When Jürgen Trittin remembered his time as Environment Minister, he remembered the great struggles. For example with the car industry. “You are able to organize real campaigns, perhaps even majorities in factions,” Trittin once said. If necessary also against the minister.
It is the role in which Trittin worked his way into the memory of Germans. The 69-year-old is now seen as an environment minister who took on industry – as a fighter against the nuclear industry, as an environment minister who introduced the can deposit and initiated the energy transition. On Tuesday, Trittin announced that he was ending his political career. The Green politician is resigning from his Bundestag mandate at the turn of the year. He announced this at a meeting of the Green Party’s parliamentary group. Ottmar von Holtz from Hildesheim is to be his successor in the Bundestag. The group thanked Trittin for his years of work.
Trittin said that he had already decided at the last federal election in September 2021 that it should be his last candidacy Mirror. He has already informed his Göttingen district association that he does not want to run again in 2025. Last summer he realized that he would be a member of the Bundestag for 25 years in the fall, explained Trittin. “25 – that’s a nice anniversary to say goodbye to.”
40 years active for the Greens
The Lower Saxony was active for the Greens for a total of around 40 years. Trittin joined the party in 1980 and initially worked at the local level. He then became State Minister for Federal and European Affairs in Lower Saxony from 1990 to 1994. In 1998 he entered the Bundestag for the first time and was appointed Environment Minister in the red-green coalition under Chancellor Gerhard Schröder (SPD) until 2005. From 2009 to 2013, Trittin was chairman of the Greens parliamentary group.
Trittin is considered one of the best-known and most prominent left-wing Greens. Most recently he sat on the Foreign Affairs Committee. As a teenager, he came to the Green Party from the squatter scene to fight against nuclear power. Trittin grew up in a middle-class family. His grandfather was a bank director in Delmenhorst. His father was managing director of the Bremen rope factory.
Trittin also suffered bitter defeats in his career, for example in the 2013 federal election. At that time, he led the Greens in the election campaign as the top candidate. The chances for a red-green government were actually good. After the Fukushima nuclear accident, the party received over 20 percent of the vote in some surveys. Gerhard Schröder certified that Trittin had a “statesmanlike habitus”. But then Trittin announced a whole series of tax increases – and clearly lost favor with voters. In the end, the Greens only ended up with a good eight percent. Trittin had miscalculated and as a result had to give up his parliamentary group chairmanship.
When asked about his next plans, Trittin said in the interview that he wanted to “travel a bit, listen to Clash and Talking Heads. And then we’ll see.”