Seija Knorr-Köning is as happy as a child when she drives into one of the more modern underground stations, one with screens on the walls. “The housing for the projector box was designed by my dad,” she says proudly. Her father also shaped her, says the Bundestag candidate of the SPD in the West / Mitte electoral district: He sharpened her political awareness. Trained locksmith, trade unionist, long-time SPD sympathizer – “and representative of many voters we have lost,” as she says. Voters who, for their part, have lost the belief that the SPD is still making sensible social policy. Knorr-Köning wants to win them back. “I’m safe at the polls,” she says: “I’ve already discussed the subject with my father up and down.”
In the SPD, Seija Knorr-Köning didn’t have to talk much when it came to running for federal constituency 221. Her predecessor Bernhard Goodwin let her go first, in February she was chosen with 58 of 63 delegate votes. At the age of 27, she is now one of the youngest to apply for a place in the Bundestag in Munich. She has been a member of the Neuhausen-Nymphenburg district committee since May 2020, in line with her age as the youth representative. She helped to transform the beginning of the Südliche Auffahrtsallee into a summer street, on which a young audience cavorted in the evenings and on weekends. No wonder that she suggests the Gerner Brücke as a meeting point. It also fits in with what older party comrades say about them: straightforward, with a long-term goal in mind. And by that they don’t just mean the castle one and a half kilometers from the bridge.
Seija Knorr-Köning explains that she was just a country child, grew up in Illertissen, just in Bavaria. “I think it’s nice that you’re back in the country quickly here,” she says. Driveway avenue, Nymphenburg Palace Park, Hirschgarten – everything is close by. “This is my hood,” is how she describes her neighborhood, her neighborhood, in a way that is suitable for young people. There she feels right in her element: There are five hospitals within 500 meters, just not the one she works in – on the right of the Isar. In Ulm, she was trained as a health and nurse, in this respect her mother shaped her: She was a radiology assistant and later, as a housewife, not only looked after four children, but above all the grandmother. Knorr-Köning sums up her job as a “nurse”, and as such she also advertises for votes on posters and brochures.
Not all party members thought it was a good idea that she wore a stethoscope for the photos; some found it impostorative. But the response from her colleagues in the nursing staff was positive, she says: “They think it’s great that someone dares to stand up for the reality of our work and life.”
It goes without saying that she wants to get involved specifically in this regard. “I really want to be on the health committee,” she says over cappuccino and croissant in a small bakery. She is in favor of a uniform health insurance in which everyone pays, and the amendment of the Nursing Professions Act does not want to be shaped from above and outside: “I want people to be involved and make their demands, which also affects it.” At the time, it annoyed them that the helpers in the health service received applause for their work at the beginning of the corona pandemic. “In the meantime I can accept that it is a dear gesture,” she says, but repeats what she has said many times: “Clapping alone doesn’t fill you up. And you cannot use the rewards that have been given times pay for a cargo bike. “
Another committee that would encourage her to work: “Women, families and fuss”, as she mockingly calls the committee that officially deals with “family, senior citizens, women and youth”. “You could also say: everything except men of working age,” she says.
While walking through her district, Seija Knorr-Köning points out the Nibelungenstrasse, which it cuts through. “There is the largest rent gap in Munich,” she says: “On the one hand apartment buildings belonging to the municipal Gewofag, on the other a residential area.” Her family life is also currently moving on a fine line. Her husband Christian has left his civil service since he was a member of the city council for the SPD and is writing his doctoral thesis. After the birth of her son, she herself was soon working part-time again; since July and until the end of October she has been on parental leave. “I know that I could become dependent on the state relatively quickly.” When she talks about social policy, when she says “the city rests on the shoulders of those who earn little”, she is doing so from her own experience.
She considers her chances for the Bundestag to be greater than generally estimated: “I have noticed that the mood towards me is better than the polls suggest.” In 2017, the Bavarian SPD sent 18 MPs to Berlin via the state list; As a newcomer, Knorr-Köning is now in 32nd place. She has to win the direct mandate for the Bundestag, she attacks aggressively: In her flyers, she woos left-wing voters that Green and Left-wing candidates can take their place in the Bundestag via the state list have for sure. If someone else should represent the west of Munich in Berlin, it can only be you and only with the first vote.
Seija Knorr-Köning has been campaigning for months, not static at information stands and in bars, but mobile. In the morning she distributes her flyers at S-Bahn stations, in the evening she goes around the houses and rings the doorbells, she strolls through the districts, cycles along the train tracks, always with a party in tow. “At the Jusos I learned to work in a team,” she says. She sees herself in an “extremely comfortable starting position: I am now 27 and in four years I will still be very young. I don’t have to go to the Bundestag right now. I like to work, and I like to continue”.
If you are wondering where your first name comes from: from Finnish. On their honeymoon, their parents met a couple from Scandinavia with whom they got along so well that they named their first daughter after the woman. The contact continues to this day, and maybe Seija Knorr-Köning also noticed something of the Sisu on this way, the legendary mentality that is said of the Finns. The word can hardly be translated, but with guts, determination and perseverance in seemingly hopeless situations you can get close to it.
Seija Knorr-Köning in the video self-portrait:
The SZ asked the Munich direct candidates for the federal election to film themselves for a portrait. You can find all videos and other candidate portraits here.