a bench broken.' Because he knew that he's in the SPD and he's going to make sure that things get taken care of." That's basically how things are still run in Bottrop today, he adds.
